'Pokemon Go''s Fate In Question As Niantic Announces Big Layoffs

While many probably thought both genres were already dead, it turns out that Metaverse games are still locked in serious competition against NFT games for the crown of the dumbest video game genre of all time. While NFT games still have the lead, "Real-world metaverse" pioneers Niantic are trying to close the gap by announcing that their upcoming games will benefit from the loss of up to 95 workers. Many might know Niantic as the company responsible for Pokémon Go, the 2016 game that got everyone out of their homes to enjoy some real-world Pókemon catching as well as the last semi-good days of human civilization:

Though somehow hugely successful even during the pandemic, Pokémon Go wasn't enough to save Niantic from economic problems, as the company ventured into other metaverses that crashed and burned like Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Weird. That's still a very popular brand…right? Could that be because the success of Pokémon Go comes not from the need of chasing metaverse dreams but from every Pokémon fan's desire of having a great Pokémon experience? This scares us not just for the future of Pokémon Go, one of the few metaverses worth saving, but for the prospects of innovation in future Pokémon games. Regardless of whether we still care about it or have since moved on, it's hard and dumb to ignore how much of an unprecedented phenomenon this game was, and equally hard to believe they'll ever pull off anything close to its magnitude after the loss of nearly 100 creative minds. Niantic seems aware of it, as they're also canceling a bunch of games including Transformers, Heavy Metal, and Hamlet. This feels especially disappointing as the news comes just a day after the company had made everything look fine with the announcement of a new game.

Top Image: Niantic