Studio behind Pokémon Go sells for $3.5 billion

While Pokémon Go hit its undisputed cultural peak during the summer of 2016 (with a brief isolation-inspired blip in 2020), the game still has more than 20 million weekly active players, per the outlet. In their quest to catch Snorlaxes and Bulbasaurs, those users have also unwittingly been creating something called a “Large Geospatial Model” (kind of like a large language model, but for the real world) by providing the company with millions of images of the neighborhoods they live in, through which Niantic can train actual, presumably way less whimsical robots. As such, Niantic is removing the pretense as part of the deal. It will now be spun off into Niantic Spatial Inc., a “geospatial AI company” led by founder John Hanke. That somehow makes this writer nostalgic for the time when Pokémon Go was merely unearthing corpses and influencing elections, but, like, in a silly way. 

“Niantic games have always been a bridge to connect people and inspire exploration, and I am confident they will continue to do both as part of Scopely,” Hanke said in a statement to THR. “I firmly believe this partnership is great for our players and is the best way to ensure that our games have the long-term support and investment needed to be ‘forever games’ that will endure for future generations.” Suddenly, “Forever Games” has a bit of a sinister ring to it.