Pokémon Go developer Niantic to sell gaming division to Saudi-owned Scopely for $3.5 billion

What just happened? Niantic, the company that enjoyed global success with Pokémon Go in 2016, is selling its gaming division to Scopely for $3.5 billion. In addition to Pokémon Go, the deal will see Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom become the property of the Saudi Arabia-owned mobile developer.

Scopely is also acquiring Niantic's internal development teams and companion apps for Pokémon Go – Campfire and Wayfarer. Peridot and Ingress, which also use the Wayfarer mapping app, will continue to be owned and developed by Niantic Spatial, its geospatial AI business that is being spun off into a new firm.

Pokémon Go took the world by storm when it launched almost a decade ago. It set a new record for the number of downloads in its first week, with people spending more time on the app than Facebook. There were more than 500 million players in its first year ...