Niantic’s decision to part ways with its biggest hit, Pokémon Go, came soon after it revealed it had quietly gathered location data from players to build an artificial intelligence system designed to understand and recreate real-world environments. The $3.85 billion sale to Scopely includes not just the game but also the teams behind it.

Last year, players were introduced to a feature that placed Pokémon into real-world settings through augmented reality. While the feature was labeled optional, those who enabled it allowed the app to collect detailed visual scans of their surroundings. These scans helped train what Niantic called a large-scale geospatial model.

Pokemon Go used user cameras to develop an AI Geospacial Model. Can't have any fun without these companies using our data! pic.twitter.com/RoGU2wzsH0

— Bryan S3 (@BrianSoto683799) November 23, 2024

The company reported that more than 1 million new scans were submitted each week, often made up of hundreds of images per scan. This allowed the system to interpret objects, shapes and landscapes that are difficult for traditional image-capturing tools to replicate. Niantic said it used the data to fill in gaps in terrain and better understand how lighting and seasons affect appearance.

Niantic's primary goal is corporate, not gameplay. The location and mapping data used to feed their geospacial machine learning model is far more valuable to them than player satisfaction.
That's why they've made countless choices against what players wanted or needed.

— David Phoenix (@DavidRMPhoenix1) December 11, 2024

Just a few months after this revelation, Niantic transferred ownership of Pokémon Go and two other games — Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom — to Scopely, a gaming company that has drawn criticism for steep in-app pricing in its mobile titles. Scopely, which is owned by Savvy Games Group in Saudi Arabia, paid $3.5 billion for the games with an additional $350 million in investment.

It's official.

Niantic is selling its gaming business to Scopely, within Savvy Games, for a total value upwards of $3.85B.

Pokémon Go, MH Now, Pikmin Bloom.

Big shake-up, consolidation in the space.

Niantic is also spinning out its geospacial AI business into Niantic Spatial. https://t.co/ADkn9ZT6pN pic.twitter.com/4y7vYL0Yqe

— Dom (@DomsPlaying) March 12, 2025

As part of the shift, Niantic is keeping two titles — Ingress and Peridot — and placing them under a new company called Niantic Spatial. That venture, backed by $250 million in funding, will now lead the company’s efforts to expand into artificial intelligence and mapping technologies.

Niantic’s geospatial platform was developed using more than 50 million neural networks and 150 trillion parameters, with capabilities across a million locations. It has even been suggested that such systems could have military applications.

Scopely said it respected Niantic’s ability to build community-focused games. The entire development team from Pokémon Go is moving under Scopely’s management to continue working on the game.