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Forum - View topicNEWS: Niantic Cancels Transformers: Heavy Metal Real-World AR Mobile Game
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JintoLin
Posts: 44 |
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How can they be facing a time of 'economic turmoil' when they've been banking it for years with Pokemon Go? They should have a huge development fund. Something smells funny.
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6003 |
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More or less the same way Netflix can face economic turmoil despite years of success (with some failures). |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 4461 |
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Basically, yeah. Depending on how far along those games were, they may have looked at things currently and decided potentially years of investing into new games was better spent on something that is already out there making money. |
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Regalli
Posts: 109 |
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Licensing isn’t cheap, either, and Niantic has seen VERY limited success with its non-Pokemon ventures. I could see them getting into a Telltale situation for themselves where they licensed a BUNCH of IPs in the hopes of another PoGo-level hit, and instead found themselves losing money on the whole.
Also, Niantic’s currently pretty blatantly trying to nerf the changes to Pokemon Go they made for the pandemic. This costs them money, since they’re doing things like making the paid item that spawns more Pokemon for you worse to the point of unusability, and these changes were overwhelmingly popular with the fanbase. They’ve tried rolling back Pokestop distance extension and got such backlash they had to eventually make it permanent (since 1: There is still a pandemic on, 2: most of these changes were incidentally good for disabled players, ie the kind of people who WOULD need to gamify seemingly-easy tasks, can’t always safely leave their home, but might still play and spend money if they live across the street from a Pokestop, and 3: The old distance was EXTREMELY small, and when you added in sometimes-erratic location tracking you could be right next to the ACTUAL Pokestop and still unable to spin it.) Similar issues have been going on with a lot of those changes, making it all the odder Niantic keeps doubling down. It’s costing them money, since they’re selling less premium items, and despite their claims of ‘pushing people to get out in their community’ and ‘get moving,’ there’s a lot of pointing out that the old systems didn’t accomplish that because they were just not functional. If you couldn’t find a raiding group or didn’t live near a gym, remote raid passes were the only reason you could participate in this game mechanic at all. Pokestops and incense were just bad. The incense that makes Pokemon spawn wherever you are, but spawns the MOST Pokemon if you’re moving got made less effective, but you know what didn’t? Lure modules, which are activated at a Pokestop and make Pokemon spawn around that Pokestop, and which therefore mean players find a stop, plunk down a module, and sit there. Which isn’t actually getting people moving. So why the changes, if no one likes them, they sell less in-game items, and they don’t even accomplish the goals they claim to want? Well, a good guess probably has something to do with the fact that Niantic also makes money by gathering data about locations. We don’t know how much, but that AR mapping thing is clearly a big part of their business model, in the long-term if not short-term. They HAD to change the game to be more remote-friendly in 2020, because they had no choice whatsoever, but want it back to normal now that the pandemic has been declared ‘over’ by businesses tired of losing money because people are dying and being permanently disabled from getting sick. Unfortunately, it is not, and despite Niantic pushing a lot of people are still staying home rather than risk getting a highly contagious illness with above-average rates of post-viral issues. So I can see them… if not LOSING money, nonetheless not making as much money as they did in previous years, which of course means investors are upset because profits should grow constantly forever. Add on the licensing expense and I could see Niantic actually being worried. |
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1752 |
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One thing that has annoyed me with Pokemon Go is that Niantic wants people to play a certain way. Encouraging people to come together is great if there still isn't a potentially deadly virus (particularly if you are immunocompromised) or have anxiety issues. Cutting back Community Day from 6 hours to 3 has been my least favorite change. I work nights. 11-2pm is a horrible time of day for me. People have family gatherings/events/religious events, etc. Depending on where you live, 11-2pm could be a very hot period of the day. While I don't expect a company to revolve an event around my schedule, a 6 hour event allowed more time and freedom so that players could play when it was convenient for them instead of when it's convenient for Niantic.
I honestly hope Niantic loses even more money with Go to the point that they'll bring back the positive changes made during 2020-2021. I miss incense being effective even when stationary. I loved that the remote raid passes could give people living in remote areas a chance at legendary Pokemon. And instead of spending your money on finding spoofers (I find a lot of 'legit' players far more annoying as far as gym control and in life confrontations go), leave them alone and focus that money instead making PVP and QoL improvements. |
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mewpudding101
Industry Insider
 Posts: 2208 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Owowow.
And supposedly so far ahead in production, I would assume? That stings. |
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