{"id":19591,"date":"2022-06-30T14:02:37","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T21:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/?p=19591"},"modified":"2022-06-30T14:52:21","modified_gmt":"2022-06-30T21:52:21","slug":"niantic-cancels-transformers-ar-game-lays-off-scores-of-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/30\/niantic-cancels-transformers-ar-game-lays-off-scores-of-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Niantic cancels Transformers AR game, lays off scores of people"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I&#8217;ve long been <a href=\"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/11\/niantic-sneaks-5g-ar-urban-legends-what-does-it-all-mean\/\">bewildered &amp; bearish<\/a> regarding Niantic, and about location-based AR games in general, even when they&#8217;re paired with AAA franchises (RIP Minecraft Earth). Now <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-06-29\/pokemon-go-creator-niantic-cancels-four-projects-cuts-jobs?sref=10lNAhZ9#xj4y7vzkg\">pile Transformers onto the dead-wagon<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>Niantic has been unable to replicate that success [of Pokemon Go]. In 2019 it launched Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, which failed to find an audience and shut down earlier this year. Games based on the board game Catan and the Nintendo series Pikmin were also unsuccessful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Ugh. Do people want experiences like this? Somehow they&#8217;ve continued to pay <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2022\/06\/pokemon-gos-revenue-smashes-past-usd6-billion#:~:text=Pok%C3%A9mon%20GO%20just%20can't,make%20%241%20billion%20a%20year.\">a billion+ dollars per year for Pokemon Go (!!)<\/a>, which hasn&#8217;t seemingly changed in its nearly six years of life\u2014but so far it&#8217;s the exception that proves the rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But who knows: maybe AR wearables will change the game\u2014and in the meantime Niantic &amp; the NBA have just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/news\/niantic-nba-and-the-nbpa-team-up-for-nba-all-world\">announced<\/a> NBA All-World, which will &#8220;place NBA fans into the real-world metaverse.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00af\\_(\u30c4)_\/\u00af <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/sponsored.bloomberg.com\/article\/AWS-powered-by-Intel\/Welcome-to-the-New-World-of-Media-and-Entertainment\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve long been bewildered &amp; bearish regarding Niantic, and about location-based AR games in general, even when they&#8217;re paired with AAA franchises (RIP Minecraft Earth). Now pile Transformers onto the dead-wagon: Niantic has been unable to replicate that success [of Pokemon Go]. In 2019 it launched Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, which failed to find an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19591"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19591"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19594,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19591\/revisions\/19594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}