The past few hours have been hours of apprehension for Ingress | Ingress Updates [ENG]

The past few hours have been hours of apprehension for Ingress Players. Niantic, in the person of CEO John Hanke shared with the public an email which was sent to all Niantic employees regarding some important organisational changes inside the company.

"I have made the decision to narrow our focus for mobile game investments, concentrating on first party games that most strongly embody our core values of location and local social communities. The mobile gaming market is very mature and only the best and most differentiated titles have a chance to succeed. We also want to increase our focus on building for the emerging class of MR devices and future AR glasses."

In light of this, Hanke stated that Niantic will be laying off about 230 employees, discontinuing their NBA: All Stars game and interrupting production of their upcoming Marvel: World of Heroes title. Their studios in LA, USA will also be closed, leaving their main base in San Francisco, where the company originated from.

Niantic has stated that Pokémon Go will be the top priority going forward, as far as mobile games are concerned. The aim of the company is to keep the game "healthy and growing as a forever game. While we made some adjustments to the Pokémon GO team, our investment in the product and team continues to grow."

Ingress players were left wondering if these layoffs would impact their beloved game and, for several hours, Agents relayed this question to Niantic's social outlets.

Finally, the Ingress Team posted a new article on the blog addressing the matter, thanking and praising the work of their colleagues who will be leaving and reassuring Agents that Ingress is continuing onward!

"Ingress continues to operate full steam ahead, and we remain optimistic for the future of the game and community we all love so passionately. The Ingress team will continue our focus on sustainability, as well as making the game easier to understand for new recruits so that we can grow our global Agent community."

While the Ingress team itself doesn't seem to be affected, we have received news that Ethan Lepouttre, the Marketing Manager for Niantic and best known for being the driver of the NL-1331 van, will also leave Niantic. We are thankful for him and all of the people who contributed to making Niantic and Ingress what they are now. We would like to thank all those impacted by this organisational shift and wish them all the best for their future endeavors.

Sources:
1) https://nianticlabs.com/news/organizational-update
2) https://ingress.com/news/2023-ingress-future/

@IUENG