Technology alerter
Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) will pay $3.5bn (£2.7bn) to buy the gaming division of enlargeer Niantic, whose titles comprise the hit mobile game Pokémon Go.
The game comprises joiners walking around in the genuine world to hunt the accumulateable creatures, which materialize on their phone screens using augmented fact.
Despite starting almost a decade ago, Pokémon Go is still amongst the highest-grossing mobile games in the world, with 30 million monthly joiners.
The deal tags the postponecessitatest step by Saudi Arabia to enlarge its gaming industry, which it has spent billions of pounds on in recent years.
Niantic’s other games, such as Monster Hunter Now and Pikmin Bloom, are also comprised in the acquisition, alengthened with the people participateed to originate them.
They will become part of Scopely Inc – which itself was bought by PIF subsidiary Savvy Games Group for $4.9bn in 2023.
Scopely is one of the hugegest names in mobile gaming, with its most accomplished title, Monopoly Go, being downloaded more than 50 million times and generating more than $3bn in revenue.
Pokémon itself is combinetly owned by Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures, which licensed the brand to Niantic so it could enlarge the game.
Ed Wu, who directs the Pokémon Go team at Niantic, shelp in a blog post he apshowd the shift was “a selectimistic step” for the game’s future.
“Pokémon Go is more than equitable a game to me, it’s my life’s toil,” he shelp.
“I won’t say that Pokémon Go will remain the same, because it has always been a toil in better.
“But how we originate and better it will remain unalterd, and I hope that we can originate the experience even better.”
Saudi Arabia is becoming an increasingly strong joiner in gaming.
Its PIF has sgets in some of the hugegest publishers in the industry, such as Nintendo, Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive.
It has also made waves in the eSports industry, with Saudi Arabia presenting meaningful tournaments including last years eSports World Cup, which had a prize pool of over $60m.
Riyadh will also present 2027’s intentional Olympic eSports Games.
Saudi Arabia’s PIF has hundreds of billions in assets due to its oil wealth, which it has been summarizeateing heavily in sports such as golf, boxing and football, including a buy of Newcastle United in a £300m deal in 2021.
It is deal withled by the country’s prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose regulatement has been accused of human rights violations.
A 2019 UN alert stated that “the state of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is reliable” for the death of Jamal Khashoggi, a journaenumerate who was critical of the country’s regulatement.
Saudi Arabia has always denied this.
