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A comment on Niantic lays off 230 employees, cancels NBA and Marvel games. Parent comment

Re:Niantic lays off 230 employees, cancels NBA and Marvel games by paulgb on Friday June 30, 2023 @12:38PM (#36538064)
Woah! As someone who hasn't paid much attention since the initial launch, I had no idea. Here's the business model:

> Besides in-game purchases, partnerships with retail chains like Starbucks, McDonald's, Sprint, pay Niantic Labs for "Foot Traffic" on-demand of the retail shops.

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Re:Niantic lays off 230 employees, cancels NBA and Marvel games by charlieyu1 on Friday June 30, 2023 @01:01PM (#36538430)
Is it Japanese only collaboration?
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Re:Niantic lays off 230 employees, cancels NBA and Marvel games by swarnie on Friday June 30, 2023 @01:05PM (#36538487)
The trick was combining a popular franchise with aggressive whale seeking monetisation and having that all backed up by three figure agencies.

The app more than did its jo.

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Re:Niantic lays off 230 employees, cancels NBA and Marvel games by sushid on Friday June 30, 2023 @04:44PM (#36542003)
You lost me at three figure agencies. Are you saying that the FTC should be somehow involved here? What other agencies are you referring to?
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Re:Niantic lays off 230 employees, cancels NBA and Marvel games by pleaselegalize on Friday June 30, 2023 @09:50PM (#36545456)
I'm pretty sure they're referencing John Hanke, who used to work for the U.S. govt, founded Keyhole through funding from In-Q-Tel (CIA's VC), which ended up spawning Niantic.

It seems they're actively working with the NGA, NSA, DIA, and CIA. It could be just for 3D geo-spatial tech, or it could be for sharing data. It's secret and it doesn't look like conclusive evidence of data sharing has been published. My personal belief is a little bit of both is going on.

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