Niantic has acquired yet another developer in a bid to conquer AR gaming. The Pokémon Go creator has announced that it has acquired LA-based Seismic Games, mostly known for turn-based mobile RPG Marvel: Strikeforce. You can assemble Marvel characters in the free-to-play title, which brought in $25 million in worldwide player spending over the past four months. Seismic is also the company behind Blade Runner: Revelations, a virtual reality game for Google Daydream that’s probably more in line with what it’s going to work on going forward. According to Niantic, Seismic will continue to work on its own games but will transition into building all-new AR experiences for the company.
The company said in a statement:
“We recently gave a peek under the hood of the Niantic Real World Platform, and we see the addition of Seismic Games as a significant accelerant for realizing our vision of an operating system that bridges the digital and the physical worlds.”
Niantic’s Real World Platform allows third-party developers to use the AR technology behind Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Seismic is but the latest in a string of acquisitions Niantic made in an effort to give the platform a boost. It also snapped up AR game developer Escher Reality, perhaps to take advantage of its experience creating “cross platform, multi-user” titles, back in February. In June, it also bought a company called Matrix Mill, which is working on a technology that will allow AR elements to interact more naturally with the real world.
Source: engadget.com
