Niantic has unveiled Campfire, a new social app that “helps Niantic Explorers discover new people, places, and experiences around them”.
Campfire is designed to facilitate meetups and events across the company’s catalogue of AR games, such as Pokémon Go and Ingress.
Expanding access
Campfire was first unveiled in May 2022, where it was described as “the homepage” of the real-world metaverse.
Having been in beta with Ingress players for months, this next stage in the launch schedule will see select groups of Pokémon Go players around the world being given access throughout the summer.
Key features include the ability for players to find others in the area through a community tab, the ability to manage and interact with friends across all Niantic titles, and the ability to manage any meetups and reminders.
However, despite this new release, Niantic has recently faced a difficult period, laying off 8 per cent of its workforce across the globe and shuttering four upcoming projects: Hamlet, Heavy Metal, Blue Sky and Snowball. In an email to staff, CEO John Hanke cited an “economic storm that may lie ahead” as the reason for layoffs, stating that the company needed to reduce costs.
In recent months, the company has also shut down the servers for Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and, while recent release Pikmin Bloom has earned around $6.8 million since it went live, it pales in comparison to the amount of revenue Pokemon Go brought in during the same period, with the game earning $500 million in the first two days.
Last month, Pokémon GO celebrated the milestone of $6 billion in lifetime player spending.