Niantic snaps up Seismic Games to build new AR experiences
Seismic Games is known for Marvel: Strikeforce and Blade Runner: Revelations.
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. According to Niantic, it will continue to work on its own games but will transition into building all-new AR experiences for the company going forward.
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.
