Saudi-owned mobile company catches “Pokémon Go” for $3.5 billion

There continues to be huge money in making your phone hot as hell.

Niantic Labs, the games studio behind the massive mobile title “Pokémon Go,” has been acquired for $3.5 billion. The buyer: the Saudi Arabia-owned Scopely, a mobile games maker that produces “Monopoly Go.”

“Pokémon Go” has been a juggernaut in the phone games space, pulling in roughly $8 billion in revenue since its launch in 2016. In its statement about the deal, Scopely said “Pokémon Go” had more than 100 million unique users in 2024 and the Niantic portfolio more broadly drove over $1 billion in revenue last year.

Popular mobile games like “Pokémon Go” bring in hundreds of millions of dollars through (often shady) advertising. According to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, 11 games surpassed $1 billion in revenue last year. Saudi Arabia’s interest in the game could also be partially tied to Niantic’s sizable trove of location data, built through players’ scans of real-world locations. With the acquisition, Niantic said it’s spinning off its geospatial AI business into a new company.

For the Saudi Arabian government, this is another significant foray into gaming — particularly mobile gaming. Through its Public Investment Fund, the country scooped Scopely for $4.9 billion in 2023. It’s also established sizable stakes in gaming giants including Nintendo, Electronic Arts, and Take-Two Interactive through the fund.