Niantic acquires gaming platform Mayhem

Pokémon Go creator Niantic is acquiring Mayhem, a start-up that offers a platform where gamers can set up their own leagues. The team will start working at Niantic and there they will work on ‘social experiences’.

As a result of the acquisition, the current Mayhem platform will disappear in February, founder Ivan Zhou writes in a blog. Mayhem was founded in 2017 and since 2019 the platform has been available through the Mayhem.gg website and as a client for Windows. The site is intended as a social platform for gamers, who can set up their own communities and competitions.

Niantic says it wants to improve the social aspects of its own games with the acquisition. Most of the Mayhem team and CEO will join Niantics Social Platform Product team and the rest of the employees will join the Platform Engineering department.

What Niantic will pay for the acquisition has not been disclosed. Niantic has racked up billions of dollars in sales since the release of Pokémon Go in 2016. The company has developed multiple augmented reality games, including Ingress and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. The company is also working on Catan: World Explorers.

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