Where Do Geogames Go After Niantic’s $3.5B Exit
Written by Integrated Reality Labs co-founders – Lauren Steidl, CEO, and Ian Andolsek, President
Real-World Multiplayer, Social UGC, and what comes after Pokémon GO
The End of An Era In Geogaming
In March 2025, Scopely acquired Niantic’s games division – including Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now – for a reported $3.5 billion. The headline-making deal capped nearly a decade of dominance in the location-based gaming space, led by the runaway success of Pokémon GO. But beneath the surface, it marked something else: the end of an era.
Despite massive scale, Pokémon GO has shown the limits of games built around AR and GPS. It’s more or less limited to single-player gameplay, and even their “Party Play” multiplayer mode is capped at only 4 players due to technical challenges. The last decade has revealed that chasing coordinates isn’t sticky or fun in its own right – Pokémon GO happened to pair this experience with the perfect IP, but it appears that lightning won’t strike twice for geocaching.
The sale of Niantic validated the potential of geogames while acknowledging that geocaching games had hit a ceiling.
So what comes next for geogames?
Three Trends Shaping Where Geogames Go Next
To understand where geogames are headed after the Niantic-Scopely deal, it’s worth zooming out to the broader cultural and technological shifts reshaping how, and where, we play.
First, there’s the resurgence of real-world play. From high schoolers organizing sprawling games of Senior Assassin to the explosive growth of escape rooms and city-wide scavenger hunts, more people are turning to physical spaces as their playground. These experiences aren’t just nostalgic throwbacks – they're a reaction to screen fatigue and a hunger for spontaneous, unscripted fun.
Second, the dominant form of self-expression among young people today is short-form, unfiltered video. Apps like TikTok, BeReal., and Strava reflect a generational shift. Posting spontaneous, often chaotic clips isn’t just a trend – it’s a new kind of performance. These platforms reward immediacy and authenticity over polish, and games that can tap into this behavioral loop are poised for virality.
Third, mobile technology has caught up. For years, geogames struggled with limitations in location precision and latency. GPS could tell you someone was nearby, but not whether they were a few feet away or a floor above. Camera-based AR was effective for solo games but struggled in multiplayer settings. Now, with UWB chips, faster Bluetooth signaling, and low-latency 5G in most urban areas, precise real-time proximity detection is reliable. Fusing all this data together makes multiplayer gaming in physical spaces possible for the first time with mobile devices alone, and it creates an experience that’s as dynamic and fast as online multiplayer shooters.
Individually, these trends are meaningful. Together, they’re transformative. The cultural appetite for real-world games, the compulsive sharing behavior on video-first platforms, and the maturing of location tech to become ‘multiplayer-ready’ have set the stage for a new generation of geogames. Not as gimmicks or marketing stunts, but as the next legitimate genre of mobile play.
The Real World Is Back Online
If the last era of geogaming was defined by novelty, of catching Pokémon in your backyard and turning your evening walk into an XP grind, the next one will be defined by its depth.
We’re moving past map skins and branded IP wrappers. The future of geogames will blur the line between digital play and physical presence in ways that feel less like a mobile app and more like a lifestyle. The one-hit wonder of Pokémon GO will make way for a genre with room for tribes, creators, economies, and diverse competition.
The next breakout geolocation game won’t be about where you are. It will be about who you’re with, what you’re doing, and how you’re showing up in the moment.
If Pokémon GO was the proof of concept, what’s coming next might just be the Counter-Strike of the sidewalk—and if you ask us, that’s SLAP, which lets players connect, compete, and go viral through real-life battles inspired by classic neighborhood games.
🎙️ Want the deeper dive? Jen Donahoe sat down with IRL Labs co-founder Lauren Steidl to unpack what Niantic’s $3.5B exit really means—and why SLAP might be the Counter-Strike of the sidewalk. From location tech breakthroughs to TikTok’s grip on gameplay, this is the future of mobile, one block at a time.
