By now you will have heard the news that Niantic has sold off their games department - so let's take a look at what it's all about:

What happened?

The recent merger between Scopely and Niantic has created ripples throughout the mobile gaming world. Scopely, known for its mobile games like Monopoly Go and Marvel Strike Force, acquired Niantic's gaming division for $3.5 billion. This deal includes popular titles such as Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now, as well as Wayfarer and Campfire. The Niantic Game crew are to be retained  (at least for now) along with Ed Wu and Kei Kawai as studio leads. However, Niantic will keep ownership of its AR games - Ingress and Peridot, as well as its technology platform, which has been spun off into a new entity called Niantic Spatial Inc.

What does this mean for Peridot?

Peridot will continue to evolve under Niantic's management via Niantic Spatial. The current merger does not directly affect Peridot, as it remains under Niantic's control, and the separation of Niantic's gaming division might allow the company to focus more on innovative AR experiences for Peridot (including the mobile version of the game).

Indirectly, the separation of Peridot (and the other AR ventures) from the Niantic gaming division will affect Peridot not least in terms of how (or if) Campfire will continue to be connected, whether the current 'friends' limit (shared across all Niantic games) will be removed or isolated, and how the POI database is to be maintained/enhanced with the sell-off of Wafarer.

For now, we have recently seen more bug fixes but not much in terms of additional content, although this is intentional given the 'evergreen' status of the game at the moment. Will we see a renewed interest from the Niantic Spatial Team in advancing and expanding the mobile game?  We simply don't know and everyone at Niantic has been silent of late - 'wait and see' seems to be the order of the day. 

Who is Scopely?

Scopely is a prominent mobile-first video game developer and publisher, founded in 2011 in Los Angeles, California, by Walter Driver, Ankur Bulsara, Eric Futoran, and Eytan Elbaz. The company has grown significantly over the years, becoming one of the largest mobile game developers globally.

 In 2023, Scopely was acquired by Savvy Games Group, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, for $4.9 billion. This acquisition further solidified Scopely's position in the gaming industry. The company has a history of combining internal studios with partnerships to create engaging and immersive experiences.

 Scopely's portfolio already includes a range of popular titles, such as:

•  Monopoly Go!

• Stumble Guys

• Star Trek Fleet Command

• Marvel Strike Force

• Yahtzee With Buddies

• WWE Champions

• Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem

• Scrabble GO

• Bingo Bash

• Tiki Solitaire TriPeaks.

 Scopely's past record shows its ability to create and sustain "forever games" that maintain player engagement over the long term. We wait to see how PokemonGo, Pikmin Bloom and Monster Hunter Now will integrate into the Scopely portfolio (and if the current levels of monetization will change!).

Initially released as a region limited beta, Peridot promised a world of AR pets that you could interact with as if they were real.  This, at least was achieved, albeit with limited interaction - but it was ground-breaking.

By foraging you could collect what were known as romance items (or nest fragments if you like).  There were around 36 different romance items, each relating to an aspect of the manifestation of a Dot (i.e. the Dot's appearance), from colour to horns and other plumage.  Once you had collected sufficient (5) items of a particular type, you could then use them to influence the outcome of breeding with another Dot.

If you bred a Dot with another Dot, you had the option of discarding your original Dot, or tracking it with what was known as a summoning marker - this is the point where irl cash really came in - summoning markers cost money.  But - if you didn't want to keep your original Dot, it would simply be replaced by the baby.

It was not the intention of the game that Keepers collect a vast array (or army) of Dots, but the inclusion of an initial 16 or so Archetypes meant that intent was already undermined - who wants just a single Dot anyway?

While the beta was full of bugs, the whimsical element was there with the collecting and use of romance items to create 'nests' and the ability to breed Dots with no outlay (other than a little effort) until you made one that you wanted to keep.

Dots also had personalities (pretty much as we know them now) but they were initially called Traits.

So far, so good - in the next PeriBlog entry we will fast forward to global release and take a look at how that version of the game compared to the original.

Footnote: The text in the Periblog has been shortened and amended from the original article so don't panic if there's something 'missing', we are just putting some of the main points out there.

We have decided to merge DotKeepers.org and PlayPeridot.info into a single resource for the 'mobile' Peridot game (note the use of the term mobile here - this is how Niantic now distinguishes this part of the Peridot franchise).

This is the first of what should be many blog entries going forward.  Where we make any reference to the contents of this site, there should be one click links enabled for ease of navigation.