TechTarget and Informa Tech’s Digital Business Combine.TechTarget and InformaTechTarget and Informa Tech’s Digital Business Combine.Together, we power an unparalleled network of 220+ online properties covering 10,000+ granular topics, serving an audience of 50+ million professionals with original, objective content from trusted sources. We help you gain critical insights and make more informed decisions across your business priorities.Subway Surfers Blast developer Outplay Entertainment has laid off 21 workersSubway Surfers Blast developer Outplay Entertainment has laid off 21 workers'This step was taken to align our operations with current business.'Chris Kerr, Senior Editor, NewsJune 5, 20251 Min ReadImage via OutplaySubway Surfers Blast and Angry Birds Pop developer Outplay Entertainment has laid off 21 employees.The Scottish studio confirmed the news in a email sent to MobileGamer.biz and said the layoffs were made in response to "current business realities.""This step was taken to align our operations with current business realities and to support a strategic shift toward partnering with publishers for future game releases," wrote Outplay CEO Douglas Hare in the email."This was not a decision we took lightly. We are incredibly grateful to the talented individuals affected, many of whom have made lasting contributions to our games and culture. We are doing everything we can to support them through this transition."Outplay was established in 2010 and is based in Dundee. The company styles itself as the largest independent mobile studio in the UK and claims its roster of titles has amassed over 160 million downloads to date. It now joins a chorus of other studios across the world in making layoffs.Those cuts are frequently made to adapt to what companies often refer to as "headwinds" or the "business realities" of an industry that is still reckoning with the over-investment and bad bets made by decision-makers during the pandemic.In recent months, companies such as People Can Fly, EA, Niantic, Playtime, Meta, Mighty Yell, Devolver, and PlaySide, Embracer, and Cyan Worlds have all made significant cuts. It is, unfortunately, a trend that has become something of a permanent fixture across the video game industry.Related: about:Layoffs & Studio ClosuresTop StoriesAbout the AuthorChris KerrSenior Editor, News, GameDeveloper.comGame Developer news editor Chris Kerr is an award-winning journalist and reporter with over a decade of experience in the game industry. His byline has appeared in notable print and digital publications including Edge, Stuff, Wireframe, International Business Times, and PocketGamer.biz. Throughout his career, Chris has covered major industry events including GDC, PAX Australia, Gamescom, Paris Games Week, and Develop Brighton. He has featured on the judging panel at The Develop Star Awards on multiple occasions and appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live to discuss breaking news.See more from Chris KerrDaily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inboxStay UpdatedYou May Also Like #subway #surfers #blast #developer #outplay

Augmented World Expo 2025 will draw more than 6,000 attendees, 400 speakers and 300 global exhibitors to its event June 10 to June 12 in Long Beach, California. The speaker lineup includes Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell and Oculus/Anduril founder Palmer Luckey. If the show is any indication, the XR industry isn’t doing so bad. A variety of market researchers are forecasting fast growth for the industry through 2030. Ori Inbar, CEO of AWE, believes that the XR revolution is “ready to conquer the mainstream.” But to get there, he believes the industry still needs to create “head-turning content that must be experienced.” Of course, the red hot days of the “metaverse,” inspired by Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash sci-fi novel in 1992, is no longer driving the industry forward. With less focus on sci-fi, the industry is focused on practical uses for mixed reality technology in the enterprise and consumer markets like gaming. But will XR and the metaverse be overrun by AI, or will it carry them to the mass market destination? Much is riding on how committed Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta will be even as it reprioritizes some resources away from XR to AI. Meta, which acquired Luckey’s Oculus back in 2014, has invested billions every quarter in the technology, with no profits so far. But, in a very unexpected turnaround, Zuckerberg and Luckey buried the hatchet on the past differences and set up an alliance between Meta and Anduril — the latter being Luckey’s AI/drone defense company. Zuckerberg has new competition from his own nemesis, Apple, which launched the Apple Vision Pro in February 2024. However, Apple has slowed down its development of the next-generation XR headset, while Zuckerberg has put more emphasis on AR/AI glasses. Spiegel, the CEO of Snap, has focused on augmented reality glasses. His Spectacles are now in their fifth generation, powered by the Snap OS and authoring tool Lens Studio. Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, will deliver a one-of-a-kind talk on the main stage with five of his children, who are continuing his pioneering vision in gaming through XR. Brent Bushnell, Nolan’s eldest son, recently debuted DreamPark, a new XR startup that turns any park or playground into a mixed reality theme parks. Others speakers include Vicki Dobbs Beck – VP, Immersive Content Innovation, Lucasfilm & ILM Immersive; Ziad Asghar – SVP & GM XR, Qualcomm; Brian McClendon – Chief Technology Officer, Niantic Spatial, Inc.; Jason Rubin – VP, Metaverse Experiences, Meta; Hugo Swart, Senior Director of XR Ecosystem Strategy and Technology, Google; Jacqui Bransky – VP Web3 & Innovation, Warner Records; Chi Xu – CEO and Founder, XREAL; Helen Papagiannis – AR Pioneer and XR Hall of Famer; and Tom Furness – Grandfather of VR and Founder, Virtual World Society. AWE Builders Nexus will be a new program focused on startups this year. Startup founders, developers, designers, product managers, and business leaders alike will get the resources they need to build something extraordinary, get advice and funding, scale through partnerships, and win customers, Inbar said. The event will also feature the AWE Gaming Hub. I also interviewed some companies that are showcasing technology at the show. Here’s some snippets from what they are going to show. Pico VR Pico started out in Beijing, China, in 2015 and is now hitting its 10th anniversary. It is making the standalone Pico XR headsets, and it was acquired by ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, in 2021. In September 2024, the company launched the Pico 4 Ultra Enterprise headset, filling out the high end of its product line in addition to its G3 and Neo 3 legacy headsets. Pico also has its set of full-body motion trackers to its product offerings to allow for full-body and object tracking. That’s helping it with its focus on location-based entertainment in markets such as China. It’s focused on WiFi7, hand tracking and motion tracking. Leland Hedges, head of enterprise business at Pico, said that the LBE market in China has grown by 1,000% in the last six to nine months Pico has an app for PC streaming and another app for managing devices over a LAN. Pico can track play spaces with columns or cordoned-off areas. Hedges said the company will share 15 different user stories at AWE in public places such as zoos, museums, aquariums and planetariums. Convai Purnendu Mukherjee, CEO of Convai, showed me a bunch of demos at the Game Developers Conference where it has been able to create avatar-based demos of generative AI solutions with 3D animated people. These can be used to show off brands and greet people on web sites or as avatars in games. At AWE, Convai will also off learning and training scenarios for education and enterprises through a variety of simulations. Convai can render high fidelity avatars that are effectively coming from the cloud. At GDC, Convai scanned me and captured my voice so that it can create a lifelike avatar of me. These avatars can be created quickly and answer a variety of questions from website visitors. The idea is to enable non-technical people to create simulations without the need to code anything. In a demo, Convai’s avatar of me said, “I’ve been covering the games industry for many years now at games beat I’ve seen it evolve from the arcades to the massive global phenomenon it is today. I love digging into the business side of gaming, the technology, the culture, the whole shebang.” Convai will announce pricing for its self-serve platform as well as an enterprise subscription fee. Doublepoint Ohto Pentikäinen, CEO of Doublepoint, has a technology that detects the gesture you can make with your hand. It captures that movement via a smartwatch and allows you to control things on a TV interface or an XR device. With Android XR, Doublepoint is showing off demos where gesture control can unlock a more intuitive and comfortable augmented reality experience for those wearing AR glasses. Xreal is one of the glasses makers that is using the technology for controlling an AR user interface with gestures. “Our technology is able to fully control a XR system. A stat that we can update you on is that there’s 150,000 people who have downloaded the technology so far, and we have a developer community of over 2,000 people since January 2024,” Pentikäinen said. Now the company is starting its own Doublepoing developer program, and this adds layers on top of the enterprise client. So now the company can provide technology for indie developers or startups that are building augmented reality or AI hardware experiences. “We’re empowering developers in AR robotics and AI hardware, and we’re providing everything that we’re providing the enterprise clients, but for a much reduced price,” Pentikäinen said. #augmented #world #expo #will #draw

TechTarget and Informa Tech’s Digital Business Combine.TechTarget and InformaTechTarget and Informa Tech’s Digital Business Combine.Together, we power an unparalleled network of 220+ online properties covering 10,000+ granular topics, serving an audience of 50+ million professionals with original, objective content from trusted sources. We help you gain critical insights and make more informed decisions across your business priorities.Niantic spin-off continues layoffs with 'small number' of additional cutsNiantic spin-off continues layoffs with 'small number' of additional cutsNiantic Spatial, the new-look company that emerged following the sale of Niantic's game business, has laid off another five employees.Chris Kerr, Senior Editor, NewsMay 27, 20251 Min ReadImage via Niantic SpatialNiantic Inc has laid off five more employees as it continues to reorganize following the sale of its game business to Saudi-owned mobile publisher Scopely.The company previously laid off 68 workers after selling its internal development teams and roster of franchises—including Pokemon Go—to Scopely in a deal worth billion.Those layoffs didn't impact Niantic's outgoing workforce, but rather those who remained with the tech company.Niantic is currently pivoting towards the geospatial AI market with the formation of a new company called Niantic Spatial, which is where the layoffs are being made.After Game Developer spotted the company had made fresh layoffs, Niantic Spatial confirmed a "small number" of additional employees have been let go. The WARN notice stated that five people were impacted by the latest cuts."As a result of the reorganization of Niantic Spatial, we identified a small number of additional positions that were unfortunately no longer required in the new company," said a company spokesperson.The redundancies were previously announced by Niantic CEO John Hanke, who said Niantic Spatial will be operating as a "startup organization.""After a lot of consideration, it became clear that some roles would not be required given our new focus. This week, we are sharing this news with the individuals whose roles are impacted," said Hanke earlier this year.Related:"These decisions are never easy; they in no way reflect the individuals’ performance, and we understand their impact on people’s lives."Hanke failed to specify how many roles were at risk, but we now know 73 workers have been jettisoned from Niantic Spatial as a result. about:LayoffsTop StoriesAbout the AuthorChris KerrSenior Editor, News, GameDeveloper.comGame Developer news editor Chris Kerr is an award-winning journalist and reporter with over a decade of experience in the game industry. His byline has appeared in notable print and digital publications including Edge, Stuff, Wireframe, International Business Times, and PocketGamer.biz. Throughout his career, Chris has covered major industry events including GDC, PAX Australia, Gamescom, Paris Games Week, and Develop Brighton. He has featured on the judging panel at The Develop Star Awards on multiple occasions and appeared on BBC Radio 5 Live to discuss breaking news.See more from Chris KerrDaily news, dev blogs, and stories from Game Developer straight to your inboxStay UpdatedYou May Also Like #niantic #spinoff #continues #layoffs #with

The room was packed for Ori Inbar's keynote. Athena Demos Augmented World Exporeturns to Long Beach from June 10 to 12, 2025, with its most expansive and ambitious edition to date. Now in its 16th year, the XR industry’s flagship conference will host over 5,000 attendees, 250 exhibitors, and a speaker lineup that reads like a who’s who of immersive tech. As the spatial computing and AI worlds collide, AWE 2025 promises to be a milestone event in the evolution of real-world XR adoption. Ori Inbar, AWE co-founder and CEO, celebrates his 15th annual keynote on stage at AWE 2024. AWE This year’s theme: XR is going mainstream. “The hardware is good enough, the tools are mature, and AI has lowered the barrier to entry,” AWE co-founder Ori Inbar said during a recent interview on the AI/XR Podcast. “There’s no excuse now. It’s a call to builders to create content for every person on this planet.” Collage of people on the Expo floor. AWE AWE 2025 reflects that shift with expanded programming across the board. For the first time, both the conference and expo floor will run for a full three days, preceded by hackathons and a welcome party. Meta, Snap, Niantic, Google, Qualcomm, and XREAL are all sending top executives. Evan Spiegel, Nolan Bushnell, and Palmer Luckeyheadline a packed keynote slate. Shots from AWE Expo 2021. AWE The show will spotlight three subcommunities shaping the future of XR. The new “Builder’s Nexus” showcases top teams from this year’s global hackathons, many of whom are using generative AI tools to build spatial experiences. A dedicated “Gaming Hub” will feature trailers and live demos from 10 VR studios, plus appearances by top content creators like Nacy, Nathie, and SadlyItsBradley. Enterprise XR, which now represents 71% of the market, will be served by a bespoke VIP program tailored to verticals such as healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and defense. “We used to ask what the killer app for XR would be,” said Inbar. “Now we realize it’s AI itself—and vice versa. XR is the killer interface for AI.” Montage of attendees experiencing XR at AWE 2024. AWE The synergy is most visible on the show floor, where nearly every exhibitor will feature some AI integration. Over 20 eyewear companies will be demoing headsets, glasses, and AI assistants. Snap’s next-generation Spectacles will be out in force, worn by hundreds of developers. Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which sold over 500,000 units in Q1 alone, signal a tipping point for mainstream wearable adoption. And as always, AWE’s Playground will serve as the festival’s beating heart. Larger-than-life installations and interactive demos, including an expanded version of Brett Bushnell’s “Dream Park,” will draw crowds eager to experience the next frontier of computing.Trying out the HoloLens at AWE 2017. AWE For newcomers and veterans alike, AWE remains the must-attend event for anyone working at the intersection of immersive media, AI, and real-world application. “You get a master’s degree in XR in three days,” said AR Insider’s Mike Boland . “There’s nothing else like it.” AWE 2025 may not mark the beginning of the XR era—but it might be remembered as the year it stopped being a niche. Here is a quick preview of some brands and experiences at the show this year.Niantic founder and CEO John Hanke. AWE Niantic Spatial, a newly created company spun out from Niantic Labs, is making a significant debut, with news of three important new partnerships, an invite-only geospatial AI agent and outdoor VPS demo. At its lounge area Niantic Spatial will offer 12 cutting-edge demos highlighting enterprise use cases for spatial technology in warehousing, spatial planning, and immersive entertainment. Brian McClendon will also be delivering a keynote. At Qualcomm’s booth, attendees can check out MR & AR demos spanning various sectors, including entertainment, education, fitness and more. In addition, Ziad Asghar, SVP & GM of XR at Qualcomm will present a keynote titled, Accelerating the Spatial Computing Revolution for Developers and Enterprise. He’ll showcase how Qualcomm is powering the AI smart glass revolution and driving the technology necessary for AI glasses to be a stand-alone product with processing done all on-device, and he’ll highlight and demonstrate its technology leadership across the spectrum of spatial computing, enabling the experiences accessible today and building future proof solutions for the future.Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Snap Inc Evan Spiegeland France's Secretary of State ... More for AI and Digital Technology Clara Chappazwear the Spectacle Augmented Reality glasses during the inauguration of the group's French headquarters in Paris on May 19, 2025.AFP via Getty Images AWE attendees are invited to explore the latest Snap Spectacles activations on the second floor of Long Beach Convention Center, available throughout the event. Snap CEO and Co-Founder Evan Spiegel will take to the Main Stage on Day 1 with exciting new announcements about Snap's AR developer platform, and there will be other Snap talks throughout the show.Xreal founder and CEO speaking at Augmented World Expo in Santa Clara, CA, June 2023. AWE XREAL Sony XYNwill unveil its latest immersive technology. Attendees will get an exclusive first look at its newest innovations designed to redefine the boundaries of XR experiences. From cutting-edge hardware including a glasses-free 3D display, motion capture system and XR headsets to groundbreaking software solutions such as Motion Studio and Spatial Capture, Sony XYN will showcase transformative tools that enable the future of spatial computing and immersive content creation. Auki Labs Cellid’s #curtain #raiser #awe #brings #into

Poochyena, the bite Pokémon from Hoenn, can be found in the wild in Pokémon Go. Yes, Poochyena can be shiny in Pokémon Go! Mightyena isn’t actually a complete wash in the Great League of PvP, but its shadow version is preferred. Either way, these are pretty nice shinies — and as with all shinies, they’re worth keeping an eye out for. What is the shiny rate for Poochyena in Pokémon Go? As per old research by the now-defunct website The Silph Road, the shiny rate for Pokémon on a regular day is approximately one in 500. Poochyena is not a confirmed Pokémon that gets a “permaboost”. What can I do to attract more shiny Pokémon? Not much, unfortunately. It appears to be random chance. Shiny Pokémon catch rates are set by developer Niantic, and they are typically only boosted during special events like Community Days or Safari Zones, or in Legendary Raids. There are no consumable items that boost shiny Pokémon rates. Where can I find a list of available shiny Pokémon? LeekDuck keeps a list of currently available shiny Pokémon. It’s a helpful visual guide that illustrates what all of the existing shiny Pokémon look like. For more tips, check out Polygon’s Pokémon Go guides. #can #poochyena #shiny #pokémon

Pokemon GO has announced a new Global Challenge that will kick off on May 20. This is another event that Niantic will release during the current Might and Mastery season and one of the last activities available for Pokemon GO players in May. #pokemon #announces #might #mastery #global