Riyadh - Mubasher: Sources revealed that Niantic, which developed the successful game "Pokemon Go" in 2016, is in talks to sell its video game business to Scopely, a subsidiary of Savvy Group, owned by the Public Investment Fund.

The sources added that the deal will be announced in the coming weeks at a price that could reach $3.5 billion, according to Bloomberg .

Pokémon Go was a global phenomenon, but the company has struggled to replicate its massive success, cutting staff and canceling some games in development in 2022 and 2023. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite was also killed in 2022 .

Niantic was founded by Alphabet Inc.'s Google in 2015. The company's CEO and founder, John Hanke, worked in satellite mapping before leading Google's Geo product division .

According to the company, the game is the most downloaded and profitable augmented reality app ever .

The company announced in November that data generated through its apps contributed to a “large geospatial model.” This model will use “large-scale machine learning to understand the scene, and connect it to millions of other scenes globally .”

In August, Niantic signed a deal with Savvy to help it expand into Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt .

Savvy is part of a larger effort led by the Public Investment Fund to diversify the Kingdom’s economy, by investing in the video game industry .