In a report from Gamesindustry.biz, former Niantic employee Megan Quinn has returned to the company as their new COO.
Quinn first worked at the company ten years ago when they were an experimental lab in Google. Over the past five years, Quinn has been an investor and board member of Niantic and other companies alongside a general partner at Spark Captial. As Niantic prepares for more growth, Quinn’s main task will be to lead their international development and business development.
“We are accelerating investments in AR, mapping and diversifying our roadmap to serve a global community of developers, creators and consumers,” says John Hanke, Niantic’s CEO. “Last month we acquired 6D.ai to advance our work building a dynamic 3D map of the world. We have a multi-year pipeline of new products and experiences that reimagine the intersection of AR and real-world gaming. And we’re actively adjusting our current products to bring the joy of our games to people at home while they shelter in place during the global health pandemic.”
Niantic has developed popular mobile AR games such as Pokemon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting the world, the developer has made changes to the former such as increasing habitats and having PokeStops dropping gifts more often. Additionally, a feature called Adventure Sync tracks steps while you do household chores which will count towards tasks such as hatching a Pokemon egg.
“When John raised the COO role with me in the fall, it led me to reflect on the work that has been the most meaningful in my career,” says Quinn in a blog post. “My time with the Niantic team over the past decade — first as a team member, later as an advisor, and more recently as an investor and active board director — has been the constant. I believe very deeply in our founding mission: that at its best, technology can make us better versions of ourselves as more active, engaged, and curious members of our communities — something I believe people value now more than ever. I believe that augmented reality combined with a sense of place is the next transformative platform for consumer discovery and exploration. And, I believe the opportunity for Niantic is much bigger now than we imagined then.”
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