Pokémon GO developer Niantic will soon change hands after the popular augmented reality game and company sold its gaming business to Scopely for $3.5 billion. In a new interview, Niantic senior product manager Michael Steranka addressed the concerns some players have about the acquisition, including the player location data the game collects, and future access to that data.
In an interview with gaming video maker TrainerTips, Steranka discussed why the company decided to sell, upcoming changes, the idea of in-game pop-up ads, and the issue of player location data being shared with Saudi Arabian authorities.
This is mainly due to the fact that Scopely is a company under Saudi Arabia's "state-owned" Savvy Games Group, which is backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund. In recent years, as Saudi Arabia is increasing its influence in various industries, the group has acquired shares in many gaming companies. This has caused concern among players from many other countries.
Speaking about the privacy of the location information, Sternaka promised: "All of this will stay in the United States. It will never leave the United States. And it will never be linked to Savvy or anyone else. In fact, Scopely itself operates completely independently. So, there are enough layers of isolation there. You can trust that all your data will remain in the servers in the United States, and, like we mentioned, we will actually wipe all data and completely remove the data collection once it is no longer needed for the game to run."
He did reveal that data would be wiped out earlier in the same interview, revealing that "contrary to popular belief," the company "does not store player data beyond what is actually needed to run the game." He later added that all data will remain "fully encrypted and protected," as has been the case since the game's launch in 2016.