It’s not a great week for free to play online service games. Just last Friday it was announced that Project Cars GO would be shutting down later this month, and while the short time between global launch and shut down was a bit shocking I can’t say it was all too surprising to see that one come to an end. What is much more out of left field to me is today’s news that Niantic will be shutting down Harry Potter: Wizards Unite early next year. We’re on the cusp of the 4-year anniversary of the game’s original announcement in November of 2017, when Pokemon GO’s global phenomenon from the previous summer was still fresh in our minds. We were pretty convinced that with the Harry Potter IP being arguably even bigger than Pokemon that Wizards Unite would be a massive success. I guess don’t go betting the farm on any of our predictions.
If it’s any sort of consolation for Wizards Unite players, there does seem to be a lot planned for these next few months of remaining active time in the game. The shut down will actually tie into the ongoing story of ending The Calamity, and starting today many of the restrictions for things you can do in-game will be lifted or loosened and in-game bonuses will be increased. This month and next month will be filled with plenty of events to send the game off with a bang. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite will be available to download up until December 6th, and at that point it will be pulled from its various app stores and all in-app purchasing will be disabled. The January 31st, 2022 date is when all servers will be shut down and the game will be unplayable. You can get all the details about this at the shut down notice on the game’s official website.
I don't think this is surprising given the revenue it's (not) bringing in. Sensor Tower's free analytics estimates that in September 2021, HP:WU grossed a total of $180,000 ($80,00 from Android and 100,000 from iOS). That doesn't include Android revenue from China, but I don't think HP:WU was available in China to begin with.
By comparison, Dr. Mario World was grossing abotu $400,000 per month before they disabled IAPs, and a location-based Niantic game is probably more expensive to run. Pokemon Go in September grossed a whopping 61 million dollars, $29 million from iOS and $32 million from Android.
Ingress is grossing even less than Wizards Unite (only $110,000 in September across both platforms). However, Niantic probably doesn't have to split the revenue from Ingress (aside from the app store's cut), whereas for Wizards Unite they probably have to share revenue with WarnerMedia and Rowling.
Hmm… I went in hard with Pikmin Bloom, still am. I should probably rethink my decision. It feels like the writing is on the wall.