Niantic Acquires Lowkey To Improve Its Augmented Reality Platforms

American software development company, Niantic has announced that it is acquiring Lowkey a gameplay recording app to help build out its augmented reality platforms.

The acquired company, Lowkey is known to improve the in-game social experience allowing users to use any screen capture application to record their games. Lowkey was designed with casual gamers or those who don't want to spend time editing their videos in mind.

The app captures video on a computer and syncs them with a phone where a user can use its simple editing tools to create short clips optimized for mobile viewing. It will also enable users to share those clips with friends within the app Snapchat-style or publish it for public viewing like TikTok.

Niantic didn't reveal what the Lowkey team will be doing for its AR games and experiences exactly, but it said the team's "leadership in this space will accelerate the social experiences [it's] building in [its] products." The company added: "We share a common vision for building a community around shared experiences, and enabling new ways to connect and play for our explorers."

In the past, Niantic has purchased other companies in its quest to build more tools and features for its augmented reality products. It purchased social animation startup Evertoon to build a social network for its games in 2017 and it bought 3D mapping startup 6D.ai to develop "planet-scale" augmented reality last year. It also acquired LiDAR scanning app Scaniverse to create a 3D map of the world in August.