Niantic names director of developer relations ahead of Lightship ARDK launch

Pokemon Go maker Niantic has appointed Oculus veteran Dan Morris as its new director of developer relations. 

Morris worked at Oculus for over six years, initially joining as head of store before being named head of developer relations in May 2019. Prior to that, he spent almost three years working at EA as director of senior strategy and development, and served as senior director of partnerships at DeNA for two years. 

Niantic has brought in Morris as it moves towards the public release of its Lightship ARDK, which entered private beta earlier this year and can be used to create "immersive, imaginative, and unique AR applications." 

"Niantic Lightship encompasses the full Niantic platform, including the suite of tools and services that power Niantic games, from Ingress to Pokemon Go to our partnership with Nintendo to bring the Pikmin universe to our community. Niantic Lightship sets the industry standard for mapping and shared, planetary-scale AR experiences," said the company in a blog post published in May. 

Morris will be responsible for liaising with devs interested in using the ARDK, and has already begun reviewing developer projects and working through the pipeline of applications for the private beta. 

"I'm excited by the early interest developers around the world have expressed in working with us," he commented in a press release. "I look forward to identifying developers with compelling proposals and prototypes so that we can help them get to work building their dream applications ahead of general availability for the Lightship ARDK."