According to a report from Reuters, it seems that developers are unwilling to follow in the footsteps of Niantic simply because some feel that the challenge would not be worth it. After all we’re not talking about a simple game where you can just change up the graphics and mechanics a little, we’re talking about using relatively brand new technology in the form of augmented reality.
Plus we’re also talking about trying to compete with a franchise that is already immensely popular: Pokemon. If companies could, they would have already come up with something else that would have competed with Pokemon ages ago. Perhaps the closest we’ve seen would be World of Warcraft’s Battle Pets system, which seems a bit like a mix between Pokemon and Digimon.
That being said, there are companies working on augmented reality games. For example back in July, Ubisoft expressed how impressed they were with the game and said they had an AR title in the works, but whether or not it will be like Pokemon GO remains to be seen.