Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Facebook didn't want to rush into the Thanksgiving holiday without at least one big-time announcement and this is a pretty big one for virtual reality users. One of the most high-profile VR games is now officially falling under the Facebook and Oculus umbrellas, as the Mark Zuckerberg giant announced on Tuesday that it was picking up developer Beat Games, the force behind musical phenomenon Beat Saber.
"Today we're announcing that Beat Games is joining us in our quest to bring VR to more people around the world," Director of Content Mike Verdu stated on the Oculus website. "They will join Oculus Studios as an independently operated studio in Prague, continuing to create new ways for people to experience music and VR gaming. Most importantly, what the community has come to love about Beat Saber will remain intact. Beat Games will continue to ship content and updates for Beat Saber across all currently supported platforms, now with even more support from Facebook."
Beat Saber has proven to be one of VR gaming's biggest success stories. The game sold one million copies back in March. Sales came largely via word-of-mouth, with Beat Games able to sell its game without any PR work. This will obviously change going forward now that billion-dollar tech giant Facebook is backing the company.
As part of the announcement, Verdu added that all versions of Beat Saber would continue to receive support moving forward. While many are understandably skeptical of what this means for Beat Saber's future, Verdu does his best to assure users that Beat Games will continue to operate independently. He even addresses a question that touches on indie studios "being ruined" through larger acquisitions. Whether Beat Saber is actually ruined by this announcement is an answer that will only come with time.
Beat Saber is available now on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR. As for Facebook, they don't appear to be done yet. On the subject of announcements and acquisitoins, Verdu teased, "This is just the beginning."