To pour more resources into its Oculus content, Facebook has acquired Beat Games—the studio that developed the VR title Beat Saber.
Originally reported by Gamasutra, Beat Games will continue to operate independently, providing ongoing support for Beat Saber.
Discussing the acquisition on the official Oculus blog, Oculus Director of Content—Mike Verdu—said that “Beat Games is a strong team with proven potential across VR, games, and music. With the resources and know-how that we can offer, Beat Games will be able to accelerate adding more music and more exciting features to Beat Saber as well as bringing the game to more people.”
When broaching the subject of how to avoid ruining an indie studio that gets bought by a bigger company, Verdu commented thusly: “The story we aim to prove is this: An indie studio joins forces with some like-minded allies, and together they find a way to push VR to new heights.”
Furthermore, Verdu goes on to address what the acquisition means for the modding community, explaining that Oculus will do their best to “preserve the value that mods bring to the Beat Saber player base.” Verdu also mentions that mods must continue to be done legally and within the company’s policies. “It is not intended for engaging in piracy or illicit modding, including mods that infringe on third-party IP rights or contain malicious code.”
Beat Saber is a VR rhythm game that launched in May 2018 for HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Solstice, and Windows Mixed Reality on PC. The PlayStation VR version was released in November 2018 and was the launch title for Oculus Quest in May 2019. Players use VR motion controllers to wield a pair of lightsabers to slash at colored blocks that approach in sync with a given song’s beats and notes. Each song has up to five levels of difficulty.
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