Beat Saber can be regarded as one of the most successful VR games ever made, shipping more than 1 million units worldwide. It was created by an indie studio Beat Games which, in a surprising turn of events, has been acquired by Facebook. The new announcement on the Oculus blog post revealed that Beat Games is joining Oculus Studios to create even more immersive VR experiences.
The blog post states that while Beat Games will become a part of a big Oculus Studios family, for the time being, it will continue to operate independently. The post reads:
“Today we’re announcing that Beat Games is joining us in our quest to bring VR to more people around the world. 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.”
We can look at this news from a couple of angles. The downside of this acquisition is, of course, the fact that one more indie developer is being consumed by a larger company that might influence its future projects. On the other hand, Beat Games retains their independence regarding creativity but gains a lot more resources to work with which might result in even more immersive VR experiences, more content for Beat Saber and even new games.
For those who already own a VR device and have already bought Beat Saber, this new acquisition can be daunting. Beat Games previously announced their next content update for Beat Saber introducing all-new 360° Levels mode which was supposed to be released this December. Fear not! It won’t influence the release time-table, so you’ll get your new levels and songs before the year is out.
It will be interesting to see what this talented bunch will be able to do next having Facebook’s financial support. We’ll just have to wait and see.
