Facebook announced today that it will be buying Beat Games, the Czech game studio behind Beat Saber, a rhythm game that’s equal parts Fruit Ninja and Guitar Hero — with lightsabers of course.
Terms were not disclosed. The company will become part of Oculus Studios but will also produce games for other platforms at their HQ in Prague.
Beat Saber is described as a light-saber-endowed spin on the game Dance Dance Revolution. It is regarded as one of the more accessible titles to be produced during the VR era and is available on multiple platforms in addition to Oculus.
Buying Beat Games and bringing it into the fold of Oculus Studios suggest Facebook may be interested in following the strategies Microsoft and Sony have employed as they’ve bought up small studios and funded new titles.
The VR outpost of Facebook said the deal was unlikely to be a one-off. “We’re exploring many ways to accelerate VR, and we think next year is going to be an incredible one of VR game launches and announcements,” Verdu wrote. “We are thrilled to have Beat Games join our team. This is just the beginning.”
Beat Games had begun expansion by partnering with musicians to release their songs as levels in the game, partnering with artists like Imagine Dragons and Panic at the Disco to bring paid level packs to Beat Saber. One can imagine that Facebook will have a much easier time making conversations happen with top artists.
The studio had introduced tools for users to create their own songs with uploaded audio files and unsurprisingly there’s a good deal of content that’s probably not supposed to be on there.
Support Prague Morning!
We are proud to provide our readers from around the world with independent, and unbiased news for free.
Our dedicated team supports the local community, foreign residents and visitors of all nationalities through our website, social media and newsletter.
We appreciate that not everyone can afford to pay for our services but if you are able to, we ask you to support Prague Morning by making a contribution – no matter how small 🙂 .