14 DAY TRIAL // Facebook has just announced a new acquisition for its VR department – Beat Game, the studio behind the critically-acclaimed Beat Saber game. Beat Games will join Facebook's Oculus Studios, but it will continue to work independently, the social network said in a statement earlier this week.
Beat Saber's devs will operate from Facebook's studio in Prague and will continue to create ways for people to experience music and VR gaming. The company also announced that Beat Saber will remain intact after the acquisition and that developers will continue to release content and updates for the game across all currently supported platforms.
Facebook also revealed one of the reasons it decided to buy Beat Saber developer and confirmed that it will continue to explore ways to accelerate VR by acquiring other studios in the coming years.
“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.”
It's a bit unclear what will happen with the mods, as Beat Saber has a passionate community that continuously brings custom songs and other features to the game. Facebook says that it will do its best to preserve the value that mods bring to the Beat Saber player base.
On the other hand, it highlights one of the policy updates that explain how developer mode is intended to be used: “As a reminder, our most recent policy updates give more clarity to how developer mode is intended to be used, such as helping developers build their apps or for enthusiasts to explore new concepts. It is not intended for engaging in piracy or illicit modding, including mods that infringe on third-party IP rights or contain malicious code.”
No financial details about the acquisition have been revealed in the announcement, but this seems like a done deal, as Facebook has already added Beat Games to Oculus Studios.