Oculus just bought Beat Saber developer Beat Games

This should give the studio more opportunities to innovate.

What you need to know

• Oculus has bought Beat Games.
• Beat Games developed Beat Saber, the highly popular VR rhythm title.
• Beat Games will operate as an independent studio in Prague.

Oculus has announced that it has acquired Beat Games, the developer behind Beat Saber. The company emphasized how impressed it was with Beat Games' accomplishments, creating the first VR-only platinum hit.

Beat Saber is a perfect example of why VR is so exciting—VR reimagines old genres and invents new ones. The team at Beat Games made a leap forward in innovation and design with the stellar blend of game mechanics and music in Beat Saber, and yet we know that they, along with so many other devs, are just getting started.

This doesn't mean the game is going away anytime soon. Quite the opposite. Facebook and Oculus want Beat Games to continue to focus on Beat Saber support going forward. The studio will operate independently in Prague. Beat Games is still shipping 360° Levels mode in December. And development will not be prioritized for Oculus, leaving other headsets in the dust. Beat Games will support it and update it on all platforms simultaneously.

It's easy to be skeptical of this acquisition after hearing horror stories of independent studios being ruined after such purchases by larger companies, and Oculus acknowledged it. Director of Content Mike Verdu said that he hopes this will be a success story of like-minded allies joining to take VR to new heights. Oculus intends to buy more studios in the future.

In regards to the modding community, Verdu just said, "We're going to do our best to preserve the value that mods bring to the Beat Saber player base." But he noted that the current policy in place does not protect those who make mods infringing on copyrights or containing malicious code.

New horizons

Beat Saber

$30 at Steam

Oculus sees a lot of potential here

Beat Saber took the internet by storm and quickly became as close to a killer app as VR can get. Now that Beat Games is in the Oculus family, the studio should have the resources to push the limits of VR even further and do bigger and better things.