Have you heard of Job simulator? Or maybe Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality? Well, Google has acquired the game studio that is behind these popular titles. Yup, Owlchemy labs is now being acquired by the tech behemoth and the studio team is joining Google.
The company was founded in 2010 and since then, has raised over $5 million in funding from a variety of big shot investors like Capital Factory, Qualcomm Ventures, Colopl VR Fund, HTC and The Venture Reality Fund. The company is now ready to make the shift to bigger leagues with Google.
Announcing the acquisition, Owlchemy said:
Today is a REAAAALLY BIG day for Owlchemy. We’re positively thrilled to announce that Owlchemy Labs has been acquired by Google!
The company will still continue building games and other VR content under Google. And as far as we have been able to ascertain, this also means that the company will operate with a fair degree of independence.
Owlchemy will continue building high quality VR content for platforms like the HTC Vive, Oculus Touch, and PlayStation VR. This means continuing to focus on hand interactions and high quality user experiences, like with Job Simulator. This means continuing our mission to build VR for everyone, and doing all of this as the same silly Owlchemy Labs you know and love.
Some of the company’s titles have been major successes. Job Simulator for instance, generated over $3 Million in revenue. Consider that there aren’t exactly that many titles out there in the first place, and $3 million suddenly starts sounding even more impressive.
Along with developing games, Google and Owlchemy team will also be collaborating to develop new interaction models across different platforms. This integration could also see a ramping up in Google’s own capabilities as it seeks to position itself as a major player in VR. The company’s two major products in the field — the cardboard and Daydream — both have their own failings. While the cardboard is pretty basic, the Daydream isn’t supported on all that many devices and still needs adaption.
