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Virtual reality devleoper Owlchemy Labs has been purchased by Google.
The Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality developer announced the news on their blog. Whilst no details of the financials or conditions of the deal were made public, the studio did confirm tha tthey will continue to do multi-platform releases.
"Looking back on the past couple of years, it’s honestly pretty crazy to think about the humble beginnings of Owlchemy, growing from a team of 4 to a parliament of 23 owls today," the studio said on their blog. "VR acted as an electromagnet for our science-focused brains as it presented us with the most expansive field of untapped potential and tough unsolved problems. Once we dipped our toes into the VR waters in the early DK1 days, we quickly vowed to never look back and build a flat-screen game again, and to jump headfirst into the awesome potential of VR.
"We both believe that VR is the most accessible computing platform and that there’s a ton of work to be done, especially with regards to natural and intuitive interactions," said Owlchemy on the new partnership. "Together with Google, with which we share an incredible overlap in vision, we’re free to pursue raw creation and sprint toward interesting problems in these early days of VR."
Relja Markovic, engnineering director of VR and AR at Google also spoke about the deal in a blog post on their website. "We care a lot about building and investing in compelling, high-quality, and interactive virtual reality experiences and have created many of our own," said Markovic. "They’ve created award-winning games, which have really thoughtful interactive experiences that are responsive, intuitive, and feel natural. They’ve helped set a high bar for what engagement can be like in virtual worlds, and do it all with a great sense of humor!
"Together, we’ll be working to create engaging, immersive games and developing new interaction models across many different platforms to continue bringing the best VR experiences to life."
