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Facebook has reportedly acquired cloud gaming company PlayGiga for €70 million (£59.4 million).
As reported by CNBC (thanks, Engadget), the Madrid-based start-up verified the acquisition last week via the Spanish outlet Cinco Dias. While Facebook has since confirmed the report on Twitter and revealed it was “thrilled to welcome PlayGiga to the Facebook Gaming team,” it added it would not comment further at this time.
We’re thrilled to welcome @PlayGigaOficial to the Facebook Gaming team. We’ll decline further c☁️mment for now.
— Facebook Gaming (@FacebookGaming) December 18, 2019
PlayGiga works with telecom firms, publishers, and media companies “to add gaming as a service (GaaS) to their digital service portfolio”.
“We are excited to announce that the PlayGiga team is moving on to something new,” reads a statement from PlayGiga. “We are continuing our work in cloud gaming, now with a new mission. We want to thank all of our partners and customers for their support over the years.
“Just sit back and enjoy the magic of cloud gaming.”
Facebook also recently acquired Beat Games, the developer of Beat Saber, for an undisclosed sum.
Beat Games team will join Oculus Studios as an independently operated studio in Prague to assist Facebook with its “quest to bring VR to more people around the world”. In a Q&A, Facebook said that Beat Games “is a strong team with proven potential across VR, games, and music” and with “the resources and know-how that [Facebook] 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”.
Facebook was keen to emphasis that “what the community has come to love about Beat Saber will remain intact”, and “Beat Games will continue to ship content and updates for Beat Saber across all currently supported platforms, now with even more support from Facebook”.
Interestingly, the megacorp added that while “there’s a long history of indie studios joining larger companies and being ruined”, Facebook aims to change the script and “prove over time” that together the company will find ways to “push VR to new heights”. It also intimated at the time that it was considering acquiring other studios, stating it’s “exploring many ways to accelerate VR” and “this is just the beginning”.
