Facebook buys studio behind Roblox-like Crayta gaming platform

Facebook has been making plenty of one-off virtual reality studio acquisitions lately, but today the company announced that they're buying something with wider ambitions - a Roblox-like game creation platform.

Facebook shared that they're buying Unit 2 Games, which builds a platform called Crayta. Like some other platforms out there, it builds on top of the Unreal Engine and gives users a more simple creation interface teamed with discovery and community features. Crayta has cornered its own niche pushing monetization paths like Battle Pass seasons, giving the platform a more Fortnite-like vibe as well.

Unit 2 has been around for just over three years, and Crayta launched just last July. Its audience has likely been limited by the studio's deal to exclusively launch on Google's cloud-streaming platform Stadia, though it's also available on the Epic Games Store as of March.

The title feels designed for the lightweight nature of cloud-gaming platforms, with users able to share access to games just by linking other users, and Facebook seems keen to use Crayta to push forward their own efforts in the gaming sphere.

Crayta has maximized current cloud-streaming technology to make game creation more accessible and easy to use. We plan to integrate Crayta's creation toolset into Facebook Gaming's cloud platform to instantly deliver new experiences on Facebook," Facebook Gaming VP Vivek Sharma wrote in an announcement post.

The entire team will be coming on as part of the acquisition, though financial terms of the deal weren't shared.

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