Unit Games Robloxlike Crayta Facebook Gamingmatneytechcrunch – Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO announced yesterday that the company is buying Unit 2 Games, a studio behind Roblox-like Crayta game platform, says it will integrate Crayta’s toolset into Facebook Gaming’s cloud platform. The announcement came amidst other recent moves made by the social media giant to expand its gaming portfolio. Facebook already has its own game engine and social features built into its main platform as well as other third party platforms such as Unity and Unreal which it purchased. By buying Unit 2, Facebook gets a team of around 20 people and their Crayta game authoring platform which allows developers to create multi-player games in a very fast way, similar to Roblox.
Mark Zuckerberg said: “When it comes to gaming, the most important thing we can do is help developers find new ways to build experiences that bring people closer together and help them have fun when they play games. That’s why we’re so excited to make Crayta available as part of Facebook gaming, which gives users access to a growing library of games that they can play with their friends across the world, and have fun in new ways.” –
Developers using the Crayta platform will get access to the authoring system for multi-player games, its SDKs and AI technology platform. Crayta promises to help developers create games at a faster pace, a Facebook spokesperson said.
Crayta’s technology behind the scenes in helping the platform streamline the process of creating and publishing games quicker than when it would have been done traditionally is due to its AI technology that mimics its namesake found in nature: biology. The company’s “crayfish”-based technology brings along a number of benefits, including scalability to billions of users, as well as personalization and speed.
Facebook has been making a lot of moves lately to diversify its business. Last month the company announced that it acquired Oculus virtual reality goggles. The acquisition price was not disclosed but many analysts have estimated it might have been more than $2 billion. Facebook also has its own development platform built into its main app as well as other third party platforms such as Unity and Unreal which it purchased in 2016 for a reported $300-$400 million, according to tech news site Recode.com .
Today’s acquisition of Crayta was likely an additional way for Facebook to get into the gaming arena, as it already has inroads with the indie game developers who are building games for its platform.
