Google acquires Owlchemy Labs VR game studio

Google has acquired the VR game studio behind such popular gaming titles as Job Simulator and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality.

In a blog post, the founding team of the Austin-based Owlchemy Labs detailed that it has been acquired and will be joining the team at Google. “Today is a REAAAALLY BIG day for Owlchemy. We’re positively thrilled to announce that Owlchemy Labs has been acquired by Google!”

Owlchemy Labs, founded in 2010, has raised $5 million in seed funding from Capital Factory, Qualcomm Ventures, Colopl VR Fund, HTC and The Venture Reality Fund.

The games studio will continue to build content under Google’s direction for the many platforms it is currently on, including the HTC Vive, PS VR and Oculus Rift.

We are continuing to do all of this with even more support and focus on building awesome stuff. It’s incredibly exciting that Google and Owlchemy are so well aligned on our goals and vision for the future of VR.

Job Simulator has been one of the most successful VR game titles to be released thus far. The company has said that the title was the best-selling game for the PlayStation VR store and has reached over $3 million in revenue — a major success given the quantity of headsets out in the wild.

In a blog post, Relja Markovic, Google’s engineering director of VR and AR, detailed that together the teams will “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.”

Google is investing significant resources into virtual reality as it looks to make its Android smartphone OS the de facto platform for VR through its Daydream initiative. A limited number of devices are currently capable of running on Daydream, but Google’s more bare-bones system, Cardboard, is the most popular VR platform out there, with more than 10 million headsets sold over the last several years.

Google has been involved in the proliferation of VR content, as well; the company’s cross-platform painting title Tilt Brush is a favorite among creatives, while the port of Google Earth that the company released earlier this year has gathered significant attention, as well.