W4 Games, a firm dedicated to fortifying the open-source Godot game engine ecosystem, has partnered with Meta to elevate game development on the Meta Quest Platform.
By empowering developers using the Godot engine to create and publish extended reality (XR) games, the partnership aims to broaden the Godot games portfolio on Meta Quest, contributing to the growth of the open-source game development ecosystem.
Meta Quest, the leading platform for immersive virtual and mixed-reality experiences, serves as a hub for games, applications, and interactive content. W4 recently announced the first beta release of W4 Cloud, an open-source backend for online and multiplayer games optimized for the Godot Engine.
The Godot Engine, known for its accessibility, rapid learning curve, and permissive license, has gained popularity among indie developers for 2D and 3D game creation. In 2023, over 1,000 commercial Godot games were published, signaling its increasing adoption within the game development community. The Godot engine competes with the commercial Unity and Unreal game engines.
Nicola Farronato, Co-CEO of W4 Games, said in a statement, “The future of the gaming experience will be highly impacted by new XR technologies, and we are confident that this strategic collaboration will augment Godot’s growth path.”
Founded in 2021, W4 Games is an Irish startup formed by Godot veterans Juan Linietsky, Rémi Verschelde, and Fabio Alessandrelli, along with veteran entrepreneur Farronato. The company seeks to revolutionize the game industry by introducing the Commercial Open Source Software (COSS) business model to an ecosystem traditionally relying on proprietary solutions.
By providing commercial services anchored in the open and community-developed Godot platform, W4 Games aims to empower companies with greater control, freedom, and flexibility in game development technology.
The strategic collaboration between Meta and W4 Games will enhance OpenXR features, including improving functionality, performance, and usability of OpenXR features within Godot to benefit all VR developers.
It will also provide an integration of Meta Quest SDKs via plugins and expose more Meta Quest features to end-users. And the collaborators will develop a release template optimized for Quest users that leverages Meta Quest technology.
And it will provide educational materials and marketing with high-quality samples, documentation, and educational materials, along with joint marketing activities.
Developers interested in learning more about building games with the Godot Engine can visit the Godot Pavilion at GDC 2024, booth S763, North & South Halls.