Meta has nearly scrubbed all of its products of the Oculus name, however the company today announced its third-party publishing wing is getting a sort of rebrand that will see the Oculus name live on.
Meta announced at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) that it’s naming its third-party publishing arm Oculus Publishing. The company tells us Oculus Studios, its first-party studio, will continue to exist.
To date, Meta’s growing fleet of acquired first-party studios includes Beat Games (Beat Saber), Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath), Ready at Dawn (Lone Echo & Echo VR), Downpour Interactive (Onward), BigBox VR (Population: One), and Within (Supernatural).
Third-party titles under Oculus Publishing include Among Us VR (Innersloth, Schell Games), Bonelab (Stress Level Zero), The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners (Skydance Interactive), and Blade & Sorcery: Nomad (Warpfrog).
Notably, there’s little left that sports the Oculus brand since the company made its big metaverse pivot in October 2021. Besides older hardware, the only things most people see with the ‘Oculus’ moniker is the Oculus PC app and Meta’s Oculus web portal, where the company still lists game libraries for Quest, Rift, Go, and Gear VR.
“This year marks a full decade since the inception of the original Oculus Content Team,” the company says in a developer blog post. “From Kickstarter to Quest, Meta has committed hundreds of millions of dollars in third-party content funding and specialized development support to help make the VR games landscape what it is today. Now, we’re excited to unveil an official name for one of the world’s largest VR games programs for developers: Oculus Publishing.”
The company says Oculus Publishing will continue to directly partner with development teams on conceptualization, funding, production, technology advancement, game engineering, promotion and merchandising.
The company says it’s contributed funding to “more than 300 titles,” and that there are another 150 titles in active development today.
