W4 Games and Meta Team Up to Expand Open-Source Godot Ecosystem on Meta Quest

W4 Games, on a mission to help the video game industry reclaim control by strengthening the open-source Godot ecosystem, today announced that it is collaborating with Meta to significantly improve the game developer experience with Godot on the Meta Quest Platform. By empowering developers who choose the Godot engine to create and publish extended reality (XR) games, the companies will expand the Godot games portfolio on Meta Quest and the open-source game development ecosystem.

"We're really excited to announce this new partnership with Meta since we believe it will provide great new opportunities for Godot game developers and allow them to reach out to new audiences through the Meta Quest Platform. 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," said Nicola Farronato, Co-CEO of W4 Games.

Meta Quest is one of the most compelling platforms to provide virtual and mixed-reality experiences and entertainment, and it is fueled by games, applications, and interactive content. The Godot Engine is a free and open-source technology for 2D and 3D game creation that became popular among indies for its ease of use, very fast learning curve, and permissive license (MIT). In 2023, more than a thousand commercial Godot games were published and a growing number of promising titles signal the accelerating adoption by the game development community. With a strong, year-over-year growth rate, Godot has climbed the rankings of the game industry to challenge well-established proprietary solutions and expand to fast-growing gaming segments like virtual and mixed reality.

Meta and W4's strategic collaboration enables new and exciting opportunities for the fast-growing Godot users community, the open-source gaming community, and Quest users alike. In particular, the partnership will cover:

• Improving functionality, performance and usability of OpenXR features within Godot for the benefit of all VR developers
• Providing an integration of the Meta Quest SDKs via plugin and exposing more Meta Quest features to end-users
• Developing an optimized release template specifically for Quest users that leverages Meta Quest technology
• Creating high-quality samples and documentation to help Godot users develop for Meta Quest

The strategic partnership also contemplates the development of educational materials and joint marketing activities in the coming years. Meta and W4 Games are dedicated to contributing as much of this work as possible to the Godot project as part of our shared commitment to the open-source community.

Learn more about Godot ? and celebrate at GDC

Developers can learn more about building games with the Godot Engine at GDC 2024. Visit the Godot Pavilion, booth S763, North & South Halls ? and celebrate the passionate community at the heart of the open-source movement transforming game development.

About W4 Games

Founded in 2021, W4 Games is an Irish startup formed by Godot veterans Juan Linietsky, Rémi Verschelde and Fabio Alessandrelli, and veteran entrepreneur Nicola Farronato. The company plans to revolutionize the game industry by bringing the Commercial Open Source Software (COSS) business model to an ecosystem that has traditionally relied on proprietary solutions from an ever-shrinking number of independent vendors. By providing a commercial services offering anchored in the entirely open and community-developed Godot platform, W4 Games believes that companies will be able to reclaim control of the technology powering their games, with a level of freedom and flexibility they never had before.