Facebook Inc. today said it has acquired virtual reality games developer Ready At Dawn Studios LLC for an undisclosed price to enhance its Oculus VR gaming division.

Founded in 2003, Ready at Dawn initially started as a regular games studio before moving into VR in the mid-2010s. In July 2017 the company released Lone Echo and Echo Arena exclusively for the Oculus Rift.

Echo Arena was adopted as part of the VR League, a VR esports competition that is run by ESL, previously known as the Electronic Sports League. Other Oculus exclusive titles include Echo Combat and Lone Echo II, the latter currently in development.

“With Facebook’s latest advancements in VR technology, Ready At Dawn can readily explore a future of rich and immersive original VR content,” Mike Verdu, vice president of augmented reality and VR content at Facebook, said in a blog post. “As part of the Oculus Studios team, Ready At Dawn will continue creating memorable, immersive, and innovative VR content for gamers around the world as an independently-operated studio. ”

The acquisition is the second for Facebook in the VR gaming market this year after the social networking giant acquired Sanzaru Inc., the developer of the VR game called “Asgard’s Wrath,” in February.

Facebook acquired Oculus in 2014 for a reported price of $2 billion at the time. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg later said in 2017 that the acquisition price was actually $3 billion.

Virtual reality was meant to be the next big thing, but in 2020 it remains nothing more than a niche market. The technology continues to improve but VR has yet to offer a must-have application or game that might take it into the mainstream. Oculus is currently the market leader among VR-only companies, with an estimated 28% share, according to Statista. Sony Corp. has a bigger share of 36.7% through its PlayStation4 VR headset.

The acquisition comes as Facebook may gain a boost in gaming after Microsoft Corp. today announced that it was closing its Mixer game live streaming platform.

Mixer, originally called Beam and acquired by Microsoft in August 2016, was pitched as a competitor to Amazon.com Inc.’s Twitch livestreaming service. Microsoft pumped serious money into the service in an attempt to make it popular, in particular signing popular Twitch streamers for exclusive streaming deals. They included Richard Blevins, known online as Ninja, for a reported $10 million to $20 million for three years.

Despite’s Microsoft’s millions, Mixer never took off, which is why Microsoft has announced that it’s closing the service as of July 22.

Blowing several hundred million on Mixer without success is not something Microsoft would admit to even in the age of CEO Satya Nadella. Instead, the official announcement noted that Mixer’s community is being transitioned to Facebook Gaming.

“Ultimately, the success of Partners and streamers on Mixer is dependent on our ability to scale the service for them as quickly and broadly as possible,” Microsoft’s Xbox gaming division said in a statement. “It became clear that the time needed to grow our own live streaming community to scale was out of measure with the vision and experiences we want to deliver to gamers now, so we’ve decided to close the operations side of Mixer and help the community transition to a new platform.”

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