Discord announced several upgrades to its platform, including allowing users to play casual games.
Discord also created the App Directory, a new store where users can download third-party apps. The media platform has also set up a $5 million ecosystem fund to invest in its app development community. Apps can easily reach a monthly active user base of more than 150 million people. These efforts are all part of Discord’s dedication to “building an open platform” as Anjney Midha, Vice President of Platform Ecosystem at Discord, told a press conference.
Discord launched in 2015 as a way for people to communicate with each other and hang out online before, during, and after playing a game. At the same time, the company has added other use cases to the platform and added flexibility for the types of things people can interact with with Discord.
Now, the company is adding more features to different audiences. It has expanded to become a place to game with your friends, a space to share experiences with the community, and an opportunity for creators to build sustainable brands.
Millions of people are using Nitro subscriptions to use premium features on Discord. Meanwhile, a vibrant application ecosystem has emerged. More than 30% of active servers rely on apps to customize, play fun games, and keep chats safe. Billions of app commands have been used on Discord so far this year, which has doubled from this time last year.
Sharing experiences is at the heart of Discord. While 85% of users surveyed last year said they regularly play games with friends via Discord, their primary purpose of playing is actually to bond with friends. So the company built some simple, easy-to-join Activities that let people connect with each other on Discord.
Activity is “a new feature that combines a fun group experience into voice channels and allows users to play games or watch videos together right on Discord with a single click,” Midha said. “If you go back to the voice channel and the main icon, a main control panel, you can see I have more controls here and the rocket icon. If you click that, it will show all the activities that have access. We have nine activities here and you can see the game.”
Discord Nitro subscribers can kick off more activities. Once launched, you can invite your friends who don’t have Discord Nitro to join the expanded selection of activities. Games designed to run solely on the Discord platform, are browser-based downloadable. All games are developed by Discord and several third-party studios, provided to players as a convenient experience.
