Player, get ready! Discord is selling games!

It is weird to think that Discord was launched just 3 years ago, in May 2015. How did we get by without it? In three years, Discord has become a reference for any gamer. I mean, who doesn't have a Discord account nowadays? It is THE social media any gamer joins. It’s a great way to stay in touch with your community, share the latest news, make new friends, discuss games… whether you do that in a voice channel or via the chat. Discord is just great to connect with other gamers. That’s what it’s there for… and the best part is, it’s free!

Now they have reached a mere 150 million users on their platform, they probably felt it was the right time to add a new feature… Discord will start selling games on their platform within the next few days!

A mix between Steam and Netflix

From our prospective, it looks like it’s set to be a mix between Steam and Netflix.

Discord decided to add this feature… for revenue purposes. The company will take 30% from the sale of each game (which matches what Steam does at the moment). And just like Steam, you’ll soon be able to purchase games directly from your Discord Library and launch them directly from your favorite platform. This is just great for multiplayer games, for example, as it will be easy to find team players!

But, you will also be able to choose to opt in for the Nitro subscription, which will be $4.99 per month (or $49.99 per year). That will give you access to free games in the Discord Library. This is the same system as Netflix. You pay monthly, and you have a whole range of movies you can access for free. That will be great for any big gamer, or anyone who wants to try a lot of Indie games for example.

What kind of games?

Discord does not want to include just any kind of game. Each title will be handpicked by a team of curators, and, again as with Netflix, some Indie games will be “First on Discord titles”, so we will see some Discord exclusives there. They will only be exclusive for 90 days though, which should allow enough time for Discord to get some exclusive cash!

When can we start buying games on Discord?

The first people to try it will be some 50 000 Canadian gamers, picked randomly… and they will be able to purchase games or take up the Nitro subscription from this Thursday (August 16th).

At first, the list of games will be limited. The Nitro subscription will only offer 10 games : “Saints Row: The Third,” “Metro: Last Light Redux,” “Darksiders: Warmastered Edition,” “De Blob,” “Tormentor X Punisher,” “Dandara,” “Kathy Rain,” “GoNNER,” “Kingdom: New Lands,” “System Shock Enhanced Edition,” and “Super Meat Boy.

However, we all know that’s just the beginning, and that they will add a lot more games if this works out well.

As of today, we do not yet know when it will be publicly launched… So stay tuned to Discord!

We’re very excited to see how it will work; the games, everything. But we can’t but also worry in a way about the main feature of Discord, which has always been to be a free social media platform for gamers to communicate. So, does this mean the end of Discord as we know it? We hope not. But it’s definitely better than seeing any ads. And by adding this feature, Discord is going to compete with Steam. They certainly have a good user base to start on this path, so we hope they will be able to grow as much as Valve has been able to do in the past. So Valve, !whosagoodbot now?