With over 130 million registered users, the online chatting program Discord is currently one of the most popular ways for gamers to casually communicate with each other. It also appears that the team behind the program, Hammer and Chisel, are looking to achieve even greater heights, as there's a new beta which will be available later today. This new update brings about a Store tab on the Discord startup page, and is planned to be a brand new storefront for users to buy games from. Titles from major publishers like THQ Nordic are available, as well as a multitude of indie games. For those that pay the fee for Discord Nitro ($4.99 a month, or $49.99 a year), they'll have access to a handful of games each month, not entirely dissimilar to the likes of PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live. When the service goes live, Nitro users will receive Saints Row: The Third, Metro: Last Light Redux, and Darksiders: Warmastered Edition.

Not only is the storefront major news, but Discord will also be starting up an exclusive funding program. If an indie developer agrees to publish their title on Discord exclusively first, for a minimum of 90 days, the company will help them cover some of the costs of development.

This new addition might make waves, as the current controversies around Steam in regards to adult games, or taking an incredibly lax stance on curation, or Fallout 76 skipping Steam, have some users questioning their support of Valve, and a new alternative could create competition. As of right now, the new Discord beta will only be available to select Canadian Discord Nitro users, where it will then roll out to all users at a later date.

Source: Discord

 

[Deleted User]

This will either go really good or really bad for them, but I'm not looking forward to either outcome. Really can't see why this would be preferable over steam or GOG.

 

[Shadowfied]

Great. Another launcher.
I'm getting pretty fucking sad about the PC gaming situation honestly. I've always preferred gaming on PC and I absolutely love Steam, but now when everyone wants to make their own launcher and prevent PC gaming from being the great thing that it was...it's really exhausting and almost makes me wanna go console.

Let's take a little look..

- Steam
- Origin
- uPlay
- GOG
- Bethesda Games Launcher
- Epic Games Launcher
- Rockstar Social Club
- Discord Library
- Blizzard Launcher
- Windows Store (fucking puke)

..and the list goes on..

Just the idea that you require at least 8 pieces of software on your computer to access most of the AAA library is downright baffling and disgusting.

 

[smilodon]

Oh no, I don't want anyone to touch to Valve prison. They should have the exclusive monopoly and never make games because they are now too wealthy to consider it again.

Wait...

 

[Seriel]

Discord right now:

 

[Darksabre72]

i wonder who will be next to make their own gaming storefront?

 

[Noctosphere]

i wonder who will be next to make their own gaming storefront?

me

 

[Issac]

No thanks. Discord is great for chatting and stuff, but I do prefer keeping my digital games in one place.

 

[Noctosphere]

No thanks. Discord is great for chatting and stuff, but I do prefer keeping my digital games in one place.

as @Issac said, they opened this way too late
I mean. companies like GOG, Steam and origin already have too much clients with too much games to make them move to this one

 

[jakkal]

blocked in my country

wow canada is a hell hold when it comes to basic freedoms

 

[Issac]

as @Issac said, they opened this way too late
I mean. companies like GOG, Steam and origin already have too much clients with too much games to make them move to this one

It would be great if discord could cooperate with steam instead, providing an easy to access voice chat without having to share servers / be friends and so on...
Having some sort of superior chat / voice chat is what discord could have going for it... But in all other aspect, there are already well established outlets for different demographics (steam, gog, ...desura?)

 

[Noctosphere]

wow canada is a hell hold when it comes to basic freedoms

i doubt it was Canada's decision
more like the company that made the original content decided to block it in some country

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

It would be great if discord could cooperate with steam instead, providing an easy to access voice chat without having to share servers / be friends and so on...
Having some sort of superior chat / voice chat is what discord could have going for it... But in all other aspect, there are already well established outlets for different demographics (steam, gog, ...desura?)

never heard of desura
but yea, your idea sounds better than what they are going to do

 

[CathyRina]

I don't get why people would be upset by "yet another storefront". Almost every gamer uses Discord nowadays. Having an additional storefront will only make the market more competitive as everyone will try to make you buy content on their launcher instead of the others. That's part of the beauty of PC gaming. Don't like the price on steam? check the competition till you find the cheapest offer. Options aren't bad and losing monopoly on the market will only force valve to improve.

 

[The Catboy]

But why though?

 

[Volttekka]

Please no

 

[Kioku]

I don't get why people would be upset by "yet another storefront". Almost every gamer uses Discord nowadays. Having an additional storefront will only make the market more competitive as everyone will try to make you buy content on their launcher instead of the others. That's part of the beauty of PC gaming. Don't like the price on steam? check the competition till you find the cheapest offer. Options aren't bad and losing monopoly on the market will only force valve to improve.

Clutter. Wasted space. Wasted resource usage. More "options" that would further divide the community. I mean, we're already forced into 4 stores for certain games. Steam, Origin, UPlay and Microsofts Store. GOG is a great option for DRM-Free. Twitch/Amazon is a must if you want to take advantage of their free games. There is no valid benefit for the end user here. It's strictly business.

 

[SirNapkin1334]

As of right now, the new Discord beta will only be available to select Canadian Discord Nitro users, where it will then roll out to all users at a later date.

Oh, fuck you Discord, I got Canary for a reason!

 

[CathyRina]

Clutter. Wasted space. Wasted resource usage. More "options" that would further divide the community. I mean, we're already forced into 4 stores for certain games. Steam, Origin, UPlay and Microsofts Store. GOG is a great option for DRM-Free. Twitch/Amazon is a must if you want to take advantage of their free games. There is no valid benefit for the end user here. It's strictly business.

Yes I have all of those. I still see no point. You're just 2 clicks away from your games. And you don't have to run all of them at the same time.

 

[VinsCool]

If they go with no DRM, maybe it would be worth a shot.
Though it's redundant to have an additional launcher, competition is always a good thing. Steam has almost the monopoly over this, so who knows, maybe this could provide some good.

 

[dAVID_]

Do we need another GOG?

 

[Edgarska]

This is getting out of hand, now there are 2 3 4 5 6 of them.

 

[Viri]

Though Discord proved last month that they're not really the best at handling problems with their company (FF14 debacle), I think this is actually really smart. You might not want yet another launcher on your computer, but Discord isn't just a launcher, it's a chat program that most people already have downloaded. Plus, the indie funding thing is great, and honestly, this is the best possible option to create a competitor to Steam. For now, I don't feel entirely comfortable buying games from Discord when I have over 300 on Steam, but if Discord offers a better looking solution, or cheaper sales, or such, they could really be on to something.

What happened with Discord and FF14?

Discord right now:

I think something like that happened in California in the early 2000's. Which caused their prices to go up, I'm not 100% sure.

 

[Chary]

What happened with Discord and FF14?

I think something like that happened in California in the early 2000's. Which caused their prices to go up, I'm not 100% sure.

https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/91k548/our_subreddit_lost_partner_status_due_to_a_tos/

tldr FF14 Discord lost partner status because NSFW room. Thing is, the change from NSFW being allowed or not was made silently, and wasn't actually stated on the partner server rules from Discord. Meanwhile, using racial slurs is against partner rules, yet partnered servers like Overwatch, etc, have thousands of uses of such words, and they're still partners. Discord staff seemed to handle it terribly, basically gaslighting the owner of the FF14 server, and the rest of the staff waiving the issue under the rug like it was nothing.