Discord Now Has a Game Store
- Mehedi Hassan
- Aug 09, 2018
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When Steam launched a modern chat experience, all the company did was clone Discord. You see, with more than 150 million users and nearly 20 million daily users, Discord has become a huge threat for Steam, a go-to platform for games for many. I previously predicted that Discord will likely launch its own digital gaming store sometime soon to take on Steam. And now, it’s here.
Discord today announced that the company has started beta testing a new digital game store with 50,000 of its Canadian users. Yes, you can now buy and play games on Discord. The Discord app now has a storefront where you will find a curated list of games available for purchase, and launch them from within the app. At launch, Discord doesn’t have a ton of games, but that list is bound to grow over time. For now, you will only be able to purchase games like Dead Cells, Frostpunk, Omensight, Into the Breach, SpellForce 3, The Banner Saga 3, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, Hollow Knight, Moonlighter, This is the Police 2, and Starbound. Not too bad for a beta launch.
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That’s not all. Those who subscribe to Discord’s Nitro subscription service will also be getting free access to some games. The $5 a month service will now give you access to some games every month, launching first with titles like 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.
Discord’s gaming store seems like the future of its business. So far, it was only able to make money from Nitro, and all of that changes today with the new gaming store. The company is even launching a “First on Discord” program where indie game developers will exclusively release some of their new games on Discord, and then make the titles available elsewhere after 90 days of exclusivity.
It’s no surprise Discord has become the modern gamer’s go-to platform for gaming. Discord has slowly become the industry standard for gamers and streamers — with powerful third-party integrations and a modern-take on a communication platform gamers, Discord is ahead of Steam when it comes to communication. And now with the digital gaming store, Discord can soon be seen as a full-fledged alternative to Steam, as long as the firm can pull in some of the world’s biggest titles to its game store. After all, Steam has a huge collection of games, and that could take Discord years to overtake.