Discord Store is the chat platform's game storefront meant to compete with Steam
The company is trying to give Steam a run for its money.
Discord is hopping on the "diverging from Steam" bandwagon, as the chat platform has just announced a beta version of a new storefront: the Discord Store. The new storefront, which has a very, very simple name, is Discord's very first attempt at delivering games directly to users, and it's going to begin rolling out to around 50,000 Canadian users first before the rest of the world gets to have a spin with it.
The store will offer games from all across the gaming spectrum, from indie developers to larger publishers, and it will offer a new type of monetization for the popular chat client. Beta participants will be selected out of a pool of Discord Nitro subscribers and given access to a new game subscription service, which will also allow them to buy games directly through Discord. Discord Nitro is $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year.
There will also be a "First on Discord" list of titles, comprised of indie games that Discord will work to bring to fruition. They'll be up for grabs for a short period of time first on Discord, and then they'll be released elsewhere. There'll also be a new Universal Library feature that's going to let users opt to allow Discord to scan their computers for games, then launch them directly from Discord. It's certainly an interesting idea, and one that you should be able to try in the near future, when it's all out of beta.
If you want to check out the full announcement, head over here to the official Discord blog. It's an admirable attempt of the platform to make a play at becoming a large gaming storefront, but we'll have to see how it ends up comparing to Steam. Will you be giving it a try or are you more interested in relegating it to all your chatting needs?
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replyBrittany Vincent posted a new article, Discord Store is the chat platform's game storefront meant to compete with Steam
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I suspect that a curated indie lineup will be Discord's main strength since AAAs are mostly migrating over to their own services. Its also a way to differentiate themselves from the shotgun blast style of non-curation that happens on Steam.
The list of games they've given so far are mostly indies like Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, Frostpunk, Banner Saga 3, Pillars Of Eternity 2, and Gonner, all very high quality stuff. The third party games they have are older ones like Saints Row 4, Metro Last Light Redux, and Darksiders 2.
I think this will be their template for the future, same with Twitch/Amazon. New AAAs will be limited more and more to Battlenet, Origin, and Bethesda. Publishers won't play ball with their new games, but they won't play ball with Steam either.
Discord's indie-focused service isn't entirely relevant to me since I mainly buy indies on Switch now, but the "Netflix of gaming" perks that Twitch, Origin, and soon Discord will have are still pretty compelling. I subscribe to Nitro anyway so I might still get something good out of it. -
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