Published , by Chris Jarrard
Published , by Chris Jarrard
Discord is now one of the most popular voice chat solutions for gamers worldwide and the company is expanding into a new corner of the market - digital game sales. Beginning today, Discord is launching a beta of its upcoming digital games store. The company hope to leverage the information it collects from its users to offer a curated selection of games. Discord’s Nitro gaming subscription service is also getting a fresh batch of titles to entice more gamers to join the service.
"Discord's always been about bringing people together around games. Now, we're bringing games to people with our curated game store and Nitro game subscription service," says Jason Citron, CEO and co-founder of Discord. "We are really excited to help amazing developers get their games out to the market and help players find great new content."
The Nitro subscription service costs $9.99 and allows buffet-style access to a library of games, much like EA’s Origin Access or Microsoft’s Game Pass. The upgraded Nitro service will launch with games from Playdead, Double Fine Productions, and Deep Silver and will be updated with new content on a regular basis. The Discord store will launch with content from THQ Nordic, Versus Evil, and Raw Fury.
The new Discord store will also be home to games that are part of the First on Discord program. Games launched on this program will have ninety days of Discord store-exclusivity before being made available for other platforms.
Time will tell if the new Discord store is something that will help the service grow or if Discord will follow the path of other dedicated services who expanded until their original focus became lost. Is it preferable to be the kings of voice chat or be a jack of all trades and master of none?