Discord no longer has a game store. Instead, games can now be sold on its servers

Discord, whose audience reached 200 million people in December, has made major changes to the distribution model of games. He closed his own game store, but at the same time allowed developers to sell them themselves as part of the service.

In order to understand exactly what happened and how Discord works now, a little background with clarifications is needed.

What happened before?

Launched in 2015, Discord is a platform for communication between gamers, including during gaming sessions. Over the past couple of years, it has also been actively used by game developers to form a community and receive feedback.

Communication in Discord takes place on so-called servers, which can be compared in functionality with Facebook and VKontakte groups. Server owners (including game developers) create various text and voice channels on them, in which community members constantly exchange messages.

Last August, Discord launched a game store as part of its PC application. Until recently, it has been actively developing. For example, in November, early access appeared in it, and in December Discord even attracted $ 150 million for the development of the game store. Tencent was listed among the investors.

This is what the Discord store looked like
In parallel with the store, Discord developed a Nitro subscription, the payment of which gives both additional opportunities to work with the service and opens free access to a separate game library.

What has changed?

Discord removed the storefront. In fact, Discord, which SuperData analysts called Steam’s main competitor back in July, no longer has its own game store. Now in its place is the Nitro showcase, from which subscribers choose projects to download.

However, Discord made it possible for developers to directly sell their games to the gaming community. Now, on the servers of games that will receive verification, their developers can put the “Download” or “Buy” button.

This is how the server of the verified game should look like
In addition, the messenger has introduced new analytics that will allow you to track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns (including by source), the number of game activations, SKU, as well as revenue by region and type of content (for example, how many copies of the game were purchased, and how many DLC to it).

One of the Discord analytics screensWhat else has appeared interesting for developers?

• Added extensive opportunities to work with the sale and distribution of the game at different stages of its readiness. At the alpha stage, it can be offered to a limited number of players (with the help of invites). At the early access stage, sell only to the most loyal fans, and after launching, implement IAP and DLC directly on the project page.
• Discord now has the ability to send push messages to server participants and give projects as a gift.
• You can also install the SDK from Discord, which will allow the game to support cloud saves, coupon system, voice communication, lobby, and so on.

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Now it is not completely clear how the new opportunities will be monetized. Discord informs you that server verification is not free. But whether it will be carried out once or regularly, based on sales, is not specified. Previously, Discord stated that from 2019 it will take only 10% from game sales.