The Discord store is going live for everyone today. After launching into a limited test in August, Discord is opening up its big new features. The store will sell select list of games. But Discord is also getting a library-management tool and the $10-per-month Nitro game-subscription service.
Over the last three years, Discord has grown into the hangout destination for PC gamers. It enables players to create their own servers that they control and have ownership over. You can then use these digital gathering spots to chat or to communicate through voice in online multiplayer games. By providing a simple solution for those tasks, Discord has attracted more than 150 million registered users. And now the company is looking for a way to generate some serious revenue from that audience. That’s where the store comes in.
But Discord doesn’t just want to throw games at people and hope they buy something. It wants to ensure that its store feels consistent with the Discord experience.
“Discord’s always been about bringing people together around games,” Discord chief executive Jason Citron said. “Now, we’re bringing games to people with our curated game store and Nitro game subscription service. We are really excited to help amazing developers get their games out to the market and help players find great new content.”
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Discord-like solution
I asked the Discord team what it has learned from two months of testing the store with a small group of users in Canada. And Discord chief marketing officer Eros Remini explained that it was about realizing how much work running a store really is.
“We learned that finding quality games is difficult and takes more time than we realized,” said Remini. “We finally got to a point where we are happy with the catalog and product experience and are ready to share it with players worldwide.”
And the experience seems sharp. The store has more games than I was expecting, and so does the Nitro subscription. The store pages have all the of the info you want, and it’s easy to browse. If you have a Nitro membership, it’s also simple to find those games and add them to your library. That said, the process could go even quicker if you didn’t have to click through to each page and add the games one at a time.
But the real star of the new Discord is the Library tab. This is where all of your purchased and Nitro games will show up. You can also add anything else installed on your system as well with a click of a button. That instantly adds all of your games from services like Steam, Origins, and Battle.net as long as you have already downloaded them. I love this because it creates a new central hub where I can see all of my games without having to actively keep multiple publisher portals open at once.
I plan to use the library feature. Additionally, I expect to continue using the Activity tab to see what my friends are playing — and I’m curious to see if that will lead to me making purchases.
