

Game developers can sell games directly on servers.Įven with the failure of the storefront, Discord remains in a healthy position. It has since shelved the storefront, which was apparently not making Discord or the third-party game developers much money. While Discord Nitro is still running, the company removed the free games feature in 2019, citing lack of interest from subscribers. It also launched a subscription service, Discord Nitro, which included more emojis, larger upload size, server support and access to the video games on the storefront. It launched a games storefront in 2018, which offered a curated set of games. In the first few years, it sold digital stickers and merchandise, but that only pulled in $10 million in revenue in 2017. As more Twitch streamers switched to Discord, it became its own marketing campaign for the app.Įven with the swift growth, accelerating from 10 million monthly active users (MAUs) in 2016 to 45 million in 2018, Discord struggled to find a revenue model. It has also added integrations with Twitch, Spotify and Xbox Live.ĭiscord’s rise coincided with the growth of e-sports, through games like League of Legends, Overwatch and Fortnite, which all had rather limited communication tools. It added video calling and screen sharing in 2017. Discord shadow-banned members of the white supremacist group and many other neo-Nazi and alt-right servers, and has since launched verification and bot-moderation tools to quickly neuter these type of groups.Īt launch, Discord only had text and audio communication. In 2017, a server was used by white supremacists to organize the Charlottesville, Virginia rally. The ability to create unmoderated private servers has caused controversy. While Discord is still considered for gamers, the team have attempted to broaden coverage, in an effort to compete with Slack and Microsoft Teams. There are 6.7 million active servers on Discord, a growing number of which are not gaming related.
