Discord is adding a bunch of new features to the beloved VoIP app, such as games for subscribers, its own shop and a proper library. This rather big leap is another testament to Discord's rampant growth over the three years since launch.
While Valve was attempting to enter Discord's market by adding voice chat to Steam, the Discord team struck back by adding their own store and games library. They have rolled out a beta version today for about 50.000 Canadian players in order to test out the new features. This new Discord will become available gradually to more and more people leading up to an official launch.
First on the list of new features is an addition to Discord Nitro, the subscription service. While it initially offered custom, animated avatars and other amenities such as high quality screen share and tag choice, the service will now offer a list of curated games. The list of the games is not available yet though, but the Discord team will likely share it in the near future.
On top of the curated games, Discord will be adding its own store. The store's offerings will apparently be hand picked, in order to offer the most interesting games alongside the newest releases. It will be interesting to see if this model will be viable in the long run though, as having the newest releases don't necessarily mean having good ones.
This is not Discord's primary goal with the store though, as they have mentioned that they will aim for "cozy neighbourhood book shop" kind of experience, due to the store being a small one that should feel like small escape from the giant corporations shelling out run of the mill services.
Discord
The store will aim to feel personalised to Discord's users, so it's likely surveys will be available from time to time so the team can see what their user base likes. They have included an example on the , with a small review of Dead Cells and why they think Discord users will like the game. It's plagiarism-free as far as I could tell.
