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Wait, when did Curse go from an addon manager and a community around sharing mods to a Skype/Discord clone? Was it always that, or is this a relatively recent d

by niftich 10y ago

Wait, when did Curse go from an addon manager and a community around sharing mods to a Skype/Discord clone? Was it always that, or is this a relatively recent development? It's interesting how Twitch doubling down on its 'this where gamers go' audience. I wonder what the corporate owner, Amazon, has to gain from this. It's true that gamers respond well to ads about high-margin computer parts, but do their motives go beyond ad serving to actual community building?

unsignedqword 10y ago
I hadn't heard of Curse until somewhat recently and I was kind of surprised to find out that they had a previous incarnation as a game addon manager/community thing. Apparently they started to pivot with a VOIP/chat program about two years ago called "Curse Voice" and when things like Slack & Discord started to gather steam they put their chat app front and center and started to scale back the addon stuff.
Washuu 10y ago
The Curse Voice product was being internally developed in early 2014. I believe the planning/thoughts for it were happening before then, but it has been long enough that I forgot some of the details. I would have to ping the project lead for additional clarification. Disclaimer: I work for Curse.
- stevenwiles 10y ago
  Did you work in the San Francisco office? I was also a Curse employee at the time.
  - Washuu 10y ago
    Nope, only in Huntsville.
ben_jones 10y ago
Twitch is really a phenomenon. It provides incredibly well targeted marketing to a very large demographic (gamers) and has an amazingly good public reputation because it compensates content producers extremely well by granting them free access to a large number of revenue streams that were previously unavailable. Personally I enjoy playing competitive Overwatch and learn a lot of technical skills from watching some of the better players who stream on Twitch. I happily turn off ad block whenever I do this because I think the players deserve it. On a psychological level I think twitch appeals to the masses because it offers a social interaction that is missing for many gamers.

by niftich 10y ago

unsignedqword 10y ago

I hadn't heard of Curse until somewhat recently and I was kind of surprised to find out that they had a previous incarnation as a game addon manager/community thing. Apparently they started to pivot with a VOIP/chat program about two years ago called "Curse Voice" and when things like Slack & Discord started to gather steam they put their chat app front and center and started to scale back the addon stuff.

Washuu 10y ago

The Curse Voice product was being internally developed in early 2014. I believe the planning/thoughts for it were happening before then, but it has been long enough that I forgot some of the details. I would have to ping the project lead for additional clarification. Disclaimer: I work for Curse.

stevenwiles 10y ago
Did you work in the San Francisco office? I was also a Curse employee at the time.
- Washuu 10y ago
  Nope, only in Huntsville.

ben_jones 10y ago

Twitch is really a phenomenon. It provides incredibly well targeted marketing to a very large demographic (gamers) and has an amazingly good public reputation because it compensates content producers extremely well by granting them free access to a large number of revenue streams that were previously unavailable. Personally I enjoy playing competitive Overwatch and learn a lot of technical skills from watching some of the better players who stream on Twitch. I happily turn off ad block whenever I do this because I think the players deserve it. On a psychological level I think twitch appeals to the masses because it offers a social interaction that is missing for many gamers.