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People can keep their old Steam games and still use Discord. That's what people have been doing since Discord came out (along with Epic Games, Blizzard, EA, etc

People can keep their old Steam games and still use Discord. That's what people have been doing since Discord came out (along with Epic Games, Blizzard, EA, etc.). I'm curious to see how the social stickiness of Discord will affect their foray into a games/app store. I believe that, for multiplayer games at least, people first fire up the way they want to talk with their friends and then set about playing a game. From there, you grow the product into managing and buying your games. If Discord provides some differentiated social benefits to the games bought through their store, then I could see this doing quite well.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
With Steam comes the achievements, the trading cards, etc. Sure, you can copy all of that, but the challenge is that Discord isn't fighting Steam on day one, they're fighting an established library. How do you convince someone with 99 games in Steam that their 100th should be bought through Discord instead? Sure, people can use Discord for chat while playing Steam games, but Discord really doesn't benefit from that. They need to convert chat users into game buyers, and I think you'd need something like Games Anywhere (or more simply, like GOG Connect), to bridge in what people already bought to start the process along. Bonus if you can find a way to bring over people's achievements and other progress.
- tapoxi 8y ago
  > How do you convince someone with 99 games in Steam that their 100th should be bought through Discord instead? You don't have to, there are always people just starting their library. The Discord client is already significantly better than Steam's (which is why its so popular for chat). I think people are pretty meh on Steam achievements since hacks to unlock them are pretty widespread, but Discord would need to provide other platform norms like cloud saves and DRM. I also think Microsoft should swoop in and buy Discord before it's too late. The Xbox brand and UWP need a shot in the arm, and a Discord purchase could finally get PC gamers using Xbox services.
  - Macha 8y ago
    Because that audience didn't collectively jump ship from the last service Microsoft bought _to_ discord. They also don't have a long lasting mistrust of Microsoft due to GFWL, the Xbone attempt to stop game sharing, umpteen "We really care about PC gaming this time, honest" promises, etc. Frankly, while programmers have benefited enough from new Microsoft that people are starting to give them a chance, gamers have not at this point a MS owned Discord would do more harm to Discord than good to MS. Users already see the Microsoft store as a flytrap to avoid, and any future Discord services would be tarred with the same brush.
- benatkin 8y ago
  Discord has a pretty fancy emoji system called Emoji Magic, and a sophisticated user model (for moderation and such). So it's not like they're starting from scratch, either in terms of implementation or having a userbase that expects to find interesting stuff on the platform.
drdaeman 8y ago
> for multiplayer games at least, people first fire up the way they want to talk with their friends and then set about playing a game I believe it's the other way around. At the very least, it's the other way around for me and my friends. We decide we want to play something. Then we check whatever works for voice chat. Used to be Skype, then TeamSpeak 3, then Mumble, then Discord. When Discord had failed we've just brought back old TS3 server (and while I was doing it, we used in-game VoIP stuff, hardcore-mode).
- benatkin 8y ago
  Discord is used like Slack, you don't arrange to meet on Discord before you meet on Discord, you just fire up Discord and see who's around or message someone. I'm sure some use it the way you describe but it doesn't seem like the most common usage pattern to me.
  - gknoy 8y ago
    For day-to-day use, sure. But, a common way that many teams/squads/groups/guilds move to Discord is that they find that _all of the random pick up groups_, or servers, etc, are having people use Discord (instead of Mumble or TS or Ventrilo..etc).

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

With Steam comes the achievements, the trading cards, etc. Sure, you can copy all of that, but the challenge is that Discord isn't fighting Steam on day one, they're fighting an established library. How do you convince someone with 99 games in Steam that their 100th should be bought through Discord instead? Sure, people can use Discord for chat while playing Steam games, but Discord really doesn't benefit from that. They need to convert chat users into game buyers, and I think you'd need something like Games Anywhere (or more simply, like GOG Connect), to bridge in what people already bought to start the process along. Bonus if you can find a way to bring over people's achievements and other progress.

tapoxi 8y ago
> How do you convince someone with 99 games in Steam that their 100th should be bought through Discord instead? You don't have to, there are always people just starting their library. The Discord client is already significantly better than Steam's (which is why its so popular for chat). I think people are pretty meh on Steam achievements since hacks to unlock them are pretty widespread, but Discord would need to provide other platform norms like cloud saves and DRM. I also think Microsoft should swoop in and buy Discord before it's too late. The Xbox brand and UWP need a shot in the arm, and a Discord purchase could finally get PC gamers using Xbox services.
- Macha 8y ago
  Because that audience didn't collectively jump ship from the last service Microsoft bought _to_ discord. They also don't have a long lasting mistrust of Microsoft due to GFWL, the Xbone attempt to stop game sharing, umpteen "We really care about PC gaming this time, honest" promises, etc. Frankly, while programmers have benefited enough from new Microsoft that people are starting to give them a chance, gamers have not at this point a MS owned Discord would do more harm to Discord than good to MS. Users already see the Microsoft store as a flytrap to avoid, and any future Discord services would be tarred with the same brush.
benatkin 8y ago
Discord has a pretty fancy emoji system called Emoji Magic, and a sophisticated user model (for moderation and such). So it's not like they're starting from scratch, either in terms of implementation or having a userbase that expects to find interesting stuff on the platform.

drdaeman 8y ago

> for multiplayer games at least, people first fire up the way they want to talk with their friends and then set about playing a game I believe it's the other way around. At the very least, it's the other way around for me and my friends. We decide we want to play something. Then we check whatever works for voice chat. Used to be Skype, then TeamSpeak 3, then Mumble, then Discord. When Discord had failed we've just brought back old TS3 server (and while I was doing it, we used in-game VoIP stuff, hardcore-mode).

benatkin 8y ago
Discord is used like Slack, you don't arrange to meet on Discord before you meet on Discord, you just fire up Discord and see who's around or message someone. I'm sure some use it the way you describe but it doesn't seem like the most common usage pattern to me.
- gknoy 8y ago
  For day-to-day use, sure. But, a common way that many teams/squads/groups/guilds move to Discord is that they find that _all of the random pick up groups_, or servers, etc, are having people use Discord (instead of Mumble or TS or Ventrilo..etc).