Discord Grows a Central Hub of Social Gaming and Community Engagement

Initially designed to fill a need for multiplayer gamers to interact, the communications platform Discord has grown into a vital hub for gamers, developers and creators alike. Launched in 2015, Discord has redefined social gaming by offering a platform that goes beyond simple communication.

“Back in 2015, our co-founders Jason Citron (CEO) and Stan Vishnevskiy (CTO) had a hunch that multiplayer gaming would be the future of entertainment and that people would need a well-made communications platform to talk with their gaming friends,” Anthony King, director, business development at Discord, told PYMNTS.

“Today, this hunch has become a reality. To address this new reality, we’ve continuously invested in bringing our platform from PC to mobile, and now almost fully integrated on consoles, including Discord Voice chat and Stream from Xbox to Discord, as well as Discord Voice chat on PlayStation,” King added. “We’ve worked hard to help players find connection around games and shared interests.”

Discord is a chat platform that allows users to communicate via text, voice and video within organized servers. These servers can be public or private, offering a space for users to connect over specific interests or events.

Unlike social media platforms, Discord is ad-free, doesn’t sell user data and prioritizes creating a straightforward, enjoyable environment for communication. The app is free to use and focuses on creating genuine connections instead of monetizing personal information.

“Much of the culture of playing games has found its home on Discord, and now we see every day across thousands of different titles that if a trend in gaming or a new game is surging in popularity, that activity is happening on our platform,” King said.

“Another way we’ve evolved over the last 10 years is our increased support for developers of all types — from Indie to AAA — as they are central to accomplishing that mission,” he added. “We believe that Discord can become a sandbox that fosters creativity and breakthroughs in social gaming, and that new types of games — built around friend groups — can emerge on Discord. Developers like FRVR and Playroom have been early to build Activities and are already seeing massive success.”

Making Connections

Discord is designed with customization and flexibility in mind, King said. Users can create tailored servers, set up bots to automate tasks, and introduce personalized roles and permissions for server members. This level of customization creates a deeper connection between users and their communities, whether they are part of small, private groups or massive fanbases around popular games.

Maintaining and elevating user engagement within the platform is an ongoing mission, King added.

“It starts with delivering a platform for genuine human relationships and delivering an experience that makes it easier and more fun for people to talk and hang out before, during, and after playing games,” he said. “There are a lot of ways that we make this experience possible. One example is that the tech behind our platform provides all users with low latency voice and video chatting so that they feel like they’re playing in the same room together no matter how far apart they may be. Another way is our vibrant ecosystem of third-party apps, including Activities, gives users more fun and engaging things to do before, during and after playing games.”

Additionally, King said company officials are seeing increased success that relies on engaging users in an authentic way and incentivizing their participation in the platform, “from the millions of users who support our Discord through paid Nitro memberships, to the steady growth of Quests, a new tool that rewards players for playing their favorite games, and the Shop, which allows users to customize their profile with Avatar Decorations and Profile Effects. Our focus is always on our users and providing them with the best possible experience.”

Discord empowers users to create and share content within their communities, offering various features that promote creativity and interaction, King said. From custom emojis to meme remixing and interactive polls, these tools enhance engagement and make users feel more connected to their friends and the broader platform.

“With all these different ways to unlock and preserve user creativity, we’ve found that it makes users not only feel more connected to their friends, but also drive their engagement on our platform,” King added.

The Rise of Social Gaming

Social gaming is growing in popularity, King said, “so we anticipate people playing different types of games across genres and platforms, and servers of different sizes being created for players to find their teams. Based on this shift, it’s more important now than ever to provide the tools needed to play with friends on any device. Our recent integration of the Discord friends list into Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles is a great example. Discord is uniquely and inherently positioned to be a central place where players hang out together. Our data shows us that over 85% of players on Discord have a friend who plays the same games, indicating that the connectedness of players will only continue to play a critically important role.”

What does the future look like for Discord?

“Looking ahead, we are tackling some exciting, important updates to ensure we’re meeting the needs of our users, including helping them find their friends more quickly, while ensuring they’re able to talk and hang out reliably, and bringing more offerings to the platform so users have even more things to do before, during and after playing games,” King said.

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