The Discord app to download from the Apple App Store.
Photographer: Tiffany Hagler-Geard / Bloomberg
Photographer: Tiffany Hagler-Geard / Bloomberg
Every month or two, a social media platform captures the spotlight, intriguing some and baffling others. In 2020, former President Donald Trump’s campaign to banish TikTok drew excessive attention to the video app. Earlier this year, the Clubhouse gained prominence as people stird for invitations to join Silicon Valley elite chat rooms. The platform called Discord is not new, but it talks about a $ 10 billion sale to Microsoft has asked the world about this video game-focused chat application.
1. What is Discord?
Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy, programmers and entrepreneurs, founded San Francisco-based Discord in 2015 as a platform for chatting while playing video games together. The free service offers voice, video and text, as well as features suitable for players, including the ability for users to convey the name of the game they are playing. During the pandemic, with people trapped at home and playing more video games than ever before, and also looking for ways to socialize safely, Discord became a hub for communities as diverse as the Black Lives Matter movement, homework help, book clubs and more. It began to present itself as a “place to talk.”
2. What size is it?
The site now claims more than 140 million monthly users and claims to have grossed $ 100 million last year. Discord doubled its valuation last December to $ 7 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal. It has raised a total of about $ 480 million, according to Crunchbase, from investors included Greenoaks Capital.
3. What is its appeal?
The app gained popularity alongside big multiplayer hits like Epic Games Inc.’s Fortnite. Players like to be able to chat with each other while taking out the enemy. But Discord has attracted fans beyond the players and is now positioned as an attraction for anyone who wants to delve into a beehive of like-minded interests. At Discord, anyone can create their own community or server; current servers have members ranging from one to hundreds of thousands. A typical user may belong to a private Discord server, to stay with friends, as well as public servers dedicated to discussing a favorite movie or sports team.
4. Why are you interested in Microsoft?
For Microsoft, these diverse communities may be Discord’s main selling point. The software giant, which last year tried to buy the social networking app TikTok and held talks to acquire them Pinterest Inc., has been buying assets that provide access to thriving user communities, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. Recently, the Xbox console maker has secured numerous video game companies, including the publisher ZeniMax Media Inc. in September for $ 7.5 billion. Microsoft may try to integrate Discord with Xbox Game Pass, its Netflix-like video game subscription service. But one person familiar with the talks said Discord is more likely to hit the public market than be sold.
5. How does Discord make money?
One of the keys to Discord’s popularity is the lack of commercials. Instead of filling channels with intrusive ads, such as other social networking services, such as Twitter Inc., Discord makes money with a subscription service called Nitro. For $ 10 a month, members can customize tags next to their usernames, upload larger files, and stream content with superior video quality.
6. What types of problems have you had?
Discord was used as a meeting place to organize white nationalists the 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which turned violent and resulted in the death of a counter-protester. Since then, the company has made efforts to clean up its site and make it more inclusive. The investment coalition known for driving GameStop shares since its post on Reddit also had a server on Discord, but it was banned earlier this year for not doing enough to curb hate speech.
7. Is it still basically a place for players?
It is still very popular with gamers, but people use it for all sorts of conversations, even on official video game channels. Discord has become a useful way for video game companies to directly promote products and encourage communities. The company will verify the servers based on popular video games, giving them a seal of authenticity. Some game developers participate in their Discord channels, allowing fans to interact directly with the people behind their favorite titles. The official Discord community for the success of the game Among us, for example, there are more than 413,000 users. Us community director Victoria Tran described it as “quite chaotic, but a lot of fun.” He said people use the server not only to talk about the game and find people to play with, but to have broader conversations about their lives and interests.