The newly coined Discord Store went live with a global beta late last night and it’s on a path to not only compete against digital retail behemoth of the like of Steam and Origins, but offer an all in one solution to what seems like an increasing number of add-on software required to launch games.
If for some reason you’re unacquainted with the platform, Discord is a game centric chat, speech, and community hub designed to facilitate exchange between developers, players, and like minded-individuals all housed under an efficient, ease to use piece of software.
With the global beta now up and running, Discord breaks down what’s on offer into three distinct features. The first is the store itself, which sells games directly on the platform specially chosen and curated for quality with useful suggestion features and the community to go with each title.
The idea is to greatly simplify finding great games to play. The selection is lacking in volume in its current form, but new titles are being continuously added and should stack up to quite the offering in due course. From a quick browse, the overarching marker of quality is apparent with pretty much every game being a great gaming experience through and through.
Next up, is First on Discord which is quite similar to the store, except that the games available through the feature will launch first on the platform, usually for an exclusivity period of around 90 days. For the moment the feature is limited to PC titles, but Discord hopes to expand into console territory in the future.
Finally, we have the universal library. This is potentially revolutionary as it aims to rid gamers of multiple game launchers by uniting libraries into one place on Discord. No longer will you need to load up Steam to play PUBG, then pop over to Battle.net to play Blackout. At least that’s the idea in theory; a streamlined library which is easy to access. Discord will scan your machine for any and all games, then sort out the launcher behind the scenes so you’ll jump into the game quicker.
Discord is also making some changes to its subscription based service Nitro. With a price hike, the platform is stepping up the selection of on demand ‘critically acclaimed games’ now numbered at over 60 titles.
To access any of the new features, simply boot up Discord and voila!
