A couple of weeks ago, Steam overhauled their chat system with some features that look straight out of Discord. Now, the social platform for gamers is hitting back by implementing a game distribution section. That's right PC gamers, you now have another store to buy games from.
Announced via a blog post, the Discord store is a curated experience "similar to one of those cozy neighborhood bookshops" that will recommend games based on employee's tastes. Essentially, it's a more personalized version of the Steam front page. Also, to prevent Steam's oversaturation problem, Discord staff will continually curate titles that appear in the store. The following games are available on the store right now:
- The Banner Saga 3
- SpellForce 3
- Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire
- Hollow Knight
- Moonlighter
- This is the Police 2
- Starbound
- Frostpunk
- Omensight
- Into the Breach
- Dead Cells
However, the more interesting part of the post is the "First on Discord" segment. With this feature, Discord will showcase indie games they've helped support, and launch them exclusively on the platform for a limited time. The blog post claims a usual time frame of 90 days before developers can sell wherever. Like Steam, Discord will take 30 percent of all sales.
“To be very clear, First on Discord games are temporarily exclusive. They’re literally first on Discord — usually 90 days and then the developers can sell anywhere else they want. This beta won’t have any First on Discord titles, but we’ll be showing off some soon.”Due to a press release, we only know one title coming to First on Discord. The real-time tactics roguelike, Bad North, will be in the launch line-up.
Discord Nitro is also getting an upgrade. Subscribers will see a curated list of must-play titles chosen by the staff. Current examples consist of Super Meat Boy and System Shock Enhanced Edition, among others. This service, of course, is on top of the other Nitro features like higher file upload limits and animated emojis.
Finally, the new Discord has a Universal Library tab that seems quite useful. Should you enable it, this new tab will scan your computer for games on all launchers and link them to the platform. With this, you can launch every game you own from Discord no matter where it's housed. Discord will merely open up the other launcher and the game all from within the platform.
The Discord Store is currently in a beta test, and only available to 50,000 Canadian players for now. That said, this beta will slowly roll out to the rest of the world over time.
Update: TechRaptor has learned of another game coming to First on Discord. The card-based battle game, Minion Masters, has partnered with the platform for a timed launch. Minion Masters has been in early access on Steam for quite some time and will be back there after the exclusivity has run its course.