Steam recently rolled out a platform where gamers could chat, which was seen an attempt to compete with Discord, a massively popular gaming-focused messaging app.
Now, Discord is clapping back at Steam with its own store. The company has just announced that it will be rolling out a store beta to 50,000 users in Canada, selected at random from the platform's Nitro subscribers.
Discord Nitro Games Lineup
The store's launch lineup includes Saints Row: The Third, Metro: Last Light Redux, Super Meat Boy, Hollow Knight, and Starbound. The game offerings will be curated by employees, and their goal is to create a "local bookstore" of hand-picked selections. These will be available for Nito subscribers at no additional charge on top of their monthly or yearly fee. Discord Nitro costs $4.99 per month or $49.99 a year.
First On Discord Games
Discord says it also plans to introduce "First on Discord" titles, which are independent games that will be Discord exclusives for the first 90 days of their release. There will also be a universal library feature, which will allow players to pull games from their computers and launch them directly from Discord.
The company says it doesn't plan on creating a store that has every game in it, but rather one that has a very specific slate of recommendations. As it expands, Discord says it will "rely on our community and our team to make the store feel super personal and focused on games that we genuinely think you'll enjoy!"
Discord Store
With the addition of its own Store, it seems clear that Discord wants to take on PC gaming's biggest platform, Steam, albeit with its own special approach. Coming up with a very selective lineup makes sense, since Discord can't topple Steam right off the bat, and it has to start by infusing the service with things that'll help it stand out.
As such, Discord's store will be driven "more by friendships and playing together than what is currently available in the ecosystem," Eros Resmini, Discord's CMO, told The Verge. Players will be able to play along with others who own the same games, regardless of where they bought it.
"Our goal with Discord is to bring players together — never to fragment or add friction to gaming with friends."
"With 150 million registered users that's a lot of building friendships while talking about and playing games together," said Resmini.
