After making its bones in the VoIP and instant messaging scene for gamers, Discord is now preparing to take its service to the next level by selling games through its own store. The popular voice and text chat app made the announcement recently, and as a start, it said that it would be partnering up with video games developers THQ and Deep Silver.
Discord has begun rolling out beta versions of its store to around 50,000 gamers in Canada, with plans to expand the number of beta testers over time. Discord says that the games offered on the beta service will be title specifically curated by its employees. Along with “First on Discord” titles; indie game titles that will only be available exclusively on the platform for a period of 90 days.
Moreover, the new service will allow users to launch games directly from Discord. In the same way Valve’s Steam Store launches games from its library.
For those on the app’s subscription service, Discord Nitro, a different library of games will also be available to them, at no extra charge. Game in this library include titles such as Saints Row: The Third, Darksiders: Warmastered Edition, and Metro: Last Light Redux. Discord describes this part of the service as “kinda like Netflix for games”.
But whether users are using the free or subscription-based service, Discord says that all its users will be able to purchase games from its store. At the time of writing, the company did not mention when and if the beta will be available to users outside of Canada.
(Source: Discord via The Verge, Polygon)
