Discord looks to boost gaming revenue by ditching its long time ad-free stance

[Jimmy2x]

In context: Since its launch in 2015, Discord has remained one of the few platforms to shun typical online advertising models. In 2021, CEO Jason Citron said the advertising favored by its peers was too intrusive and instead focused the company on creating products that users would want to buy. It appears those days are gone.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Discord will begin in-app advertising within the coming week. The decision abandons the platform's long-time stance against using paid advertisements and promotions. The change is part of the company's plan to boost gaming-related and Nitro subscription revenue. However, as described, the promotions don't sound too intrusive.

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Discord plans to run paid promotions called "Sponsored Quests." The platform will present these in cooperation with video game makers. Sponsored Quests will offer users in-game or in-platform gifts for completing various challenges as they play with their Discord friends and viewers. Once complete, those viewers can set out on similar "quests" to earn rewards. The model is reminiscent of last year's May the 4th Discord promotion, where Fortnite players who shared their screen with at least one voice user while playing the game won Star Wars-themed cosmetics.

Despite the campaign's benign-sounding nature, initial responses to the announcement were not favorable. Meghana Dhar, a technology adviser and investor, worries that embracing the new advertising model could alienate some of Discord's user base. Dhar said the company's quick pivot from its commitment to an ad-free service to one that uses paid promotions could negatively impact levels of trust across the user base, driving them to alternative solutions.

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Discord has stated that users can turn off the promotions in Settings, which is more than most other platforms allow. Whether this privilege is limited to Nitro subscribers remains to be seen.

Sources close to Discord say the company wants to hire 12 sales team members to support the new advertising model. While that may sound like great news for those looking to break into the gaming and social platform industries, the news comes on the heels of the company laying off 17 percent of its staff earlier this year.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/102455-discord-looks-boost-gaming-revenue-ditching-long-time.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The only thing my friends use it for is voice chat and messaging. If it gets intrusive, we'll all switch to something else. The Nitro shilling by the bots is bad enough already.

 

[yRaz]

Discord isn't as important as they think they are, there have been several messaging platforms that I can't even remember the name of that were king for awhile and then got replaced.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Discord isn't as important as they think they are, there have been several messaging platforms that I can't even remember the name of that were king for awhile and then got replaced.

Teamspeak, Skype, google chat, google hangouts, the list goes on. Hell we used to just set up a conference call and text back and forth.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Adblock

 

[arrowflash]

I hate Discord. As a chat and messaging platform, it's an usability nightmare that only got worse. I don't understand the zoomer and alpha generations obsession with it as a communications platform. Why not just use IRC or old fashioned forums, they're a lot more convenient.

 

[Squid Surprise]

I hate Discord. As a chat and messaging platform, it's an usability nightmare that only got worse. I don't understand the zoomer and alpha generations obsession with it as a communications platform. Why not just use IRC or old fashioned forums, they're a lot more convenient.

IRC was king - still use it to this day...

 

[Eldrach]

Discord is horrible. It went from a lightweight communications platform to this virus like background intensive task that directly hooks onto your games.
I couldn’t figure out why a couple of my games suddenly «greyed out» during startup. Ended up having to just uninstall discord and it was like my machine could finally breathe again.

The few times I use discord now - I only stick to the web version

 

[axiomatic13]

Advertisements, the very laziest revenue generator.

 

[FaTaL]

I hate Discord. As a chat and messaging platform, it's an usability nightmare that only got worse. I don't understand the zoomer and alpha generations obsession with it as a communications platform. Why not just use IRC or old fashioned forums, they're a lot more convenient.

They love it and gaming companies love it because its very hard to just create another account if you get banned from a server..since an account requires a phone# ...and no , using google phone to create a masked phone# does NOT work.

 

[wiyosaya]

Advertising, which rarely works anyway, the bane of the internet.

 

[arrowflash]

IRC was king - still use it to this day...

Yeah, I'll admit I've never been too much into IRC even back in the good ol' days. But as a group / community instant messaging platform it sure IS king. Heck, even Telegram is a lot more user friendly and convenient than Discord for this. If the old school interfaces of IRC clients and its feature set give younger generations the ick, I don't get why not just use Telegram instead.

They love it and gaming companies love it because its very hard to just create another account if you get banned from a server..since an account requires a phone# ...and no , using google phone to create a masked phone# does NOT work.

I can sort of understand Discord's appeal to community-oriented gamers who engage in multiplayer gaming or are obsessed with achievements and trophies, mostly because of its built-in game integration features... but I've been forced to use Discord for communities that have nothing to do with gaming, or to discuss single player video games that don't even have Discord integration.