Discord Announces The Discord Store, Beta Starts Today

Three years after its public release, the chat and video platform Discord is ready to reveal the next phase of their plan for world domination. Starting today, beta invites have started to trickle out for Discord's new gaming storefront.

The Discord Store will offer a curated gaming selection with personalized notes accompanying many titles, written by various Discord employees. The idea is borrowed from small neighborhood book shops with the hope that a well curated storefront helps Discord standout from the bevy of game launchers that have proliferated over the past few years.

Accompanying the store will be a new 'Universal Library' tab that scans the user's computer for other games/launchers installed and allows them to be opened right from Discord.

Discord also hopes to broaden the indie gaming ecosystem with their 'First On Discord' initiative. Indie games that agree to launch on Discord exclusively for the first ~90 days can expect financial support from the company.

While Discord's user base has grown significantly over the past 3 years, they face difficult competition in the digital storefront business. Steam is still the primary player and has recently updated its chat features to better compete with newcomers like Discord. Other companies, including Amazon (via twitch) and Microsoft (via Microsoft Store) have failed to make a dent in what is still largely Valve's domain.

Further Reading: Official Announcement Blog Post