Microsoft Corp. and Discord Inc. holding a large video game fan base. As they are now holding talks for a potential $ 10 billion build, a deal would join two companies to seek out an audience far beyond gamers.
Jason Citron and Stan Francisco-based programmers and entrepreneurs Stan Vishnevskiy founded Discord in 2015 as a platform for people to chat while playing video games together. The free service offers voice, video and text as well as gamer-friendly features including the ability for users to broadcast the name of the game they are broadcasting.
The app grew in popularity a few years ago, rising alongside hit multiplayer like Fortnite Epic Games Inc. There is also a more likely side to history, having been used as a gathering place for White nationalist to stage the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
Since then, the company has made efforts to clean up and make their site more inclusive. Last year “an important year for Discord, new Chief Financial Officer Tomasz Marcinkowski said in a blog post earlier this month. During the pandemic, with people getting involved at home and playing more video games than ever before and also looking for ways to communicate safely, Discord became a hub for communities at risk. is interested in the Black Lives Matter movement, homework help, book clubs and more, positioning itself as “a place to talk. ”
Discord service has been attracting all sorts of celebrity gamers and social media influencers. It was that time three years ago when Fortnite’s greatest player, Ninja, helped educate hip-hop legend Drake to set up his Discord account. Recently WallStreetBets. The investment consortium was famous for promoting GameStop stock from the perch on Reddit also had a server on Discord and it was banned earlier this year for not doing enough to stop hate speech.
The site now claims more than 140 million monthly users and generated $ 100 million in revenue last year. Discord doubled its valuation in December last year to $ 7 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. It has raised about $ 480 million, according to Crunchbase, from investors including Greenoaks Capital.
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On Discord, anyone can create their own community, or server, which can range in size from less than tens to hundreds of thousands. The average user may belong to one private Discord server that they just use for hanging out with their friends and other public servers dedicated to discussing the movie or the favorite sports team.
For Microsoft, these mixed communities are probably Discord’s biggest selling point. The software giant, which last year tried to buy the TikTok social media app and held conversations with him get Pinterest Inc., has been buying for assets that would give access to thriving communities of customers, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. The Xbox console maker has recently defaulted several video game companies, including publisher ZeniMax Media Inc. $ 7.5 billion. Microsoft may be trying to integrate Discord with Xbox Game Pass, its Netflix-like membership service for video games.
One of the keys to Discord’s popularity is its lack of ads. Instead of building channels with attractive ads like other social media services like Twitter Inc., Discord makes money with a membership service called Nitro. For $ 10 per month, members can customize tags next to their usernames, upload larger files, and stream at higher video quality.
Discord has also become a useful way for video game companies to directly promote products and nurture communities. The company will test servers based on popular video games, giving them a verification stamp. Some game developers participate in their Discord channels, allowing fans to interact directly with the people behind their favorite titles.
The official Discord community for the hit game Among us, for example, there are more than 413,000 users. Us Us community leader Victoria Tran said it was “very chaotic, but full of fun.” She said people use the server not only to talk about the game and to find people to play with, but to have broader conversations about their lives and interests.
The server is “a fun way to connect directly with our players, even if it’s not necessarily connected to the game itself,” Tran said. She said the video game servers can also be a place for players to report bugs and offer recommendations directly to game makers. “Discord communities are just a great way to get feedback that you might not otherwise be able to get,” she said.
Discord can also be helpful for smaller games that may not have access to Among Us but still want to give fans a place to chat, game developers say.
“We just wanted to build a nice low key community outside,” we said Megan Fox, founder of independent game development studio Glass Bottom Games. His first game, Skatebird, is about birds on skateboards. It has a Discord community of about 900 said Fox users who typically use the server to talk about “birds, or skateboarding. She said the studio also has a channel aimed at users “to share your kickflip effort.” Many Discord attendees follow inside jokes and jokes, which are part of the application.
The news of a deal that may have sparked mixed views in the gaming community. “If Discord is going to sell, Microsoft may be one of the safest places to go without seeing major changes,” he said. Rod Breslau, an esports and gaming consultant who works with companies such as Sony Music Entertainment. Microsoft has taken a hands-on approach with recently acquired products, such as LinkedIn and GitHub, he said.
But not all gamers have been excited about the prospect. Twitter was packed with people Tuesday urging Discord not to sell. Some Discord channels were also filled with negative reactions to the idea of further consolidating the video game industry.
“Gamers in particular are getting a whiplash from a variety of complaints from Microsoft,” Breslau said, “and who really want to see one of the big corporate landlords swallow up parts of the industry? ”
It may not get to that. Discord is more likely to go public than sell itself, said one familiar with the conversations.
– Supported by Dina Bass, and Katie Roof