“Mother, where do games come from?”
“Steam, my ignorant son. Now go to your room.”
Years ago, when retail stores began to cut down on stocking and selling PC games, Steam swooped in and became the medium that has since dominated the gaming market. Save for a handful of games from Blizzard or GOG, if you’ve purchased any PC games in the better part of the last decade, odds are it was through Steam. Now, Discord has thrust itself into the market as the latest player to defy the big ol’ fat cat.
Now that gaming has moved heavily toward countless microtransactions for cosmetics and content, more companies are trying to dodge the 30% hit they take by distributing games through their contract overlords like Steam or Google.
Discord has established itself as the successor of programs like TeamSpeak, attempting to become a major social gaming hub. It’s move toward game distribution comes a few weeks after Steam made a major overhaul to its chat system, basically boning Discord by copying a lot of their features and display capabilities like group chats, embedded YouTube videos and animated GIFs.
Discord already offers Nitro, a paid monthly service that comes with mainly cosmetic options along with higher quality screen sharing and larger file uploads. But they’re now claiming that Nitro will offer a variety of “golden games” as well, so long as subscriptions are maintained. They’re also looking to partner with indie developers who are willing to sign up to be “First on Discord.”
More and more companies are making this switch to keeping their own dollars and giving less of them to Steam. Although Discord would have to offer some major deals to get my business, I’d say the industry is long overdue for some competition.
