Discord CEO publishes open letter: MAU surpasses 200 million, will focus on games and launch mini-game platform within the year

The domestic mini-game market is booming, and more companies are starting to enter the mini-game platform space overseas. After YouTube officially announced the upcoming launch of mini-games, another social platform, Discord, also took new actions. Its CEO Jason Citron released an open letter at the end of May, emphasizing that Discord will focus on key areas such as multiplayer gaming, improving player communication efficiency, and mini-games.

When discussing the future of the gaming industry, he mentioned, "Gaming has become the largest form of entertainment in the pseudo-world, surpassing the combined scale of the film and music industries, and is also the fastest-growing entertainment sector. Multiplayer gaming will be the future of entertainment, and cross-platform gaming will become a prerequisite for people to play together; this has already begun, and it is just the beginning."

The reason for Discord's shift in company focus is its respect for user habits. Citron also announced in his blog that Discord's MAU has exceeded 200 million, with over 90% of users playing games.

He pointed out, "New technologies will become catalysts for innovation in game development, and great ideas will come from many places. Big games will get bigger, independent game innovation will explode, and there will be more games than any of us can imagine. We recognize the need to narrow our focus from a broad community-centered chat application to a place that helps people deepen friendships around gaming and shared interests."

Citron believes that Discord can play a unique and important role in the future gaming industry, focusing on making it easier and more fun for people to chat and hang out before, during, and after playing games, and helping these game developers realize their creative ideas.

In the near future, Discord will truly focus on three key areas: enhancing the speed of communication between players and friends; expanding more voice, video, and streaming features of Discord to more devices; and opening up more platform capabilities to more creative developers.

Today, Discord has already covered console, PC, and mobile platforms, and has been doubling down on improving Discord's speed, functionality, and reliability. Players can now voice chat directly on consoles and stream games from Xbox to Discord.

In the open letter, Citron announced three initiatives to support game distribution and mini-game platforms, which are "things we will do this year."

Game Quest, Helping Games with Influencer Marketing

Game Quest is the previously announced Quest feature, which is essentially similar to task-based content streaming platforms, but specifically focused on game promotion. The specific process involves game publishers or developers submitting promotional task requests to Discord, after which users can accept tasks and create content as required, earning rewards based on the content's influence.

Users can also see the Game Quest that their friends participate in through user activities, live broadcasts, etc., and then join in, allowing more people to become game promoters through social sharing. According to Citron's blog, games like "The Finals," "Genshin Impact," and "PUBG" have already launched tasks on the Discord platform and received positive feedback.

In fact, similar forms also exist domestically, with mainstream short video platforms having corresponding game promotion tasks, which greatly help new games gain traction. For example, the hit second game "Dust White Zone" from Xishanju gained significant traffic and user attention through a large amount of secondary creative content released on TapTap, helping the game reach the second position on the iOS free chart in the national server.

However, unlike many platforms, Discord has many channels owned by users, and even has dedicated game channels. The details of the Quest have not been announced, such as whether promoting a game will compete with games in the channel? How will the reward tasks in private channels be managed? These are still uncertain matters.

Embedded Application SDK, Creating a Cross-Platform Mini-Game Platform

Perhaps more noteworthy for developers is the upcoming Embedded Application SDK. Citron mentioned that this SDK can "allow developers to bring new games and applications directly within Discord, enabling players to enjoy them instantly with friends."

In other words, Discord is becoming a platform like WeChat mini-games or Douyin mini-games.

Developers can use this SDK to release a game that spans Discord desktop, mobile, and web versions, adding multiplayer features that do not require users to download or take additional actions; utilizing Discord servers for creative prototyping, testing different builds, and collecting feedback from users.

The in-app purchase model on Discord is about to launch.

Additionally, Discord will support various monetization models, including buyout, subscription services, and in-app purchases, but it can also achieve game monetization through one-time purchases or subscription services integrated payment tracks (this feature is expected to launch later). However, Discord has not yet announced specific details such as the in-app purchase commission rate.

Hosting App Selection Competition, Encouraging Developers to Create Games on Discord

To encourage more quality game developers to join Discord, the platform has also launched an App Selection Competition, which has already closed for registration. Users can vote for the registered games starting from June 27, with the finalists expected to be announced in July.

Winners have the chance to win up to $30,000 in prizes and other rewards. In addition to user voting, the competition will also be judged by professionals, including Discord's Game Development Director Ann-Marie Harbour, Funday Games' Product and Partner Manager Emil Kjaehr, and Sony Interactive Entertainment Product Manager Dustin Clingman.

In January of this year, there were reports that Discord would lay off 17% of its workforce. Citron stated at the time, "We grew too fast, and the increase in staff was even faster, growing fivefold since 2020. As a result, we took on more projects and reduced operational efficiency. We increasingly realized the need to focus, improve our collaboration methods, and bring greater flexibility to our organization, which largely drove our decision to reduce staff."

During last year's GDC speech, Discord's platform marketing head Cherry Park stated that its MAU had surpassed 150 million, with most being Gen Z users, and the core user group being young people aged 13-18. There were also reports that Microsoft planned to acquire Discord for $10 billion, but this later fell through.

For a platform where 93% of users are gamers, Discord's focus on gaming is a pragmatic and wise decision.

CEO Jason Citron stated, "In the next decade, we believe that another billion people will play multiplayer games, enjoying the profound and rich experiences we all love. For us, regardless of what device you play games on, providing fast, seamless, and powerful services to chat with your friends before, during, and after playing these games will be more important than ever."