What Is Discord?
Communities in Discord are called “Discord Servers”. These Servers are filled with various channels. Users can discuss and coordinate whatever they want in these channels. A single user can join a maximum of 100 servers. Public ones can be accessed via a link. But private ones are subject to invites and approval. The maximum number of channels for any given server is 500.
History of Discord
Jason Citron developed the Discord first. He developed a gaming platform called OpenFeint and sold it to GREE n 2011 for US$104 million. He started a game development studio investing this money.
In the process of game development, they have to face certain difficulties in running both online games and voice-over IP software. This led developers to develop a chat service with a focus on user-friendliness with minimal impact on performance. The chat service came as Discord.
Discord was publicly released in May 2015 under the domain name discordapp.com. According to the developers they have not targeted any specific group.
In January 2016, Discord raised an additional US$20 million in funding including an investment from WarnerMedia. WarnerMedia sold its shares when it was shut down.
Microsoft announced in April 2018 that it will provide Discord support for Xbox Live users. Discord users were able to connect with Xbox Live accounts as a result of this agreement.
In the beginning, Discord’s motto was “Chat for Gamers”, but when they climb the ladder, they decided to change their motto to “Chat for Communities and Friends”
In April 2020, Discord’s Twitter username was changed from @discordapp to @discord. Later in May 2020, Discord changed its primary domain from discordapp.com to discord.com
How Does Discord Make Money?
As previously mentioned, Discord’s products are free to use. The company can attract more users as a result of this approach.
Discord turned into a revenue model after few years. In 2017, Discord introduced Nitro packages. All the processes planed by Discord did not succeed. The company shut down its merchandise store, in which it was selling Discord-branded clothing, two years after the operation.
For now, Discord generates revenue from three distinct sources of income, which we’ll detail below.
Nitro
Nitro is a subscription package offered by Discord. The price range from $49.99 to $99.99 per year. The cheaper package is called Nitro Classic. These packages can be tested free of charge for the first 30 days. These packages are similar to Netflix models.
Premium features include:
- Personal profile, including custom tags
- Creating your custom emojis
- Getting two server boosts and a discount of 30%
- Ability to upload files of up to 100MB
- High-resolution videos
- Screen sharing
- Discord Go live streaming
Game Sales
Discord launched its game store in 2018. This allows the Nitro subscribers to access exclusive games such as Dead Cells or Into the Breach. This was not succussed as they expect.
Then Discord changed their business model with participating other game developers. The developers can sell their games through servers. But the developer needs to verify servers first.
Discord may charge a 10% attending fee for each sale.
Server Boosting
Server Boosting allows a community to up the functionality and performance of their Discord Server. Servers can be boosted to three different levels.
This server boost may cost $4.99 per month. Nitro subscribers may receive a 30% discount for the boost.
The premium features apply to everyone that is part of the server, whether they are paying for the boost or not.