What happened to the Discord store?

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Alturr
  • Editado

I just opened up Discord and noticed the Store tab has been replaced by the Nitro tab. There are only Nitro games here and none other. Is this something like a test, or a permanent change? It would be cool to have separate pages for Nitro games and normal games if that is what is being implemented.

Edit: It has been confirmed that this is not the case and that games available for purchase will be available solely in verified servers. I have one question: WHY? Sure, it eliminates the competition, but it also eliminates a potential clientele because of its difficulty to find the game. This is ludicrous Discord, please change this back.

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52 comentários

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  • CloudTheWolf

    As a developer I have halted the release of my game on discord for now as it's pointless releasing on a platform with no front end... guess I'll stick with Steam for now.

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  • antv199
    • Editado

    Even if I can still access my games from my library, it's still a strange approach for customers and devs.I think the previous design was better.

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  • Malkantar

    I still cant find the store games, only nitro. Where do I go to see store games?

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  • XEqualsPenguin

    @Malkantar you can't. That's what most of this comment thread is about, the fact that the Discord Store functionally no longer exists.

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  • Malkantar

    Ok so the store just doesn't exist anymore. So we cant buy games off discord anymore....sigh

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  • XEqualsPenguin

    You technically can, but not easily. You have to already know what game you want to buy and hope they have a verified server. If they do, you can join that server and purchase it there. Discord has completely removed the ability to browse for games, which was and still is a major part of shopping for games. People often don't know what they want and will instead browse through the steam catalogue, the Epic store, or a physical retailer like Best Buy or GameStop (or whatever store applies to you). Instead only people who most likely already have purchased the game are able to find where to buy the game on Discord. It's a major problem both for consumers and developers (as I mentioned in a previous comment, I am both).

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  • Malkantar

    Wow, that's just bad. Makes no sense. I thank you for your info and help though.

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  • XEqualsPenguin

    I just received the above email. Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't that make it even harder to find a game? Now servers that have games are, by default, not even searchable on Server Discovery.

    Don't get me wrong, I like using Discord for chatting. It's just sad to see the chances of me releasing a game on it diminish more and more. Also, I'm not quite sure "50+ games" is a selling point. There are 89 games on Nitro.
    ... come to think of it, that's not many games either.

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  • ELRinley

    What is WRONG with you?! Punishing people for not chipping into Nitro. Cool. Thanks, guys. I literally can't even shop for Discord-purchasable games by looking for their servers!!!

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  • CloudTheWolf

    Another bad decision has been made!
    Now they are removing vanity URLs so that you can only get them if your server is verified. I'm close to jumping ship and just distributing on my own website.

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  • Devilskock

    I wonder if they were attempting to do something similar to what bandcamp has for music artists. The custom server thing seems similar to how you can have a custom URL that doesn't mention bandcamp in the name despite still running through the site (same for background, tags, artwork, videos, physical merch, etc.) I think they missed a pretty big thing from that though and it's that bandcamp actually has a store to browse that links all of those URLs together in a way that's easy for both the artist and the buyer. It's setup like any other online storefront when just browsing up front but goes to the more specific pages when you click on it. Discord just kind of failed on it by allowing the servers but doesn't group them by tags, show new games, have a storefront that links them now and has no way of knowing if the server even has a store link. Very dumb way of doing it and I would hope for their sake they revert it back since the big two right now are Steam and Epic, trying to compete while making it actively harder to buy anything on your store when convenience is everything is a very poor choice.

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  • Victorian_Clambake

    Ahoy!

    I'm a developer about to release a game on Discord and as I was completing my personal checklist, I realized I have no idea what to really expect.

    If your server is buried and your game hidden, then your marketing seriously does have to occur somewhere else. If the intention of Discord is to host games for sale rather than sell them for you, that 90/10 revenue split suddenly makes a lot more sense.

    My professional opinion is that this is a remarkably poor decision. There used to be a nice storefront and now that there isn't one Discord makes even less sense then Itch.io- I hope they bring the store back.

    - Victorian Clambake

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  • XEqualsPenguin

    You make a really good point. The 90/10 does feel representative of putting in the absolute minimum effort possible.

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  • Ace

    Seriously though, The store tab was implemented great. This decision doesn't make sense.

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  • Valdas

    Lol I was kinda excited about Discord battle Steam for a moment, but now this is just garbage... No way to know what games r on sale even...

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  • Victorian_Clambake

    Ahoy!

    It's been nearly three months since I released The Caribbean Sail on Discord and I have yet to make even a single sale on Discord. The problem is that everyone in the server already owns the game on a  different platform so I'm not reaching anyone new.

    For other developers considering releasing a game on Discord; don't bother unless you're bringing in a lot of new people to your server.

    - Victorian Clambake

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  • XEqualsPenguin

    That is possibly the strongest proof I've seen of why this is problematic. I don't expect them to revert it, but at least we can point to this and tell other devs not to bother trying to release on Discord.

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  • Ane

    I honestly have no idea why they changed this and completely agree with what you're saying

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  • MrGrim

    I just wanted to see what games were available on discord. maybe find something that looks interesting. and see what games i would get if i were to get nitro. 
    I can't do either because of this quite frankly insanely stupid decision. 
    I see it's bin noted before here. how people can't browse the store this way for things they might like but don't know about. see how this is exactly what's happening now? 
    I really hope you decide to change this.
    I myself am for now put off from buying nitro because of this as well. 

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  • ,.

    They likely made that decision permanent not to buy into Nitro for you MrGrim as there will no longer be any games in Nitro as of October 15. https://blog.discordapp.com/whats-coming-for-nitro-a732ddc4b5b1

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  • Donut

    I'm really disheartened about the decisions made with the games, as that was the initial reason for me to get Nitro. The Discord store really to me felt like it did everything better than what the EGS tried to do (especially the more favorable 90/10 revenue split), but ultimately failed to do so because of this pretty stupid decision to have games only distributed by the server(s). There was a lot of potential to the store, but no, the staff thinks games should be sold in their own safe space.

    As everyone said, it's more or less difficult to find new games through Discord--since they're all isolated into their own servers, that is likely to be not even be discoverable. And really, if the non-Nitro games are isolated like that, then there's less sense to have it published on your server if you can distribute it on your own website/storefront instead (which would be free of needless splits and you would have full control of).

    I think removing Nitro isn't making it better, more of insult to injury. It probably would've helped if they gotten more games or better deals, but to be realistic, not too many developer & publishers really seemed to have bought into the idea of "Netflix for games" or some kind of rental service. Most of the games available on Nitro are found inexpensive on Steam and/or GOG anyways, so sadly, it's not like much was missed. One of the reasons Steam is still highly relevant was simply because of the massive availability of games being in one place. And GOG just had the games DRM-free, for it's appeal. You get neither with this.

    Of course there's always competition (and the fear of it, amongst the indies) when it comes with any industry, but sheesh, I thought servers were a get together for people who are fans of X game. I feel this model only really works if you got a sequel to a game, and the people in the server is a fan of it can go buy it directly. But that consequently would mean, there's going to be less odds of new players because they can't find the game to begin with.

    As Gabe Newell said, limiting the ways of availability only really just encourages people to pirate the game, let alone knowing it even exists. I really don't think making the product hidden and/or exclusive to one particular location would really help you with sales at all... Nitro Games honestly would've seen more use, if they just kept the games store.

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  • SaltyPotato

    I'm really hoping, as a huge fan of the Discord store as opposed to other platforms like Steam and Epic Games, that with the removal of Nitro Games, the old Discord Store will return. Hard working developers that took a risk publishing their game on Discord are now much more difficult to find and companies like Steam become much more appealing. Discord has competitive rates to other game stores, but they ruined their opportunity by placing their developers quite literally "at the bottom." I understand that one of the reasons for doing so was to stress the importance of community, so why not lead users to a game's server from the Store tab? It is necessary and wanted, from both devs and consumers, for games to be featured in a dedicated tab, and curated based on games Discord knows you play. 

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