Discord has a permanent spot in most of our taskbars, but even those who haven't accepted the ubiquitous chat app into their lives may soon be using its services directly in the games they play (or possibly already are).
Today, the company is launching the Discord Social SDK. It's a free way for game developers to add friends lists, voice and text chat, and other social features to their games, and it doesn't require players to have Discord accounts.
Players who do link their Discord accounts, however, may get access to some convenient features, such as the ability to directly invite Discord friends to a game lobby, or continue an in-game chat in the Discord client.
In a call with PC Gamer last week, Discord co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy suggested MMO guild chat as one example of how the integration can be used: Your guild's chat room, available from both an in-game interface and the Discord client on your PC or phone. It might not benefit your IRL social life, but your bonds with your guildmates will presumably never be stronger.
A handful of game developers have already been working with Discord's SDK. The new Rust friends list incorporates it, for instance. Other developers using the SDK include Theorycraft Games (Supervive), 1047 Games (Splitgate 2), Mainframe Industries (Pax Dei), Elodie Games (Seekers of Skyveil), and Tencent Games (a lot of things).
The Discord Social SDK is comparable to Epic's Online Services, another free friends list, chat, and matchmaking SDK. Steam also has its Steamworks API, but that only works on Steam, whereas Epic's services work across stores and platforms.
Discord's SDK is also cross-platform, but unlike Epic, Discord isn't running its own PC game store (anymore, at least), so it's not side-eying Steam in the way Epic is. Developers can integrate more than one SDK into their games.
"We don't see ourselves as a competitor to [Steam and Epic]," said Vishnevskiy. "We see ourselves as an augment to the ecosystem that really raises all boats. Because at the end of the day, if people are getting into games easier, trying new games more easily, discovering more games through their friends, we lift all boats."
I could imagine Discord's services becoming a popular main choice for small developers. It works across platforms, you get integration with a gaming app that has 200 million monthly active users—more than the Epic Games Store, and more than Steam, even—and players who don't want a Discord account don't have to make one.
Current Discord Social SDK features include a unified in-game/Discord friends list, the ability to send invites and join games from the Discord client, and "rich presence" sharing of in-game activities in Discord.
Features in beta, which are currently available to developers by request, are cross-platform messaging, linked channels (like the example of a guild chat that is mirrored in-game and on Discord), and voice chat, which of course relies on Discord's existing voice chat infrastructure.
You can find more information about the Discord Social SDK on Discord's developer site.
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