Discord is going back to its roots

Discord wants to bring its app back to gaming, which they're going to do with a concrete overhaul of the app. The new look includes redesigned group messaging, voice chats, video calls and more.

Jason Citron, CEO of Discord, wrote in a note to users that the company realized it needed to shift its focus from a "broadly focused chat app" to a service that "helps people deepen friendships over games and shared interests." The company now wants facilitate contact before, during or after playing the game.

This year, Discord will introduce some changes to the app that will give users faster access to conversations and improve the reliability of the voice, video and streaming technology. The company plans to bring more of Discord's features to a wider range of devices as well.

By turning its attention back to gaming, Discord is reversing a plan it began implementing in 2020. As the pandemic increased the need for messaging platforms like Discord, the company wanted to focus on a more general chat app , which would allow users to "spend quality time with people, either to socialize with them, learn something or share ideas."

A lot has changed since then. Discord fired 17 % employees. Like many companies, Discord saw a large and rapid increase in staff during the pandemic, and they didn't expect such a large drop in demand after the pandemic ended. Jason Citron was also one of five CEOs to testify before the Senate over child safety concerns. American lawmakers are currently working on legislation that would require platforms like Discord to implement more measures to protect children.

"Going forward, we're going to be very focused on games as our core use case - which is group chat around games," said Citron, adding that 95 % of their users play games.

So far, we haven't noticed any really dedicated features for gamers. The revamp currently still functions more as a general communication app. Users have been wanting to be able to record their games through Discord for a long time, but apparently the company is not planning this feature yet.