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Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation

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Re: Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation

#81

Post by jjeaff »

baybal2 wrote: post #63
dvt wrote: post #16

I'm bearish on Discord. Unlike Slack, it targets a price-averse demographic and is attempting to enter spaces that are very saturated (Steam, Origin, Epic, Ubisoft are already crushing the digital distribution medium), so then it's basically an IRC replacement for gamers. I understand Slack's valuation as it targets huge companies with up to decades-long contracts and has projected revenues > $1B for this year, but I…

There is a much, much easier explanation for the obscene valuation: > The round was led by Greenoaks Capital with participation from Firstmark, ___Tencent___ , IVP, Index Ventures and Technology Opportunity Partners. All and every big Chinese company seeks to exfiltrate cash out of the country no mater what the justification is. That way you have China Rail buying Canadian casinos, tech companies buying American pig…

Why would all those other firms make poor investments just to prop up a deal for tencent?

Re: Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation

#82

Post by orliesaurus »

starshadowx2 wrote: post #47
hnauz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are, that's why Fortnite took a massive dump on PUBG

PUBG is still massively popular with the demographic it is made for. Fortnite is popular because it pulled in a new demographic of young kids, new gamers, and was easy to get into. Just because Fortnight is more popular overall doesn't make PUBG a failure or that it "lost".

Yeah PUBG has 400k players on steam, down from 1.5M at peak. Not bad at all considering nowadays most games last a year or two at most before they decline quickly...except the evergreen ones like Counterstrike and League/Dota

Re: Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation

#83

Post by pdpi »

keerthiko wrote: post #57
dvt wrote: post #16

I'm bearish on Discord. Unlike Slack, it targets a price-averse demographic and is attempting to enter spaces that are very saturated (Steam, Origin, Epic, Ubisoft are already crushing the digital distribution medium), so then it's basically an IRC replacement for gamers. I understand Slack's valuation as it targets huge companies with up to decades-long contracts and has projected revenues > $1B for this year, but I…

> it targets a price-averse demographic and is attempting to enter spaces that are very saturated This is accurately the current state of affairs, but these are presented like conclusions you make on an industry that's a half century old at least. Gaming was a tiny niche not 15 years ago. It's entered the mainstream less than 10 years ago. It surpassed the film industry not 2 years ago in revenue. Pirated games almos…

> Price-averse? There are people literally throwing (digital) money at streamers just for fun, or to troll them, or to get their message announced on stream, or any number of random antics a streamer sets up.

The magic of twitch (and league of legends, and a few more) is that this is indeed a very price-sensitive crowd, but one that is willing to engage in a steady stream of frequent capex-style microtransactions while refusing to touch opex/subscription-based models.

Re: Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation

#84

Post by Wowfunhappy »

SL61 wrote: post #78
dvt wrote: post #16

I'm bearish on Discord. Unlike Slack, it targets a price-averse demographic and is attempting to enter spaces that are very saturated (Steam, Origin, Epic, Ubisoft are already crushing the digital distribution medium), so then it's basically an IRC replacement for gamers. I understand Slack's valuation as it targets huge companies with up to decades-long contracts and has projected revenues > $1B for this year, but I…

I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. Gamers today are not price-averse like they might have been when the gaming demographic was mostly teens. After a peek at your website, I see I'm quite a bit younger than you. I know a lot of people who do not have much money, but they still consider it worth it to spend a chunk of their limited income on Discord Nitro. In some servers I've even seen young teens (13-14) spen…

It's all relative. Gamers are a heck of a lot more price averse than corporations, and the same person is more likely to spend money on a service that helps his/her business than one used for video games.

Re: Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation

#85

Post by Insanity »

stevehawk wrote: post #40
dvt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Skype was the gamer go-to for a while, in fact.

as a gamer I have to ask "when was that?"

There surely was a time. We had ventrilo and TeamSpeak but mostly used Skype for a small group from a clan.

I am speaking of roughly a decade ago, around CoD4 and L4D we often used Skype.

Also, xfire to chat. Which was an awesome program at the time!

Re: Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation

#87

Post by orliesaurus »

Deimorz wrote: post #36
starshadowx2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord is now imo the best positioned competitor to Steam based on their latest updates. They're launching a full self-service game publishing platform and only taking 10% revenue, instead of Steam's 30%. Discord already has the gaming focused community and their store has already been doing very well and is super easy to use. If Discord broke into the streaming market there would be no reason to ever leave it for s…

Do you have a source for "their store has already been doing very well"? I buy quite a few games, but can't see a compelling reason to buy anything from Discord. I also don't know anyone else that's bought a game from them yet either.

I also use Steam to buy games but unless Discord lands some super good unique tripleA names, I don't see many people moving away from Steam...even considering that there are other games marketplaces popping up left and right.

Re: Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation

#89

Post by munchbunny »

nahtnam wrote: post #48
shshhdhs wrote: post #42

I never understood these ~13.3x valuations. If I invest $5 in a lemonade stand, what makes it valued at $66.50?

Doesn't this just mean that Discord received 150 million in return for 7.5% stake at the company?

More or less, with the very big caveat that the specific terms of the deal means it's almost never actually a straight exchange of money for share of equity.

Re: Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation

#90

Post by Barrin92 »

Insanity wrote: post #86

What I find quite strange in Discord (gamers) vs Slack (business/software) is that Discord has syntax highlighting in code snippets, but Slack does not..

I've found discord to be a very reasonable alternative to slack and I think their branding as a 'gaming service' is more of an effort to carve out a niche than related to functionality. It actually works pretty well as a generic chat / collaboration tool.
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