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Discord raises $150M, surpassing $2B valuation

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

#91

Post by anoncoward111 »

drchickensalad wrote: post #76
lostmsu wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be a mammoth, as I still use Skype for gaming. What does Discord offer, that Skype doesn't, and Steam is running anyway too? Lately Skype became too buggy to use as IM, but sound is still solid.

To reverse it, I can't really think of anything skype does better than discord in a mildly gaming context honestly.

Discord isn't owned by Microsoft, everyone uses it, and it runs in my browser.

That's more than enough reason to never touch the flaming pile of shit that Skype is today, thanks to corporate development strategies and bloat.

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

#92

Post by keerthiko »

pdpi wrote: post #83
keerthiko wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 whi…

Most of these people also have $5/mo (or 'prime subs' that are free with amazon prime) subscriptions to one or more content creators in the community.

I don't even have netflix or spotify or any subscription service, but I find it worth my $5/month to support the one streamer I enjoy tuning in to whenever I want some background entertainment while doing things around the house, and I think that's not an uncommon usecase.

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

#93

Post by arkitaip »

starshadowx2 wrote: post #33
arkitaip wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It is the de facto app for chatting amongst gamers, especially streamers. Just check out streamers on Twitch: even the tiniest ones have a Discord server.

The biggest thing is that while it's focused to and originally for gamers that's not the only thing it's used for. There's a server for anything now. Subreddits have Discords, I've been in the typology/psychology Discords a lot. Discord themselves even has a page promoting it for open-source projects. - https://discordapp.com/open-source

Yup. I think Discord will ultimately surpass Slack except for certain edge cases.

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

#95

Post by ineedasername »

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…

"It's entered the mainstream less than 10 years ago. It surpassed the film industry not 2 years"

I don't know how you could think this unless you mean something like esports gaming. Gaming has been mainstream for quite some time, as early as the late 80's I'd say, complete with tv show, toy, and movie tie ins. PC gaming was a little less prevalent, they cost a lot more than consoles of the era.

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

#96

Post by endgame »

joering2 wrote: post #80
trophycase wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please god don't say that. M$'s acquisition of Skype is a lot of the reason we use Discord now.

After over six months of being harrased with “upgrade your skype for better experience”, I finally buckled up and clicked “ok”. When Skype came back in less than five minutes I felt that Microsoft read my mind, pickup all the features I loved and used daily, and deleted them off their new version! it simply blew my mind! In addition everything worked different! New Skype is entirely new messanger, not Skype upgrade.…

In addition, whatever shitty new version they dumped on my tablet has significant UI latency, which was not a problem before.

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

#99

Post by bowlich »

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..

We joked at my last job that it was just a matter of time before the business migrated from Slack to Discord. :)

In fact, Discord became the dev teams unofficial Slack backup whenever Slack went down.

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

#100

Post by opportune »

cflewis wrote: post #23
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 think Discord is a clear buy for someone like Microsoft. It gives them a big leg up, and doesn't really compete with Skype in the demographics.

Not sure if I agree considering it indirectly competes with both Xbox Live and Teams. In another world maybe they could buy it just for the tech and make something more synergistic with it, but they already did that with Skype. So ultimately I just don't see how Microsoft would monetize it and integrate it with their existing products without competing against themselves.

I think Amazon is a more likely acquirer considering they already have Twitch and Discord could vertically integrate with their cloud + it will make their ecosystem better for eventually launching a Steam competitor which I am 100% sure they plan to do at some point

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