Discord’s turning the focus back to games

Discord wants to steer its app back to gaming, and it’s making some improvements to the app to help make that happen. This year, Discord will make some changes to the app that will let users reach their conversations faster, as well as improve the reliability of its voice, video, and streaming.

In a message to users, Discord CEO Jason Citron says the company realized it needs to narrow its focus from “broadly being a community-centric chat app” to a service that “helps people deepen their friendships around games and shared interests.” The company wants to make it easier to connect before, during, or after playing a game.

It also plans to bring more of Discord’s features to a broader range of devices, and has also some made visual updates as well, with tweaks to illustration styles, icons, and other elements.

By turning its attention back to gaming, Discord is reversing the plan it set in motion in 2020. As the covid pandemic increased the need for messaging platforms like Discord, the company wanted to become a more general chat app that allowed users to “spend quality time with people, whether catching up, learning something, or sharing ideas.”

A lot has changed since then. Discord laid off 17 percent of its staff after growing its headcount too quickly. Citron was also one of the five CEOs who testified in front of the Senate over concerns about child safety. Lawmakers are currently pushing for legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act, which would require platforms like Discord to roll out measures to protect kids.

During an interview on Decoder in April, Citron hinted at turning the company’s attention back toward gaming. “Going forward, we are very focused on gaming as our core use case — group chat around gaming,” Citron said at the time, adding that 95 percent of its users play games.

Correction, May 30th: A previous version of the article misstated the scope of Discord’s design changes. It is updating the design of its branding, not its app.