Discord will soon incorporate advertisements on the in-game chat and streaming software later this week in the form of Sponsored Quests and expanded Shop.
Last month, Discord announced the Sponsered Quest on its blog as a way to integrate ads to help promote video games. The main objective is for players to discover games and stream them to friends to earn rewards, as the feature was in beta last year for users who opted in and helped provide feedback to Discord. One of the examples that Discord has done to introduce the feature was a Fortnite quest for “May the 4th” last year, giving players the chance to stream their game and earn a wrap for their guns to celebrate Star Wars.
A report from WSJ revealed Discord will be rolling out the new feature this week for all users and is looking to hire for an ad-sales position to help with the Sponsered Quest feature.
Previously, Discord has been monetizing the software with a Nitro subscription to give users perks to upload larger files, animated avatars, high-resolution screen sharing, and many more perks for $2.99 to $9.99 a month, alongside a Shop feature for users to purchase decoration and effects for their profile that will soon be expanded for video games developers to bring a themed profile effect and decoration to earn revenues through Discord.
The feature may be controversial as Discord has promoted itself to being ad-free and disinterested the userbase in searching for an alternative in-game chat, impacting the relationship between Discord and its userbase.
Alongside the feature announcement, Discord has reached $600 million on an annual basis and quadrupled from 2020 according to a WSJ report, but had let go 17% of its workforce in January as the CEO Jason Citron claimed the workforce grew too quickly and helped sharpen their focus and bring agility to the organization.
With the announcement of Sponsered Quest by Discord, time will tell if the feature will be successful and will benefit the userbase and video game developers.
