Come Build Where the World Plays (opens in new tab)

Discord is opening its Activities platform to all developers, enabling them to build, distribute, and monetize games and interactive experiences directly within Discord. The company argues that Discord’s social communities, voice channels, and existing gaming audience create a powerful environment for discovery and rapid product feedback. Early examples suggest Activities can achieve substantial engagement by combining gameplay with native social interaction.

Discord as a Platform for Social Gameplay

• More than 90% of Discord’s 200 million monthly users play games, generating over 1.5 billion hours of gameplay each month.
• The Embedded App SDK lets developers create games, music experiences, and other interactive Activities that run inside Discord.
• Discord’s servers and voice calls allow friends to launch lightweight games together without leaving conversations.
• The platform supports both playing with existing friends and forming new social connections.
• Developers are exploring ideas such as:
  • Games that support collaboration across different schedules and time zones
  • Bots and memes integrated directly into conversations
  • Generative AI combined with built-in social communication

Faster Feedback and Product Development

• Tens of thousands of developers adopted the Embedded App SDK during its developer preview.
• Building on Discord gives developers access to an active, game-oriented audience and immediate user feedback.
• Developers can observe how people interact with their products and quickly adjust features, languages, content, and monetization.
• Playroom’s Death by AI used Discord feedback to:
  • Add features and fixes
  • Expand support to more than 10 languages
  • Introduce AI voices and new prompt packs
  • Implement in-app purchases
• The game reached nearly 7 million players and more than 1 million hours of gameplay within weeks.

Easier Discovery and Engagement

• Developers can now submit Activities for verification through the Discord Developer Portal and opt into discovery.
• Discoverable Activities can appear in:
  • Discord’s App Launcher
  • Text and voice channels
  • Rich embeds shared with friends
• Users can launch an Activity from a conversation and invite others to join.
• Native rich presence allows Activities to appear in server member lists and user profiles.
• Recommendations and visible friend activity help games spread organically.
• Discord reports that these improvements have contributed to approximately 1 million additional game launch days per month.

Discord’s recommendation to developers is clear: build social, easily accessible experiences that take advantage of Discord’s existing communities and communication features. By opening Activities broadly, the company aims to make Discord a complete platform for discovering, playing, and growing interactive games.