Back in October of last year, shortly after the Discord Store entered beta, Discord announced a new subscription service. As we reported at the time, the service had potential, with an offering of good games. Now, after about one year of operation, Discord has announced that it will remove all games from Nitro on Oct 15, while promising to double down on the service.
After careful consideration, we're removing games from Nitro on October 15th, 2019.
To those who supported these games, thank you so much. Now, we're doubling down on Nitro. More fun, features, and enhancements to come.
What's next for Nitro. Read more: https://t.co/65Be1exPec pic.twitter.com/3CZI40itNy
— Discord (@discordapp) September 13, 2019
The reason to remove the games is explained in a blog post: “Through your valuable feedback, it became clear that while we and some of you love these games, the truth is the vast majority of Nitro subscribers didn’t play them.” This looks like an obvious case of gamers hoarding digital libraries of games, or backlogs, and never actually playing them. It’s honestly not that surprising to hear. Between Humble Monthly, PlayStation Plus, Xbox Pass, and a few other services popping up recently, there are just too many options.
Discord intends to keep working on Nitro, but it will pivot toward features and enhancements that encourage users to hang out on Discord. The $9.99 Nitro plan now includes Go Live, a simple way for users to stream gameplay directly to friends. The developers have also added 1080p 60fps and Source Go Live streaming to Nitro Classic and Nitro, respectively. Additionally, they have provided a doubled upload size of 100mb for Nitro $9.99 subscribers. Discord seeks to further improve by working on ways to make Nitro boost more powerful. This begins by reducing the number of boosts needed to reach Level 3 by more than half — from 50 to 20.
Discord Nitro’s mission
According to Discord, the main objective of Nitro remains the same — keep Discord’s core features free. Nitro features aim to act as enhancements to the core Discord experience, not replace it. And Discord vows to keep working on improving and developing on top of the core Discord experience, counting on users’ feedback. You can visit Discord’s Feedback section to leave your comments and suggestions if you intend to stay a Nitro subscriber.
