Discord Rolls Out Nitro Basic, Multiplayer Activities, And Support For Third-Party Apps

Discord, the communication app of choice for video game enthusiasts, is diversifying its premium Nitro tier to reach more customers with a lower subscription fee. The company has just announced the global availability of Nitro Basic, a more affordable subscription tier that costs $2.99 per month, less than a third of the Nitro subscription, which is priced at $9.99 per month. Nitro Basic will be available worldwide starting October 20.

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Just like the standard Nitro package, the Basic tier gives users access to custom emojis and the special Nitro badge splashed across their profile picture. Compared to the vanilla Nitro subscription that allows uploads worth 100MB in size, Nitro Basic trims that allowance to 50MB. However, the Basic tier misses out on benefits such as custom profiles, animated avatars, video streaming in HD quality, free server boost, and the ability to access Activities on Discord's desktop client. 

Discord

Earlier this month, Discord started experimenting with a new feature called Activities in the voice channels that allows users to invite friends to engage in fun games like playing "Poker Night," "Sketch Heads," "SpellCast," and "PuttParty," among others. Discord is now rolling out the feature widely, giving users an opportunity to huddle up and enjoy games or just watch fun videos without leaving the app. The best part is that players with a Nitro subscription can invite their friends to some Activities even if they aren't paying for Nitro.

App integrations within Discord have become fairly popular in the past few years. The company is now taking the next step forward to build on that growth with a unified App Directory, a place where admins will see the entire app catalog and add the right one to their server. App discovery has been a hassle so far as it required admins to rely on search or visiting a website, but no more. To ensure safety and a good user experience, Discord will only list those applications on its App Directory that are verified. The App Directory listing will also have a "Add to Server" button for integrating them with a single click. 

Discord

Developers will be able to add tags to their respective apps so that they are discoverable across different categories based on the user query. Talking about developers, Discord has also started testing App Subscriptions that will allow them to charge for premium features in their respective apps. At the moment, the program is a closed experiment with a small bunch of developers having access to it. However, Discord is accepting applications from more developers to sign up for the subscription program.