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Industry NewsLatest

Discord courts game developers with social SDK

Published

Mar 24, 2025

TopicLatest
Source: Discord

TL;DR

  • Discord introduces the Discord Social SDK, a free toolkit for game developers to integrate social features into their games.
  • The SDK includes features like a unified friends list, deeplink game invites, and cross-platform messaging.
  • With 200 million monthly active users, Discord is appealing to developers seeking enhanced game discovery and player retention.

Author

Paddle News Desk

Gamer-focused communication platform Discord has unveiled its Discord Social SDK, a free toolkit aimed at game developers wanting to integrate Discord's social features directly into their games.

Breaking down barriers: The SDK offers a suite of features aimed at enriching the social dynamics within games, including:

  • Unified friends list: Players can access their Discord friends in-game, enabling continuous connectivity both during and outside gameplay sessions.
  • Deeplink game invites: Allows players to send direct invitations from within the game, enabling friends to join specific parties or lobbies.
  • Cross-platform messaging: Players can maintain conversations across various platforms, including desktop, console, and mobile.

Banking on a unified experience: While the SDK is accessible to all players, regardless of whether they have a Discord account, it offers a more integrated experience to those who choose to link their accounts. Discord hopes that the appeal of users being able to enjoy a more integrated experience, which bridges their in-game activities with Discord's other functionality, will encourage additional signups.

The lure for developers: Discord's initiative addresses a significant challenge in the gaming industry: game discovery and player retention. With over 20,000 new games launching annually, developers often struggle to achieve visibility in a saturated market. By integrating Discord's social features, games have the potential to benefit from increased exposure to Discord's user base of over 200 million monthly active users, who collectively spend more than 1.5 billion hours playing games each month on PC alone.

Early adopters: Several prominent game developers have already adopted the SDK to enhance their games' social features. Those already onboard include Theorycraft Games, Facepunch Studios, 1047 Games, Scopely, Mainframe Industries, Elodie Games, and Tencent Games. The SDK is compatible with C++, Unreal Engine, and Unity, supporting Windows 11+ and macOS platforms. Discord has announced plans to extend support to console and mobile platforms in the near future.