Discord, the voice and video chat service for gamers that’s more recently expanded its scope, is joining the long list of free services that use ads to support their platform. The change is an about-face for a company that’s long held an anti-advertising view.
Ads should start showing up on Discord within the week, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. The ad slots will be offered to game developers as a way for them to get Discord users and their friends to play their games, earning the developers money from sales, in-app purchases and in-game ads.
Instead of standard ads, however, the Discord advertisements will appear in the form of “sponsored quests,” Discord Senior Vice President Peter Sellis said in a blog post last month. When someone streams over Discord and they’re playing a game with a sponsored quest, they’ll have the opportunity to perform the quest while others watch. Viewers can then hop into the game and also complete the quest for rewards.Â
Discord reportedly said it’ll target ads based on a user’s gameplay, age and geographic location, but you can turn off your personalization in the app’s settings.Â
Here’s what we know so far about sponsored quests.
Sponsored quests aren’t new
Sponsored quests are something Discord has tried before. The chat service collaborated with Epic Games and Lucasfilm Games for a sponsored quest in May 2023. Players could share Fortnite gameplay with their friends in a Discord stream, complete the quests, and earn Star Wars-inspired skins that were exclusive to the event. It’s likely the new sponsored quests will work in a similar way.
Currently, you can disable quests in the app’s privacy settings. However, that setting may be altered or removed when sponsored quests officially launch.
In addition to adding advertising, Discord will also ramp up its efforts to sell things such as sponsored profile flair in its shop. This initiative began last week with the release of the Valorant collection, which includes avatar…
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