Jun 24, 2025

At a Glance Discord Co-founder and CTO Stan Vishnevskiy says the new "social infrastructure" SDK lets devs focus on making great games. Discord made a rather intriguing announcement back in March during the 2025 Game Developers Conference. On March 17 it announced a "social infrastructure and communications" SDK for the platform that lets developers use Discord as the social foundation for online games. The software does not require developers to force players to sign up for a Discord account, allowing creators to interface with communities that don't regularly use the popular chat application. The announcement is likely inviting extra scrutiny from developers who are paying close attention to the company's planned IPO and an increasing number of lawsuits accusing the company of facilitating sexual abuse. But Discord's popularity with players of all stripes means developers can't ignore the potential of bringing players further into the fold. Will they go so far as to make it the main chat method for those games? Co-founder and chief technology officer Stan Vishnevskiy thinks so. In an interview at GDC, he said the SDK came out of a "listening tour" with developers. The companies they spoke with described how they had plenty of resources on hand to make great games, but they lacked was experience building social systems. "We're really great at the social components," he said. "We spent ten years building the technology and investing in it. [Now] how can we offer that to developers?" That technology includes features such as "unified friends lists" that let players mix Discord and in-game friends lists, stronger game invitation mechanics, and "linked channels" that let players interact with Discord channels in-game instead of with the app. Communication through these channels will still be covered under the company's moderation tools and policies. Discord's strength as a social platform is undeniable—and a critical one in an evolving landscape of " online social " play preferences in video games that go beyond classic multiplayer games. In the last few months developers have told us about about players wanting more avenues to hang out with their friends, not necessarily to compete against them. Even Nintendo seems to think the trend is picking up steam, with the Nintendo Switch 2 and the launch game Mario Kart World seemingly built to absorb players into its online walled garden. Discord's garden isn't nearly as walled—but the SDK fits into an evolving strategy to blend Discord activity with everyday gameplay. Discord integration is already driving MAUs As a comparison metric for how game integration already provides returns, Sellis pointed to the " quests " system that might be floating in your Discord UI at this very moment. (Looking off to my second monitor, a large advertisement for Civilization VII -VR blocks some of my view of channels and servers.) Quests are, of course, a pricier advertising venue, and may not be right for all developers. "Quests are driving players to play more," Sellis did say, calling it a strong "baseline metric" developers who've engaged with Quests have observed. The history of Discord's quests does interact with a major part of the "online social" trend: the growing habit of players livestreaming games to their friends. It's a crucial way that even single-player games have become part of this trend. Sellis said developers they've spoken with are "curious" about rewarding players for this kind of activity, which doesn't fit neatly into existing community strategies like server management or purchased advertising. Vishnevskiy pointed out that the first-ever quest Discord rolled out was a challenge to players to stream a game to their friends. That didn't necessarily make the act more popular—but one might see it as Discord recognizing its growing importance. Sellis added that Discord has seen data indicating players who watch the games their friends stream are more likely to pick up a copy themselves—a modern day version of going over to your friend's house to watch them play Devil May Cry 3, then going home and buying your own copy (in my case, without your parents knowing). If you're curious who's using the new Discord SDK, the company stated in its announcement that a range of companies from Tencent, to Splitgate 2 developer 1047 Games, to Supervive developer Theorycraft Games, to Saudi-owned Scopely are all among the first to start building social systems on top of it. Theorycraft Games CEO Joe Tung made the biggest pitch for the tech, saying the company's use of Discord goes so far as relying on it for its fully-remote office. "Discord Social SDK is a valuable tool to make our social features like direct messaging, lobbies, and session invites absolutely seamless for Supervive players," he said. Game Developer and Game Developers Conference are sibling organizations under Informa. Read more about: