Discord is releasing a Nitro Basic subscription, as well as a new Activities feature that includes YouTube integration and casual gaming. The YouTube integration comes more than a year after the Google-owned video service forced two popular Discord music bots offline. Discord has been testing this YouTube Watch Together feature for over a year, which allows Discord members to watch YouTube videos in sync.
Although it won’t directly replace the popular Discord YouTube bots, it’s certainly much more interactive. On Discord, users can create a playlist of videos to play, and friends must join to watch and listen. It also comes weeks after Discord users began noticing bots relying on YouTube integration disappearing or no longer supporting YouTube. This official YouTube integration is now part of a larger Actions feature that is rolling out today for Discord users.
The new rocket ship button for the Discord audio channel introduces its new active feature and also includes access to random games. All Discord users can access YouTube Watch Together and Putt Party Golf, but you’ll need Discord Nitro to run Poker, Chess, Sketch and more. Only one person needs Nitro to run these extra games, and everyone can join after the game is released.
Discord casual games are much more accessible and fun than sharing a website link with friends. Poker Night is especially addictive if you’re on a server with lots of friends, and I’m interested to see where Discord goes with it. Google Stadia’s original promise was to make it easier to share and play games together, and it looks like Discord could be working with game streaming services and developers to do just that.
In addition to launching activities, there is a new Discord Nitro plan. The $2.99/month Nitro Basic subscription lets Discord users use custom emotes and upload 50MB files, but it doesn’t include the server effects, HD video streaming, animated avatars, or custom profiles available in regular $9.99 Nitro.
The Nitro Basic will be available worldwide on October 20th, after being released in the UK for the past few months. It’s definitely a cheaper option if you need access to server emotes and file uploads, but it won’t let you run most casual games because it requires full Discord Nitro.
Starting tomorrow, Discord admins will also be able to start browsing the Discord directory .This should make it easy to run a server all the bots you need for moderation, automation, and more. Discord is even starting to experiment with premium subscriptions, allowing developers to start selling premium features for their discord apps.
The app world is a big part of Discord, and we want our platform to be a place where developers can explore their creativity, including developers who want to make money,” Discord says n a blog post. “So we’re experimenting with Premium subscriptions and letting a small group of developers ell premium features of their apps and Discord.”
Source: Verge
