The new design sets a dangerous precedent going forward.

Zere
  • Edited

To put it bluntly, I don't think it's a coincidence that this design change comes so soon after the talks to be purchased by Microsoft fell through. Discord are actively attempting to rebrand and look more casual-audience friendly to bring more potential customers onto their platform.

 

Nothing short of a complete, ground-up rebrand is going to make that idea work. Your platform is literally called "Discord", your logo is a controller, your entire application is heavily routed in the gaming scene, from game account linking to streaming support etc. Hell, even Nitro (the platforms only current method of audience monetisation) just about exclusively offers "gamey" benefits for the user, because let's be honest, how many casual audiences are going to go out of their way to pay for things like a slightly increased upload limit and emojis across all your servers?.

 

While Discord obviously isn't exclusive for gamers, and has any number of social applications (e.g. we actively use it for projects at my university and are officially encouraged to do so by our lecturers to the point where they have made servers for us), the best way to get the word out about this is through non-aggressive means, use word of mouth and less invasive marketing approaches. You have a dedicated audience here that can only grow if you continue to treat them right, but trying to speedball away from your roots to appeal to a different audience is only going to sully your reputation and sour your community's view of the platform.

 

People like the old design, there was nothing inherirently wrong with it. The new one? not so much. The time to listen to feedback is absolutely now, don't leave your loyal users in the dust to chase after people who don't care about the core of what this platform is. Staying on this course sets a precedent that may be extremely difficult to break away from, and could very easily permanently damage the outlook of Discord as a social experience. That's all I've got to say.

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Comments

4 comments

Date Votes
  • PolyBit

    This

    3
  • Mew

    Well put

    4
  • emrys

    well put.

    also, they got a new CFO a couple of months ago, a dude who used to work for pinterest. i wonder how much this change in the finance dept has to do with the rebrand, too. 

    4
  • DemonDunce

    I agree! Discord is heading in a horrible direction.

    0

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