Discord’s plans for acquisition, retention and monetisation

Discord has more than 90 million daily active users with over five billion hours of detected gameplay on PC between December 15th, 2025 and January 15th, 2026.

Speaking at Pocket Gamer Connects Summit San Francisco 2026, Discord senior developer advocate Anthony Tešija discussed how developers can use the messaging platform to bring players to their game and foster a close relationship with them.

Disclosing more stats, Tešija said 90% of Discord users play games monthly, while 10k unique PC titles were playing in December 2025.

Social SDK

Last year, Discord released its Social SDK, which allows developers to create a link between player accounts and their game. This lets players chat by voice and text in a game, see their friends list, create lobbies and send invites with Discord.

The social SDK can be used across mobile, PC and console titles and works cross-platform, Tešija said. If users message or send an invite to a player that’s offline, that will go to their Discord where they may get a notification.

Other features available include bots, which developers can use to send messages and respond to commands and interactions, as well as leaderboards, which can be customised based on a user’s friends list.

IAP and ad monetisation

Last year, Discord launched new monetisation features in the platform that allows Marvel Strike players to buy and gift skins. The feature is currently in limited access.

Tešija told PocketGamer.biz that this feature is not just restricted to skins, but can be used to sell anything in-game, including a season pass and gems, for example. Players don’t need to be playing a game to buy these items for their friends, he added.

When it comes to acquiring players, Discord now has an ads platform in which developers can create ‘video quests’. These are ads served to players who, if they watch it, can gain orbs that can be used to customise their profile.

Discord is also working on a new ad type set to release later this year that rewards players for in-game actions.