Building and publishing a game is hard. Getting players to discover, share, and play it is even harder. With dozens of incredibly strong games released each day, some with huge marketing budgets, it’s harder than ever to build a player base and keep it strong. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do though, and Discord has a set of tools to help you. Why Discord? Discord has over 90 million daily active users* and over 90% of Discord users play video games*. Discord is already where massive communities of gamers connect across desktop, console, and mobile. Take advantage of those connections to drive into deeper player engagement, longer gaming sessions, and organic growth for your game. 66% of Discord users play games with friends weekly*. Discord users share the games they play with their friends. Your players are your biggest cheerleaders, make it easy for them to share what they’re playing. Discord PC players played a median of 6 times longer if they were playing with at least one friend on Discord, vs playing alone*. Creating social experiences that players can share with their friends keeps games fresh for longer. A social game doesn’t necessarily have to be a multiplayer experience. Consider daily puzzle games that allow score sharing or roguelikes that have daily runs and leaderboards. Both offer unique opportunities for community engagement and friendly rivalries. Using Discord as part of your game development strategy can help build community, grow your game, and keep players playing! *Discord Internal Data, 2025

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Build a Community to Capture Your Players

Whether you’re just starting on a new game or you’ve already got a beta up and running, it’s never too early to think about community. Discord is a leading platform for hosting official game communities; over 9,000 official game communities are on Discord, with over 80 million members*. Players who join your game’s Discord community can develop a sense of belonging and connection with your game that goes beyond just playing. They become invested in your game’s success, provide valuable feedback, and naturally bring new players into the community. It also gives you a chance to interact directly with your players, get to know them better, provide feature updates and bug fixes, and learn why they love your game. A thriving community with active developers gives players a reason to stick around between updates and creates lasting relationships that keep your game alive. *Discord Internal Data, 2025

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Get Your Game Seen With Rich Presence

Have you ever seen what a friend is playing in the Discord client? This is called Rich Presence and there are so many ways to use it to get your game seen. The Discord Social SDK allows you to control how Rich Presence is displayed to your players in Discord by adding text, images, links, buttons, and more. You can even add invites that allow players to join your game directly from Discord. With Rich Presence, your player’s profiles become organic marketing for your game and give you a seamless way to create social experiences. The easier you make it for player’s to show off what they’re playing the faster your game will naturally spread through their social graph.

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Keeping Your Players Engaged

A Discord bot or companion app keeps your game present in player’s lives even when they’re not actively playing. You can use them to bring your game’s world into Discord, announce in-game events, share achievements and leaderboards, and run giveaways or promos. This keeps your game top-of-mind in Discord and gives players a reason to jump back in.

“Apps weren’t just background tools; many existed as in-world systems or characters, quietly turning routine Discord behavior into part of the ARG itself.”

Case study from Sabotage Studio. Read more to learn about how they used community and bots to fill the gap between game updates. Bots and companion apps can extend your game’s experience into Discord, creating engagement loops that bring players back. A guild-installable bot can live in your community server and user-installable bots allow players to use them anywhere for optimal sharing. A well-built bot helps players organically share your game and community. Players sharing their high scores, leaderboards, builds, and achievements through your bot can drive their friends to return to the game just to beat them, or even purchase the game to join in the competition. It’s re-engagement and community building that works for you around the clock.

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Which Strategy Should You Start With?

You don’t need to implement everything here at once. Pick a strategy that matches your current development state and player base, then build from there!

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Pre-launch or early development:

Start with “How Do I Create a Community For My Game?”. Create a home for your early testers and first players to join. A community built during development gives you valuable feedback and creates a core group of invested players who will champion your game at launch.

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Existing game:

Start with “How Can I Get My Game Seen?”. Rich Presence and the Social SDK make it easy for players to see what their friends are playing and buy the game or join them right from Discord. This helps create organic growth through friend groups.

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Live game with an existing community:

Start with “How Do I Keep My Players Engaged?”. Build a bot that bridges your game and Discord. Think about what information from your game could be the most helpful thing for player’s to share. It can celebrate achievements, announce events, and build competition through leaderboards. This strengthens the connection between your community and your game.