Discord is a social media platform that is primarily a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), a digital distribution, and an instant messaging platform. Users use the voice call, text messaging, and video call features of the application to communicate. What makes it stand out from other social media is the type of groups it has. They are called servers, which are a collection of continuous chat rooms and voice channels. The application runs on most operating systems such as Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Linux, and even web browsers. As of 2021, the application has received over 350 million registrations for user-ship and has an active user base of 150 million per month. Here, let’s know Who owns Discord?
Jason Citron was the co-founder and owner of Discord in 2015. His purpose in finding such a company was to enable gamers better voice communication online while gaming. Citron always took a great interest in gaming and is an expert in the field of coding. He learned the integration between gaming and coding in the middle of his schooling from his seniors. He completed his graduation in Florida at Full Sail University.
History of Discord
Jason Citron initially founded the company “OpenFeint,” a social gaming platform for mobile phone gamers. Stanislav Vishnevsky had founded Guildwork, which was a similar social platform for mobile gamers. After selling OpenFeint to GREE, a Japanese social networking service, for US$104 million, Citron founded Hammer & Chisel, a game development studio. This was done in the year 2012. In 2014, the studio released their first game, Fates Forever, which Citron predicted to be the first successful Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game on android and iOS (mobile). It was, however, not very commercially successful.
A significant impediment faced by Citron and his team was the existing VoIP platform. They found it challenging to plan and execute strategies in tactical games such as League of Legends and Final Fantasy XIV. They thus developed a chat service focused more on user-friendliness, which minimally impacted the game’s performance. This led to the idea to establish the platform of Discord, for which the studio received additional funding from their benefactor YouWeb’s 9+ incubator, which also funded the setting up of Hammer & Chisel. Some funding was also provided by the famous Chinese company Tencent and from Benchmark Capital.
Discord became public in May 2015 with the domain name “discordapp.com”. There was no specific plan to target a particular audience initially. However, multiple gaming subreddits realized the superior quality of Discord and began to switch over from the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) system to Discord links. The application started to gain significant traction, with e-sports and LAN tournaments using the application for voice communications. Regular twitch streamers also began to use Discord regularly for games like World of Warcraft and Diablo.
In 2018, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live users would be provided with Discord support. They were given the provision to link their Xbox Live account with their Discord accounts. This would enable a cross-connection between the friend lists people have on both platforms.
March 2020 saw a massive influx of users due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This made them change their motto from Chat for Gamers” to “Chat for Communities and Friends”. They also enabled server templates to allow server administrators to pick out set templates for their server based on the needs of the server. In a move towards individuality, Citron decided to change their Twitter handle from “@discordapp” to “@discord” and also change their primary domain name to discord.com from discordapp.com.
Considering all the popularity Discord had gained from the influx of users, Citron decided to shift Discord’s primary focus from only video gaming to a more inclusive, multi-purpose chat and communication client for all types of functions. Further website revisions were made, and they also revealed their brand new slogan, “Your place to talk”. The number of gaming in-jokes was substantially reduced, and the user onboarding experience was improved. Server capacity, reliability, and privacy were given sufficient thought and were all increased respectively. An additional $100 million was received by the company to fund all the changes that were planned.
After the successful increase in its user base, buyers began to line up, with Microsoft rumored to be the front runners to acquire the company. These stories were picked up by papers and magazines like the Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal. There were talks of an estimated $10 billion buyout for Discord which eventually ended as Citron preferred to stay independent. Instead of selling the company, another round of investment was set in April 2021. Sony Interactive Entertainment was one of the biggest companies to invest in Discord; by 2022, the PlayStation Network plans to integrate Discord’s services with its existing voice communication platform.
May 2021 marked the sixth anniversary of Discord. In light of the same, the game controller-shaped logo “Clyde” was rebranded. The color palette of the user interfaces and branding was also changed to make it more saturated to look “bolder and playful”. Changes were made to the slogan from “your place to talk” to “imagine a place”. This was done to make it easier to make additions or omissions to the tagline and slogan further. However, discord users were not pleased with these changes, and the company received sufficient backlash for the same.
In July 2020, Discord acquired “Sentropy”, a company that has expertise in monitoring online networks for abusive messages using artificial intelligence. The company also specializes in using artificial intelligence to enable users to block content that is abusive and the users responsible for it. The purpose of this acquisition was to provide the users of Discord a prevention mechanism for online harassment and make Discord servers and communities more wholesome.
As of September 2021, Citron released a statement claiming that they were still in talks with potential buyers, including major gaming console manufacturers. As a result, additional funding of $500 million was received.
About Jason Citron
Although there is not much information about Citron’s early personal life, what is known is that he is a resident of Florida. His interest in gaming and expertise in coding led him to the multiple ventures that he took up, beginning with his OpenFeint to Hammers and Chisels and finally to Discord.
His career essentially began at a very young age. He had a great capacity to think creatively and was very intelligent. During his graduation, he multitasked by working as a freelancer. After his graduation, he worked for a gaming console company in San Rafael. Due to his love for video games, he was driven to develop the asset that Discord has become to gamers. From the young age of 13, he was inspired by his father, a successful businessman. From the young age of 13, he had fantastic entrepreneurial ideas.
Lesser Known Facts About Jason Citron
- He hails from a family of business persons, where he got his inspiration from to become successful for the interests he had.
- His relationship status is single.
- He began to work actively in the field of coding and gaming at the tender age of 17.
- He graduated from the University of Full Sail in Florida.
- He is exceptionally bold and hardworking and has used his personality traits and his skills to rise to the position that he is in today, which is the co-founder and CEO of Discord.
Conclusion
Discord has been very successful in the past couple of years, owing to the fact that everything went online due to the pandemic. However, Jason Citron has to be credited for guiding his company to the heights that it has reached today. The path might have been slightly easier than before, but there was still an immense amount of competition to capitalize on a market share in a market that has multiple competitors. Discord took the extra step to amalgamate numerous features into a single, user-friendly application. Their inclusion of servers, provisions of roles, voice channels, text channels, developer tools, and communities are unique to Discord which is what makes it all the more attractive to users.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Who is the founder of Discord, and when was it established?
Discord was co-founded by Jason Citron, who was also the owner of the gaming studio Hammers and Chisels. The company was formally established in 2015.
- How did Discord become so popular amongst gamers?
Discord’s features were superior to the competition it had at the time it came out. This attracted the attention of the gaming community and thus began to be used in a lot of e-sports and LAN tournaments. It also became very popular for its voice channel feature and the quickness of the calls.
- How did Jason Citron come about to become a successful entrepreneur?
Jason Citron came from a family of business persons and entrepreneurs. This inspired him to become an entrepreneur, and he has come a long way ever since he was a 17-year-old.
