COMMUNITY
Good Comms Discord and harmony in esports communities AUTHOR Riccardo Lichene @riky_lichene
ne of the least discussed cornerstones of the esports and gaming world is Discord, the platform famous for its voice chat service that gamers use to communicate and organise. It’s perhaps not that talked about publicly because it’s always there, working in the background, linking players to their teammates, their coaches and their fans. The young platform wears this heritage with pride because without it a lot of today’s esports tournaments, especially at the grassroots level, would not exist.
winning Rocket League roster, told The Esports Journal.
But its influence extends right to the top, too. “If you don’t train you don’t win and most of the time we train on Discord, so the connection [to esports] is pretty obvious,” Yanis ‘Alpha’ Champenois, captain of Team Vitality’s reigning World Championship
“Discord was created in 2015 as a place for people to hang out before, during, and after playing video games,” Cherry Park, Discord’s Director of Product Marketing, told The Esports Journal in an interview discussing the platform’s role in esports.
O
56
The platform is ubiquitous amongst the disparate communities and fandoms that make up the esports world — even if its role is easily overlooked. Why, one might argue, would you use Discord in an era where almost all online multiplayer games have built-in voice comms? The answer is that the platform is not just about talking to each other; it’s about creating a digital meeting space where people from a specific community can gather, discuss and, most importantly, organise.
“Today, Discord is a destination for gamers, streamers, and competitive esports players as it offers teammates, competitors, coaches, and fans the ability to connect, whether it’s live-streamed events, global watch parties, or real-time practice sessions. “The platform provides reliable, highquality communication technology that has become fundamental in the gaming industry,” Park claimed, highlighting the seamless mix of voice, video and text communication that enables collaboration. That mix makes it a go-to tool for organising esports. “When you train and you need new opponents to test strategies or setups you just go to the community server and ask if there are people willing to compete,” explained Valerio Gallo, an Olympic Virtual Series