The inevitable has come: Discord will introduce ads to its mobile app in the form of Video Quests, though the chat app’s implementation is quite similar to the ads you (choose to) see in mobile games – watching through them grants users some rewards, including avatar decorations and some in-game items. For now, the feature will be launch as a pilot testing starting this June.
Discord Video Quests Is Coming
Discord’s implementation is not quite as annoying as free mobile games that puts ads in your entire screen without your permission, given that you have to tap the ‘Quest bar’ at the bottom of the screen that can be dismissed fairly easily. While its wording made it seem less of an advertising, it explicitly requires user to tap the ‘Accept Quest’ button before ad clip plays, so it’s not quite as intrusive by the looks of it.
Still, it begs the question whether Discord is currently sustainable given that it provides big incentives to users paying for its Nitro subscription, which enables higher streaming quality, avatar customization, and many more. It’s also unclear whether paid users can opt out of this feature completely, as its FAQ only mentioned opting out of personalized ‘Quests’ (and not once has mentioned the word ‘ad’), which uses user data to deliver targeted advertising.
As one of the biggest chat apps today, Discord currently holds more than 200 million monthly users – the company once considered a $10 billion acquisition deal from Microsoft back in 2021, but ultimately denied the buyout in favor of going public (IPO), which is currently in early talks.
Source: The Verge
Pokdepinion: Let’s hope paying users can opt out of this.
