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Discord has quickly become a staple of online gaming. The service has already attracted over 45 million users and has practically replaced Skype as in-game chat client as well as building groups and communities for chat and discussion. Everyone from venues to streamers uses it to inform their fans of new content or to just engage.
Now, Discord is gunning for the business of games, in particular, community management. Discord is now offering verified servers as part of its Discord Partners program. This will allow brands and games to have official channels where developers can read, interact and communicate with the fans. Over 100 companies are already a part of this program including Supercell, Microsoft and PlayerUknown’s Battlegrounds developer PUBG Corp.
"We’ve heard from players and game developers alike that they would love to easily indicate where to get official news, support, or dialogue for their favorite game on Discord — so we built a way for players to see which servers are verified by Discord and the developers themselves," said the announcement on the Discord blog. "Super-fans know they are in the right place by spotting the checkbox in the game server profile.
The verified servers are specifically for game publishers and developers, meaning that streaming communites are unable to take advantage of the new system. Servers will also have to adhere to Discord’s community guidelines in addition to any set out by the server owner. The servers will also integrate with other social channels like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to link all official channels to the chat communities.
