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An Introduction to Discord: the Latest and Greatest in VoIP for Gamers

PC Gaming continues to grow annually as one of the primary platforms for gamers to enjoy their favorite titles. E-Sports (think MLB/NFL/NBA/NHL-level skills, commentary and viewership, but for video games) also continue to grow, creating a generation of hyper-competitive gamers all vying to rise above the rest. Throughout of the history of PC gaming, players have used a variety of voice communication programs to allow them to communicate with their teammates. Skype, Mumble, Ventrilo, and Teamspeak are just a few of the clients that are still used today, but in late 2015, a new challenger appeared: Discord!

You heard them. It’s time to ditch Skype and Teamspeak!

Discord was created to serve as VoIP platform that can host many users at a time for voice, text, image and file sharing. It’s the perfect solution for users that were looking for a voice chat program that is easy to use, resource-light, and capable of just about anything. 

Here’s what Discord looks like once you’re logged in. In the center of the screen, users can use discord like they would any typical messenger program to send files, links, texts, images, videos, and other files. Slightly to the left, you can connect to channels to communicate with others over chat.

Traveling even further to our left is a list of discord servers you can join. These are specific groups of channels that you usually have to be invited to and are usually filled with members of various online communities. It’s a great way to chat with people who share similar interests! Many subreddits and YouTube communities have dedicated discord servers.

Discord’s popularity is exploding, with over 45 million users as of May 2017. It’s ability to provide services in an easy (and free!) to use platform that others have failed to match in the past makes it a strong contender for the best VoIP program to date. It even boasts fairly robust security features, such as having to confirm a login via email every time you try to log in to discord from a new IP address.

To get started, head on over to https://discord.gg to sign up. Discord is also available as a client application on desktop machines, as well as for mobile devices like iOS and Android.