Discord Announces Nitro Changes - Nitro Games to be Removed

Communications and digital distribution platform Discord gave notice yesterday that changes are on the way for Discord Nitro, its tiered subscription service, via a post on Medium. Discord has been widely popular among gaming communities since its release, thanks to its low-frills, easy access to VoIP communication and its text server setups, serving as an alternative to programs like Mumble, Teamspeak or Skype.

Nitro, which was introduced in January 2017, was first billed as a method to keep core Discord features such as text and voice communication free. For $4.99 a month, users were able to access additional features such as animated avatars and emojis, access to cross-server custom emojis (normally only usable on the host server for free users), increased maximum size for file uploads, and other small perks like a unique badge on their profile. 

In October 2018, Discord Nitro was renamed to ‘Discord Nitro Classic’, and a new subscription tier of $9.99 a month was created and took on the Discord Nitro name instead. Discord also introduced a catalogue of ‘Nitro Games’, which were freely available for Discord Nitro (not Classic) subscribers to access through Discord’s store. As the app began rolling out streaming options for users, Nitro subscribers also had a broader range of quality options and other small perks like getting early access to certain features.

In May 2019, Nitro Server Boosts were announced, allowing users to ‘Boost’ one server they were in, and providing the server certain perks like increased emoji slots once a certain number of boosts were reached (2, 10, and 50 to reach Level 1, 2, and 3 respectively). 

Yesterday’s post marks changes to the Nitro Games catalogue and the Server Boosts system. Discord has announced that come Oct. 15th, they will be removing Nitro Games, citing a lack of interest from the “vast majority of Nitro subscribers.” The team did note that a refund was being offered for anyone who chose to subscribe to Nitro largely on the basis of the Nitro Games catalogue. Interested parties can contact Discord Support at the following link:

Discord added that the file upload size for $9.99/mo Nitro users was being doubled from 50mb to 100mb, and noted that more additions are on the way, but declined to go into detail.

Nitro Server Boosts were also brought up, as Discord mentioned looking into additional ways to up their value. For a start, the number of Server Boosts required to reach Level 3 Perks was cut from 50 to 20. No other elaboration was made at this time regarding upcoming changes to Nitro Server Boosts.