Gaming talk app Discord tests movie calls and screen sharing
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Discord, the Slack-like gaming talk app, has been steadily improving since its initial launch a duo of years ago. Last January, it added a $Five paid tier for fans to essentially thank the company — the bonuses simply include GIF avatars, custom-made emoji and a fatter file upload limit. It secretly raised $50 million last month, as well. That extra cash may be why the Discord team is able to commence rolling out two of its most-requested features, movie talk and screen sharing.
The team is testing the two fresh features with five percent of its current members to make sure its servers can treat the big bump in server traffic represented by movie data. Desktop app users will get the feature very first, with roll outs planned for mobile and web users soon. The test run will last a month or so, which is when Discord plans to open up the features to all users.
For now, movie talk and screen sharing is only available in one-to-one Discord calls or within direct message groups of up to ten people, so you’ll need to commence one to see the movie options (the team recommends five users at once for best quality). You can switch inbetween your screen share and webcam movie at will, making it effortless to connect with your gamer pals face to face and plot your strategy on paper. If you click away from the movie call, you’ll get a neat little picture-in-picture screen so you can stay talking while you check out other Discord channels.
If you’re one of the fortunate few to get the fresh feature this week, don’t plan everything going sleekly. "Thanks for your patience as we develop this feature," writes Discord’s Nelly on Medium. "If you’re part of the initial rollout, please submit any bumps, bugs, and welts to us so we can get those immovable."