When comparing Steam vs Discord, the Slant community recommends Steam for most people. In the question“What is the best digital distribution platform for PC Games?” Steam is ranked 1st while Discord is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Steam is:
Over 125 million users actively use Steam, with over 15,000 games to choose from.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Biggest digital distribution platform for games
Over 125 million users actively use Steam, with over 15,000 games to choose from.
Pro Steam sales
Steam has daily and weekend sales as well as publisher sales, though their biggest sales are their winter and summer sales. Steam is known for their deep discounts (discounts on games range from 10% to 95%) on games and has pushed many other stores to do the same seeing Amazon and other storefronts match their pricings when sales go up as well as hold their own seasonal sales.
Pro Cloud save games
Sharing save games between Mac and Windows machine is pretty nice though the game has to be a Steamworks game in order to have this feature.
Pro Support for cross-platform games
Most games that have a Mac and Linux version available can be found on Steam.
Pro Wide selection
There are a variety of games from indie to AAA. There is a curated list and even classic games.
Pro Gift games
Users can gift games to their friends, which is great for when there are sales as one friend can pick up games for the rest of his friends cheaply. There is often 4 packs of a single game that can be picked up to easily gift to 3 other friends as well.
Pro Offers refunds for games that haven't been played for more than 2 hours
If you stop playing a game within the first 2 hours, you can ask for a refund.
Pro Fast downloads
Steam has excellent servers and their download speeds tend to be the best out of any digital store online.
Pro Steam achievements
Most games on Steam have achievements. It's also nice that you can see how many people who own/play the game finished a particular achievement.
Pro Steam Workshop
Steam Workshop makes it easy to create and/or find mods and extra content for games that support it.
Pro Active community
The community frequently helps solve questions, review games, and make great content via Workshop.
Pro Integrated VoIP client
Text based chat and VoIP chat are both included with your client. Of course this only works with people on the stream platform.
Pro User friendly
Discord follows the same type of interface design popularised by Slack, which is extremely clean and attractive, and doesn't clutter the interface with unnecessary chrome and cruft.
Pro Free for unlimited users
Unlimited amount of users.
Pro Can be used in browser
Users can invite others to join a Discord channel via a web link, which means no installation is required to use the software - which is one of the big typical barriers to entry for social software.
Pro Good 1-click invite system
Discord allows inviting people to a specific channel with a link. Links can be set to expire. Low effort/passive invite mechanics.
Pro Easy setup
You can quickly send invites to people and they can join in using the web client without having to create an account or install the app.
Pro Has low-latency VoIP support
Pro Supports video and text communication
Behaves and looks like Slack for regular text channels, but with the ability to create voice channels as well
Pro Numerous controls for setting member roles.
Deny access, Deny write message, Allow read messages etc.
Pro Ability to create bots
Discord provides an API for creating custom bots.
Pro Open source bots and management tools
Discord has a wide variety of bots for things from airhorn noises to automated server management, to leveling systems for chat. The bot API is open and there are dedicated sites for finding bots.
Pro Game integration
Discord shows which game each user is currently playing, which among other things helps users to form PUGs with minimal hassle.
Pro Dark theme out of the box
Pro Familiar for Slack users
For those that are used to the way Slack (a similar chat client) works, Discord will be familiar in its use, which lowers the learning curve quite a bit for those that have switched or tried Slack before.
Pro Low effort invite mechanics
Pro Android app has push notifications
Pro Syntax highlighting and Markdown support
The support is limited but still exists. It's a killer feature for dev teams.
Pro DDoS mitigation
Discord prevents users from being DDoSed out of games.
Pro Targeting of roles
Targeting roles allows for quickly requesting someone from a group e.g. artist, moderator, etc.
Pro Ability to thread channels
Ability to create channel categories for channels to sit inside of.
Pro Friendly payment policy
Free account have no tangible restrictions.
Premium account is just a way to say "thank you" to developers. And it work for all servers of discord (not as in slack). And it can be purchased by one who wants. In contrast to Slask, where all active members of the server should be "premium".
Pro Language localization
Have localization for many language, including Russian.
Pro Does not allow NSFW related things to be posted unless in a NSFW channel
Cons
Con Lots of DRM
Many games are not only Steam DRM protected but by another DRM system. It just cries for something to go wrong.
Con Little support for older titles
Many older titles (10-15 years or more) are no longer supported and thus require much manual tinkering to run properly on windows 10, requiring digging though forums and trying many things. Compare that to GoG where these titles often run out-of-the-box.
Con Lots of junky games and violated content
They never clean up their store and they post nudity content on their store.
Con Company actively self-sabotaging
Valve have ripped off bad launcher design from competing stores instead of sticking with the better design they already had. Strong negative response including multiple customers suffering medical issues is being ignored instead of taken on board.
Con Support is an epic fail
EA Help has more positive feedback regarding their support than Steam.
Con Buggy client on Linux with little customer support
Linux support is generally overlooked. It is recommended to disable in-game overlay and to use a real browser to interact with steampowered's website. Basic library access works usually without a hitch.
Also do not expect real tech support on Linux. Forum questions of bugs often go unattended and unanswered.
Con Pricey
AAA titles are very pricey, very often more expensive than at other online stores and sometimes brick & mortar ones.
Con Games cost a fortune on the official Steam store
Buy keys from other shops, never on the official store.
Con Requires to log into Steam every 2 weeks
Steam forces you to periodically log into Steam Store every two weeks, or your games will stop working. They will force you to keep adding the API number, which is a pain. There is an Offline Mode, but you still have to log in at least once every two weeks.
Con Proprietary software
Discord is closed-source, meaning their code isn't available for inspection or reproduction
Con Based on Electron = eats a lot of ram
Con Some functions cut out and available only with "Nitro" subscription
Con Developer's previous company was sued for privacy violations, among other things
See:
http://classactionlawsuitsinthenews.com/class-action-lawsuit-complaints/openfeint-green-international-privacy-class-action-lawsuit-complaint/
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/cases-proceedings/closing-letters/openfeint-inc
Discord's privacy policy also states that while they might not sell your data, a company they get sold to will quite possibly attain said data and thus may be in "more" shady hands.
Con No self-hosting avaliable
Discord is wholly hosted by Discord (the company), you cannot run private instances, and all servers are hosted on their infrastructure. For most people, this won't really impact their usage.
Con Not a generic "team chat" tool
All the UI and the features are aimed specifically at communicating with your gaming team/clan.