Transforming Game Discovery with Instant Play Experiences on Discord

Discord and NVIDIA are working together to bring cloud-streamed gaming experiences directly to Discord, powered by the NVIDIA GeForce NOW cloud gaming service. This new integration will transform game discovery for both players and game developers, making it easier than ever to find and try new games directly on Discord – no downloads, installs, or launchers. The cloud-streamed game experience will start with Fortnite, which will be demoed behind closed doors at gamescom this week.

“Game discovery today can be clunky and time-consuming with downloads, installs, and patches. We believe collaborating with NVIDIA to power an instant play experience using GeForce NOW will transform game discovery, making it easier to jump into a game instantly without missing a beat of gameplay with friends. We see this new premium experience as a game-changer for players and a massive opportunity for developers to get their titles in front of highly engaged player communities on Discord faster than ever.” – Stanislav Vishnevskiy, Co-Founder and CTO at Discord.

The demo is powered by the NVIDIA Graphics Delivery Network (GDN) through GeForce NOW, ensuring that players can experience Fortnite at up to 60 frames per second at 1440p resolution, straight from the cloud. An integration like this offers a glimpse at how players who don’t have the game installed on their PC would be able to jump into a game and play directly inside Discord, with a limited-time trial of the GeForce NOW Performance experience. Since there’s no separate launcher or installation required, players would be able to enjoy creating a fast, social, and frictionless new path to the games they love, or quickly discover their next favorite game.

A New Chapter for Game Discovery and Player Acquisition

Game discovery is more challenging than ever. Long downloads, frequent patching, and hardware limitations stand in the way of players finding and trying their next favorite game. The vision of this integration is to remove barriers, help players find and try out new games, and instantly start playing the moment they see a friend playing it.

By bringing premium, cloud-streamed game experiences as seen in the Fortnite demo directly into Discord, developers can reach players where conversations about their games are already happening and enable them to instantly jump in and play.

The social dimension of gaming has become central to how players discover and engage with new titles. Discord has become the digital living room for millions of players, where real friendships form and games are shared in real time. According to internal Discord data from 2025, 72% of users play games with friends while using Discord weekly, 50% stream their gameplay to friends, and 40% launch the same game within an hour of watching their friend stream. When users play with at least one friend, gameplay sessions increase 7x, highlighting the outsized role of friend-to-friend influence in shaping what people choose to play.

“This collaboration marks a shift in how the next generation will find and connect in games. With this new GeForce NOW  and Discord integration, developers get a direct line into the communities and interactions that fuel play.” - Phil Eisler, Vice President of GeForce NOW at NVIDIA 

Expanding Premium Experiences on Discord

Discord has evolved from a place where friends play games together to where the whole gaming ecosystem now connects. With more than 200 million monthly active users around the world, Discord is where developers and advertisers can tap into a community of highly engaged players. Our goal is to enable more partners to engage with our audience in an authentic, game-focused environment while also supporting the discovery and growth of great games. 

Our collaboration with NVIDIA is another milestone toward delivering premium experiences for users while connecting developers and advertisers to a highly engaged audience of players. For developers, the behind-closed-doors demo at gamescom featuring Fortnite is a first look at how we’re unlocking new trial and acquisition pathways to make it easier for players to jump into their game from inside Discord. 

Reach out to Discord business development to talk with us directly about this announcement.