Discord and Game Activity
Over the course of its development in 2015, Discord has now arguably become the most popular option for gamers when it comes to VoIP programs. With the copious amount of features and capabilities it offers for communication, community building, and even networking, it can now be considered a new type of social media platform in its own right. Servers on Discord can act like (and most certainly feel like) little exclusive clubs to be a part of. The ease at which the app can be moderated plays into this as well.
However, it is important to remember (especially for our topic today) that Discord is still mainly targeted and caters to the gaming community, so the features they add should be viewed from a perspective that acknowledges this intent. Discord basically gathers the features of lobby chatting with VoIP chatting for gamers to be able to seamlessly play while in live voice calls with friends.
In particular, the addition of some features has led to more impactful additions to the user base, and one of contention for many would be the game library and game activity status. Discord has continually been developing to be integrated to mesh well with as many games as possible, and part of this goal is expressed in these features.
Today we’ll go over what these features can provide for users, how they might appeal to you personally, as well as how to navigate these features among other points to consider. As it turns out, game activity statuses bring to light an important question for people who are aware of social media etiquette and communication: are you really comfortable with letting everyone know exactly what you’re up to, even when you aren’t on a call or actively using Discord?
Automatic Detection and Library
Discord’s approach to activity statuses is, by default, automatically detected by the program itself. It’s also turned on by default, meaning that (for desktop) as long as Discord is open to any degree (not just the window being open, this includes when the program is running in the background), it will always passively be waiting for it to detect when you start up a game.
Of course, if you aren’t playing anything then there will be nothing listed by the program under your account. Once you do start up a game, however, Discord will most likely be able to detect the application as a video game and will list “playing _” right underneath your name on your profile. Every server that you are a part of will know what game you’re playing at that moment, and people can also see more details about the game, as well as how long you’ve been playing. Depending on the game, it can even tell you more nuanced information (like what character, or what game mode).
If you want to see information about your activity status on Discord, you can access it by opening the window for the program, clicking the settings cog in the bottom-left by your ID/profile, and scrolling down to activity status.
Adding Games to the Library
Discord has had increasing support for a very diverse collection of games, so it’s likely that– if you’re playing a game when you do this– it will be recognized and let you know at this interface. The most important features outside of that are that you can also turn off activity status or manually add games that the program may have difficulty detecting.
If you want to look at others’ activity statuses, you can do so either by going to the server that a target member is on and checking the member list on the right. It should say their current game right under their name if they are in fact playing at that moment. You can also check the game activity of friends by clicking the friends’ section in the top-left.
One potentially freeing point about this feature to consider is that you can actually change the game activity status to say whatever game you want. On the activity status section of the settings, right underneath the currently detected game, Discord added a hyperlink to click if you want to manually add a game title to your activity status. Since you can really choose whatever game, it adds an element of ambiguity if you want to prank friends or not reveal what game you’re actually playing.
Hiding Game Activity
How to see your discord game activity?
You can view the list of games you cannot recall from your game activity. These are the steps to follow:
- Start the game that you wish to play on your device.
- Open Discord and choose the “setting” option.
- Scroll down or up to find “game activity” in the setting.
- You can find out what game you are currently playing and which games you have played in the past by opening the game activity.
How to add games in discord game activity?
You don’t usually have to manually add the game to your discord activity. However, sometimes your game may not appear in your list due to a network or server issue. This is an easy task.
All you have to do is add game hyperlinks to the game title.
It is very simple and easy to add your game, which is not automatically added in discord.