Setting the Stage: The Beginning
FRVR's journey began with a clear vision: to create a robust distribution platform for any game developer. Their approach saw them experiment with various genres to see what fits well, and they found their stride in the world of first-person shooters with their flagship title: Krunker.
Easily playable in any web browser, Krunker built an engaged community of players since its launch in 2018 and has continued to expand its content and features. Krunker’s community boasts an impressive array of first-person shooter (FPS) players, ranging from casual players looking to pop in for a round or two, to the hardcore competitors looking to play “just one more round” every night.
FRVR's initial goal was to find the right platform for Krunker, a unique casual FPS game. After evaluating various distribution channels, Discord was identified as the ideal platform with its large, active user base and the opportunity for people to play directly where they socialize.
"Discord is the most exciting new games channel by a wide margin. It’s already where the most engaged players are spending their time, so the ability to allow them to play our games directly is groundbreaking."
— Chris Benjaminsen, Founder of FRVR
The next evolution of Krunker, Krunker Strike FRVR, captured the gameplay of the original Krunker and molded it into a style that’s easier to engage with for a new generation of players with high expectations and less time to play.
Immersing in the Experience: The Integration
Integrating Krunker Strike FRVR with Discord's unique real-time communication features was an extremely exciting venture for the team. While this type of integration typically poses significant challenges, Discord simplified this process with its robust voice and video capabilities, including high-quality voice and video calls.
The FRVR team emphasized, "It’s one of the unique features that Discord provides natively, without the need for integrating third-party services, running your own communication infrastructure, or changing the game design."
Playing a game on Discord with your existing friend group while chatting live with friends cultivated a level of engagement that resonated perfectly with their gameplay. The team explains, "Socializing while playing a game creates a completely different set of opportunities which acts as powerful boosters for competitiveness, collaboration and simply put, amplifies the overall fun of the activity."
Discord's easy-to-use Embedded App SDK let the team concentrate on game design without needing to develop flows outside the game. "One thing in particular that we’ve noticed (and love) is that the SDK allows us to focus on the 'now' of the social moment between the users. It’s what happens in real-time that matters and the past is mostly used to enhance the current moment," they added.
Enabling users to play directly within their communities created a unique intersection between game development, community management, and marketing.
Continuing the Journey: The Evolution
Krunker Strike FRVR has undergone a journey that reflects FRVR's unique approach to game development. Their game is primarily made in an HTML5 tech stack, utilizing JavaScript / TypeScript, three.js, and WebGL, all supported by services running in Node.js and Go. "Adapting our tech stack to Discord’s API was quite simple to achieve and it helped to get onboarded with Discord’s stack in no time."
A defining attribute of FRVR’s development work is ensuring that any game they make runs smoothly across platforms, including desktop and mobile devices, as well as extending to TVs, car entertainment systems (don’t play while driving!), and consoles. Krunker Strike already supported mobile and desktop, so adapting to the Discord environment meant making a few small UI tweaks to create an optimal integration between the game’s UI and Discord’s mobile app interface.
FRVR adopts a flexible approach to game development on emerging platforms, a strategy that has proven especially valuable in the new landscape of instant games that Discord represents. The FRVR team shares, "In order to sustain such a process, there is a constant loop between development and market feedback that we are maintaining. On Discord, we kept this approach. We are constantly trying new functionalities, testing new API capabilities, and collaborating with Discord to find better and more efficient ways of improving our player experience. This is and will continue to be an ongoing process."
FRVR's numerous experiments revealed significant potential for monetization through in-app purchases. Their player’s reactions to the first purchasable product were overwhelmingly positive, providing valuable insights on how to capitalize on this feature. The FRVR team goes on to share, "While still far away from being completely satisfied with our monetization layer, we’re happy to have the opportunity to try more and more things to cater to as many categories of players as possible."
Taking the Leap: The Launch
What’s unique about Discord is that users come to Discord to play games with their friends. So when you launch a game on Discord, it lives in a place where players already hang out. Since the game is effortlessly discoverable and launchable for those in voice chat, FRVR was prepared for a huuuge influx of players at launch. Over the first two days, their concurrent player count increased minute by minute, hour by hour.
Preparations for the big day started months in advance, including scaling up their infrastructure, heavily testing server load, and running multiple quality assurance tests over most of their systems. So on launch day, when FRVR broke several of their own records for user engagement and concurrent users, they were ready. Fortunately, they didn’t have much firefighting to do on launch day. Besides a few quick fixes, most of the team were celebrating continually breaking their concurrent user records.
Krunker Strike’s player base has more than doubled since releasing on Discord. "It was super exciting having the opportunity to embed our games onto the Discord ecosystem knowing that it will be discoverable by the wider gaming community," says Yon Chau Beh, Senior Platform Engineer at FRVR.
Discord's Impact and Future Insights for FRVR
Thanks to Krunker Strike’s success, building on Discord has significantly influenced FRVR's trajectory. Players on Discord have surpassed the metrics of users on similar platforms, demonstrating Discord's unique potential for social gaming experiences to thrive outside traditional game or app stores.
Marco Cabral, a Software Engineer at FRVR, reflects on this experience: “Implementing social features became very easy with the Embedded App SDK. It gave us the potential to allow Krunker players to play together just by being in the same channel and to create a great and dedicated community around the game."
FRVR's journey serves as an inspiration to other developers. Their advice for developers considering building their Activity on Discord? In the words of the FRVR Team:
"Focus on games that can support an active community. You want Discord to be the place where friends meet to play the game they love."
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