Hands-on with Twitch’s answer to Discord

Twitch has released the full version of its desktop app as it aims to connect every moment of your gaming life. The app, which went into a public testing phase in the spring, is now out of beta. It provides a way for fans to watch Twitch content, manage game mods, and more. Most important, the Amazon-owned video platform wants its audience to use its app to group up into smaller communities with features like text and voice chat similar to the popular social tool Discord.

The Twitch app combines the web experience of browsing livestreams with options to create personal “servers” for yourself and topics you find interesting. This app is the result of Twitch’s acquisition of the Curse platform, which provided many of these features in its own desktop app for years. But these days, Discord owns this space. For evidence of that, you can watch almost any popular creator on Twitch, many of whom have their own servers on that platform for their communities. Some broadcasters even have subscriber-only Discords to encourage people to support them financially.