Roblox Acquires Guilded: A Discord Competitor

Roblox Enhances Social Features Through Acquisition

Roblox is strategically expanding its social capabilities through a recent acquisition. The company announced Monday the purchase of the team behind Guilded, a chat platform specifically designed for competitive gamers.

Guilded: A Competitive Gaming Chat Platform

Guilded directly challenges the dominance of Discord in the gaming chat space. The platform’s founders previously explained to TechCrunch that Discord’s broadening focus had resulted in diminished support for the unique requirements of competitive gaming.

Similar to Discord, Guilded facilitates both text-based and voice communication. However, it also provides tools for community organization centered around events and calendars, with features tailored to streamline tournament management.

Platform Capabilities and Funding

The Guilded platform offered support for a vast array of games, with specialized functionality for popular titles like League of Legends, Fortnite, CS: GO, and, notably, Roblox itself.

Earlier this year, the company introduced a bot API, empowering users without extensive technical expertise to create bots that enhance their gaming communities.

According to Crunchbase data, Guilded had secured $10.2 million in venture capital funding, including a $7 million Series A round led by Matrix Partners last year. The company originated from the Y Combinator program in mid-2017.

Deal Terms and Future Operations

The financial details of the Roblox acquisition were not publicly disclosed.

Roblox stated that the Guilded team will function as a separate product group moving forward.

In a blog post, Guilded CEO Eli Brown assured users that existing services would remain uninterrupted.

“All users – including communities, partners, and bot developers – will continue to have access to Guilded as they do now,” Brown stated. “Roblox shares our vision and commitment, and we will maintain independent operation to realize it.”

Strategic Implications

Roblox has experienced significant growth and increased investor interest, particularly during the pandemic, as more players have turned to online gaming.

This success has also attracted competition. In June, Facebook acquired Crayta, a smaller Roblox competitor, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to evolve Facebook into a “metaverse” company – a concept often linked to Roblox’s ongoing development.

The acquisition of Guilded presents Roblox with an opportunity to deepen user engagement within its ecosystem by strengthening its social infrastructure.

This will help to keep users actively involved within the Roblox platform.