Discord Just Killed Economy Bots
Discord have recently released their App Directory; a place where server owners can find cool new bots and add them to their servers. But, the App Directory has a major flaw.
Discord have recently released their App Directory; a place where server owners can find cool new bots and add them to their servers. But, the App Directory has a major flaw...
EpicOverlord
So, to first understand the issues of today's article, we need to take a look at the requirements for bots on the App Directory
We can see there that bots on the App Directory cannot have any "Gambling-adjacent or addictive behaviour" [Blue box].
The red box tells us that bots that fail to follow the requirements simply won't be featured on the App Directory. It's for this reason that creators behind popular bots such as Dank Memer at mad at Discord.
Not only is Dank Memer left off the App Directory, MEE6 is displayed on the App Directory in a prominent position. I can hear you asking me already "Epic, what has MEE6 got to do with this? It's a moderation bot, not an Economy bot"
Well, this is where we navigate to https://mee6.xyz and we discover something shocking:
MEE6 has an Economy Feature! So, how can MEE6 be listed on the App Directory, but Dank Memer can't?
What is happening?
In September, Discord hosted a Stage Channel Event showing developers the App Directory they had been working on. In preparation for the App Directory's release, Melmsie - the creator of Dank Memer - spent over 6 hours preparing and perfecting their listing on the directory, as developers were told a good listing was important to pull in new users.
Following this event, the App Directory was soft launched on Tuesday 18th October 2022, and emails were sent out to developers within minutes of the release letting them know if they were eligible or not.
However, shortly after the launch, Melmsie received this email from Discord:
Angered by the situation, Melmsie rushed straight over to the Discord Developers server to demand answers, and was met there by many other angry developers with the same issue: Discord had just removed any bot with gambling features...
Regardless of whether real-life money was being gambled or not, if your bot had the capability of allowing users to gamble credits, items, anything, it was removed from the App Directory.
Why is this unfair for Dank Memer?
Well, as I mentioned in my App Directory article, going forward, the main source of traffic is going to be the App Directory. Users - especially new users - are going to become less and less aware of sites like Top.gg as the App Directory so prominent within the Discord app, and has a more trustworthy appeal to new users as it has been made by Discord itself.
Simply put, if your bot is not on the App Directory, you don't get exposure to the general userbase.
Melmsie states in the Dank Memer blog post that the bot is his main source of income and is "how [he] feeds his family". Without his bot being featured on the App Directory, the bot will slowly be added to less and less servers, as new platform users won't be aware of it.
This situation also allows us to see in action exactly how Discord treat their bot developers. MEE6 have been known to be given "special treatment" in the past - such as being allowed to keep music features involving YouTube, when other bots were being shut down (MEE6 did choose to remove these features, however, to level the playing field.)
MEE6's economy system is quite similar to Dank Memer's; users earn credits (or "money") through using the bot's commands, and then can spend this money in the store for perks on the server, or items.
The only difference between the stores is that MEE6 allows users to spend their credits for perks in the server set by the Admins, like roles, channel access etc - similar to UnbelievaBoat) whereas Dank Memer's store is more focused on items for the bot to enhance your experience playing the game.
MEE6 literally has a /roulette command to play RUSSIAN ROULETTE (a game of PURE LUCK) in order to gain credits. Uh, hello Discord? Gambling much?
Dank Memer is the second most used Discord bot on the platform, yet Discord only appears to care about the top dog. What does this mean for the future of the platform? What do you think about this situation?
Learn More About This Situation:
Here are some other great resources to check out if you are interested in learning more about this issue!
Dank Memer's official press release:
https://dankmemer.lol/community/blog/app-discovery-disappointment
No Text To Speech's YouTube Video
That's all for today, hope you enjoyed today's article. Make sure to join our official Discord server to discuss further on this topic or suggest new articles!
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