Could the esport focused Guilded replace Discord?

Discord has a special place in many gamers' hearts - it's used to chat, organize games and foster communities with the key being that it makes all these things so easy.

In fact such is the VOIP's apps reach and usability it is now being used by a wide variety of people and purposes from schools to workplaces.

(Picture: Guilded)

However, there is a new app that wants to empower gamers even more with features like in-built group calendars, scheduling tools and tournament features. It is called Guiled and has the backing of some pretty powerful and internet savvy people.

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Having recently raised over $7 million, Guilded aims to build the "ultimate chat platform for gaming communities," and is working with game developers and esports teams to fine-tune their product for gamers.

On the surface, It looks remarkably similar to Discord which may prove to be a good thing as it could make any mass migration of users over to the new platform smoother.

The Guilded app will look familiar too many. (Picture: Guided)

You could be wondering why you would bother with what some have called a "Discord clone" but take a glance at Guilded's feature list and you quickly realise there is quite a bit more to the app than that lazy moniker. 

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On top of the aforementioned group calendars and scheduling tools, there is also a matchmaking component - dubbed "Scrim Finder" - that finds teams and esport organisations at a similar level and schedules a match between them with all stats collated and stored on the teams' dedicated page. 

The dedicated scrim finder aims to make it easier to find teams of a similar level to scrim. (Picture: Guilded)

Whether these tools will be enough to draw users from Discord, which has over 250 million users and is deeply embedded in the gaming community, is yet to be seen but with an investor group that includes Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian they definitely have the financial backing.

The Guilded app is currently available as a desktop app on Windows or via a web browser, there are also mobile versions available on the App Store and Google Play.