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Please tell me Spotify’s new partnership with Discord will fix its bad gamer playlists

Please tell me Spotify’s new partnership with Discord will fix its bad gamer playlists

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Discord will now allow users to connect their Spotify accounts on the platform. They’ll be able to share what music they’re listening to on their Discord profiles, or — if they have a Spotify Premium account — simultaneously listen to music within a server.

Spotify has already shown an interest in the gaming side of music, like when it launched a portal dedicated to game music back in 2016. But the platform has done very little to update its, ahem, questionable curation. It supplements tracks from video games with curious playlists that appear to be tailored to the most stereotypical image of people who like video games — the angsty kind who loves bands like Limp Bizkit, Atreyu, or Breaking Benjamin, and little else.

Spotify’s partnership with Discord — a platform started as a voice and text-based chat service specifically for gamers — suggests that perhaps it could soon learn what video game lovers actually listen to, rather than what the company assumes they listen to.

Mikael Ericsson, the product director of Spotify’s platform and partner experience team, says the move will allow Premium users the chance to “listen together as a group or highlight what they’re jamming out to while enjoying their favorite games” through Discord. “This is the next natural step to highlight the importance of music as an integral part of the gaming experience,” Ericsson says. Discord will also open its Verified Server programs to feature artists, music communities, and music labels.

Will this mean more modern tunes to play your favorite games to and less angry rock from the ‘00s? Let’s hope so, for the sake of the 19,020 subscribers to Spotify’s official “Like a (Final) Boss” playlist.