As a gamer, few things are more satisfying than sharing your love of a game with others. Whether you want to show friends what you‘re playing, find others to group up with, or just spark conversations about your current gaming obsession, Discord makes it easy to display your game activity for all to see.
For Linux users, Discord‘s game activity feature has some unique considerations and possibilities. In this in-depth guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know to become a master of showing off your game status on Discord on Linux.
Discord and Linux Gaming By the Numbers
To appreciate the significance of Discord‘s game status feature for Linux gamers, it helps to understand just how popular the platform has become.
Consider these statistics:
- Discord has over 250 million registered users as of 2019 (source)
- In 2020, Discord saw a 50% increase in daily voice users, reaching 140 million (source)
- 66% of Discord users report using the app primarily for gaming-related purposes (source)
- A 2019 survey found that 28% of gamers use Discord to connect with friends while gaming (source)
Meanwhile, Linux gaming has seen tremendous growth in recent years, with over 6,000 native Linux games now available on Steam (source) and countless more supported via compatibility layers like Proton.
What this data shows is that Discord is a massive, and still rapidly growing, platform that a significant portion of gamers use as an integral part of their social gaming experience. For Linux gamers, Discord‘s game status feature offers a way to better connect with this huge community and make their presence known.
Why Display Your Game Activity on Discord?
There are many reasons gamers choose to show what they‘re currently playing on Discord:
- An easy way for friends to see what you‘re up to and join your game
- Attracts other players to start a conversation about a mutual interest
- Shows off in-game achievements, playtime milestones, etc. that you‘re proud of
- Gives your Discord profile a personalized flair
Even if you‘re not actively looking to play with others, setting your activity as a status is a great way to express yourself and bond with fellow gamers.
As a Linux gamer, displaying your game activity can also help raise awareness of Linux gaming and connect with other Linux gamers on the platform. You may be surprised how many other players are curious to learn more when they see native Linux games proudly on display!
Under the Hood: How Discord‘s Game Status Feature Works on Linux
Wondering what‘s happening behind-the-scenes when you set your game status in Discord on Linux? At the core is Discord‘s GameSDK – a set of libraries and tools that allow games to integrate with Discord for features like rich presence, matchmaking, voice chat, and more.
While many games implement Discord integrations using the SDK directly, even games without any Discord-specific code can often still have their status detected by the Discord client. This is because Discord also monitors the processes running on your machine to detect known games and application IDs associated with them.
On Linux, Discord‘s GameSDK provides native libraries that games can link against. To use the SDK, developers need only include the relevant headers and shared libraries in their project. Compiling the SDK requires GCC 3.x or newer and GNU Make.
The SDK abstracts much of the underlying IPC (interprocess communication) and RPC (remote procedure calls) required to communicate game state to Discord, making it relatively straightforward to implement rich presence in games. By default, the SDK will set up a local Unix domain socket for communication on Linux systems.
For games that don‘t implement the GameSDK directly, Discord can still detect and display them if they‘re on a whitelist of known executables. The Discord client periodically scans running processes and checks them against this whitelist.
Open source tools like Gamemode take things a step further and allow you to define custom launch configs that, among other optimizations, can automatically set your Discord status when a game starts.
Step-by-Step: Setting Your Game Status on Discord on Linux
Now that you know what‘s happening under-the-hood, let‘s walk through exactly how to set your game status on Discord as a Linux user:
- Open the Discord app on your Linux machine
- Click the gear icon next to your username to open User Settings
- Select "Activity Status" on the left sidebar under App Settings
- Next to "Not seeing your game? Add it!", click the "Add it!" button
- Click the game dropdown and select the game you want to display
- If your game is not listed, you can add it manually by specifying the executable name
- Make sure "Display current activity as status message" is toggled On
- Close settings and your game status will now show in Discord!
Keep in mind that some native Linux games may not be detected or listed automatically. In those cases, you can still usually set your status by manually adding the game‘s executable name.
Customizing Your Game Status on Linux
Want to spice up your game status with a personal touch? The Discord GameSDK provides a number of additional fields you can populate to show more than just the game name:
- State: A string representing the player‘s current state or activity (e.g. "In matchmaking lobby")
- Details: A string with additional details about the player‘s state or activity
- Timestamps: Unix timestamps representing game start and/or end times
- Large Image: A custom image key to display an artwork asset associated with the game
- Large Image Text: Hover text for the large image
- Small Image: A smaller custom image key, usually used for a specific status icon
- Small Image Text: Hover text for the small image
- Party ID: A unique ID for the player‘s current party or group
- Party Size: Current size of the player‘s party
- Party Max: Max possible size of the player‘s party
- Match Secret: A unique hash for spectating a match
- Join Secret: A unique hash for direct game invites or group invitations
- Spectate Secret: A unique hash for spectating a game
Not all games will implement all of these fields, but they provide a wide range of customization options. Many Linux native games make great use of these to provide additional at-a-glance info to other players.
Even if a game doesn‘t implement these directly, you can still customize your status by enabling the "Display current activity as a status message" option in Discord‘s Activity Status settings. This will append a custom message after your game name.
Some ideas for customizing your status message:
- Add an emoji before or after the game name for extra visual flair
- Append your in-game name, clan tag, or current character
- Write a funny message about your current in-game situation or goal
- Link to a clip or screenshot showing off a recent achievement
- Mention if you‘re looking for extra players to join your group
Keep in mind Discord has a 128 character limit for status messages, so keep it concise!
Benefits of Displaying Game Activity on Discord for Linux Users
Displaying your game activity on Discord as a Linux user is more than just a fun way to engage with friends and the broader gaming community. It can offer some significant benefits:
- Connect with fellow Linux gamers
- Seeing other players on Linux helps grow the platform‘s gaming presence
- You may discover new communities or make friends with shared interests
- Get technical help and support
- Other Linux users may be able to assist if you run into issues with a particular game
- Discover better performance tweaks, compatibility tricks, and more for your distro
- Compare in-game achievements
- Many Linux games display stats like playtime, level, etc. in Discord status
- See how you stack up and get inspired to aim higher
- Find others to play with
- Displaying multiplayer games as your status makes it easy for friends to join
- You may get invited to games you didn‘t even know had Linux support
- Start discussions in Discord servers
- Showing off a unique or new Linux game can be a great conversation starter
- You may end up convincing others to try the game themselves
At the end of the day, displaying your game activity on Discord as a Linux gamer is all about sharing your enthusiasm with others and feeling more connected to the bustling world of gaming, both on Linux and in general.
Troubleshooting Discord Game Status Issues on Linux
While Discord generally does a good job detecting games on Linux, you may occasionally run into issues with your game status not showing correctly. Here are some troubleshooting steps to try:
- Make sure the game you want to display is actually running
- Check that the game process is visible in your system monitor
- Check Discord‘s Activity Status settings
- Ensure the "Display current activity as a status message" option is enabled
- If the game isn‘t listed, try adding it manually by executable name
- Refresh your Discord client
- Some updates may require a full restart of the Discord client to take effect
- In some cases, you may need to relaunch the game as well
- Verify Discord‘s overlay is enabled in the game‘s settings
- Some games have a built-in setting to enable/disable Discord integration
- Check if there are any known compatibility issues
- Some games block overlays and third-party integrations in multiplayer for anti-cheat reasons
- Occasionally Discord‘s overlay can cause crashes or freezes and may need to be disabled
- Try running Discord as a different user
- If all else fails, there may be a permissions issue with your Discord config files
- Purging your Discord settings and relaunching may resolve rare cases
If you‘ve double-checked all of the above and your game still isn‘t being detected by Discord, you may need to reach out directly to the developer and see if there are any known issues with the Linux version of their game.
As a last resort, you can always set a custom status message to show what you‘re currently playing. It may not have all the bells-and-whistles of a fully integrated game status, but it still gets the job done!
The Future of Game Status Integration on Linux
As Linux gaming continues to grow and mature, we‘ll likely see even deeper and more sophisticated integrations with Discord‘s game status and other social features. The recent explosion of interest in Valve‘s Steam Deck handheld (which runs on Linux) has the potential to bring many more gamers into the Linux ecosystem.
Some exciting developments to keep an eye on:
- More native Linux games implementing Discord‘s rich presence and game invites
- Ongoing open source projects to make it easy to build Discord integrations in any game engine
- Better Discord client performance and resource usage on Linux
- Distro-level integration of Discord features for a more seamless experience
- Expanded cross-platform play between Linux, Windows, and cloud gaming services
The building blocks are all there for Linux to become a first-class citizen in the world of Discord-powered social gaming. It‘s an exciting time for both Linux gamers and Discord power users!
Get in the Game!
We hope this guide has given you a comprehensive understanding of how to show off your game activity on Discord as a Linux gamer. From the technical underpinnings of the GameSDK to practical customization tips and troubleshooting, you should now be well-equipped to make the most of this feature.
Don‘t be shy about putting your favorite Linux games on display for the world to see. You never know who you might inspire to try gaming on Linux themselves!
Have any other questions about Discord‘s game status integration on Linux? Or perhaps a favorite customization trick we didn‘t cover here? Share it with the community in the comments below.
Now if you‘ll excuse me, I have to get back to (Linux) gaming…