> Wrong. Stores need traffic...

That's incredibly reductive. Not all traffic is created equally. Reddit, for example, is notorious for providing awful bang for your ad buck[1].

> Discords user base is traffic.

Oh, I see, so Facebook and Google should've started online stores because of.. traffic? Of course not. If you build a (big enough) platform for free, one of the few viable ways to monetize is to do ads. Making a store is a very dubious prospect (which has not been received particularly warmly). If you're going to bring up Steam, keep in mind they had about a decade of first mover advantage.

[1] https://blog.ladder.io/reddit-ads/

This is just a bunch of random points added together. You have the confidence of someone fully ignorant of the subject matter.

The equation is relatively simple. Out of everyone that visits your online store, a small % will make a purchase. You can can both optimize quality and quantity of traffic. For traffic, you need to keep it coming every day, through out the year. Discord has that returning traffic/users. Game publishers do not.

I think you’re confused. Ubisoft, Epic, Bethesda, etc. all have launchers/storefronts that people need to use to play their games. Saying they don’t have “traffic” is nonsensical.

(But as I mentioned previously, and you brushed off, traffic alone is an awful metric anyway.)