Gamers embraced the platform, which allows people to chat over text, voice and video calls inside the app for free. Discord also saw a boom in use during the early days of the pandemic. The company held acquisition talks with Microsoft in 2021 for a reported $10 billion, though no deal materialized.

But hey, it could be worse, and maybe it's about to be, because the New York Times reports that Discord head honchos have been meeting with investment bankers to talk about an initial public offering (IPO) as soon as this year.

Discord could become a publicly traded company as early as this year. Discord has become a staple of modern gaming culture, allowing users across PC, consoles, and mobile devices to engage in voice, video,