Announcing PlayStation’s new partnership with Discord

[StraightVege]

2 hours ago, DaivRules said:

Here are two things I've learned about Discord since Sly integrated it here: It's really just chat rooms and you probably want to keep avoiding it.

 

As an antisocial geezer, I fully intend to do so.

[scemopagliaccioh]

Well, I already had to learn what's  Discord for boosting  related things, so I'll just wait what changes with this.

[Jelly Soup]

2 hours ago, BlackJudas said:

They should integrate facebook next!

 

They did, it was removed last year because it was a nightmare to manage. And FB wanted more and more information that either Sony didn't want to give up or the PSN wasn't capable of providing.

[Conor]

At least Microsoft won't be running this application into the ground

[Undead Wolf]

I'm glad to see Discord integration finally coming to PlayStation. It has been a thing on Xbox for years, but better late than never. I mainly use Discord for messaging, and it's far better than PSN messages (better app, larger character limit, can embed images/videos from links, etc). If I can receive notifications and send messages directly from my console, even better. Will be nice for it to display the games I'm playing without any input needed from me too. 

[kdogg_gamer_]

3 hours ago, Stand_User3 said:

People made fun of the Jim Ryan appreciation thread. This man is the pinnacle of gaming.

They sure did and now the haters are getting their noses in his ass again. i am not a huge Jim Ryan fanboy but the hate he got was undeserved. He does listen to us gamers and genuinely wants to make PS better.

[Maxie_M0us3]

44 minutes ago, kdogg_gamer_ said:

They sure did and now the haters are getting their noses in his ass again. i am not a huge Jim Ryan fanboy but the hate he got was undeserved. He does listen to us gamers and genuinely wants to make PS better.

Well, I would change my mind if a backward compatibility with PS 1/2/3 via emulation exists. Taking save files, digital games and DLC and trophies. If some small guys can do an emulator, why not Sony?

[EDGES]

54 minutes ago, MaxieM0us3 said:

Well, I would change my mind if a backward compatibility with PS 1/2/3 via emulation exists. Taking save files, digital games and DLC and trophies. If some small guys can do an emulator, why not Sony?

because the emulator made by those "small guys" is a broken POS that barely works with audiovisual and input glitches, crashes, no OS functionality, trophies etc., no online, if Sony were to present a product before you they have to abide to a certain level of quality, they can't just throw a game into the emulator and see it boots up and say well, that's good enough for them, look at the PS4 BC even, 99% it works, but they gave warnings everywhere about hey this may happen, this and that, they clearly label the games that have problems on the store and not even list them to buy on the PS5 store, only way to buy those is through the site, and this is for a library of games which they share the same hardware architecture, can you imagine the level of quality assurance they would have to go through for PS3 games? for what? a library that 70% of the games got remasters on PS4 anyway?

 

on topic: why so late tho? 1 year later?

Edited May 4, 2021 by LockheedPrime

[AJ_Radio]

18 hours ago, Wavergray said:

The Jim Ryan era just keeps getting stronger.

 

 

More like pissing in the wind.

 

18 hours ago, Dzware said:

Great news! Something people asking for, for a while now. With the announcement of the PS3 and Vita stores not shutting down and now this, Jim Ryan really shows he listens to the us, the players. 

 

Surely you're not serious?

[Paperclip1776]

1 hour ago, AJ_Radio said:

 

More like pissing in the wind.

 

 

Surely you're not serious?

LOL.  

 

Based on your responses above and the overall amount of reputation and posts you have cumulated over the years on PSNP, it's clear to me that you have a lot of flash and no substance.  Comments like the ones above bring nothing to the conversation but are designed to get an emotional response.  Sure, we all post stuff to get a reaction from time to time but your posts sure do have a similar theme in that manner.  

 

Back on the topic, with the announcement that Playstation is partnering with Discord (highly improved service offering compared to what Playstation currently has) and the fact that he correctly reversed a big decision to close the PS Vita/PS3 stores, my question to you is: Why do you think Jim Ryan doesn't deserve some praise here?

 

Keep in mind, I'm no Jim Ryan fanboy but, he does seem to be saying the right things and recently his actions are matching what he's saying (i.e. enhancing the PS experience).  Oh, and by the way, Playstation had a record year in both revenue and profits, with a PS5 console losing money on every sale.  This is on Jim Ryan's watch.  Of course, there's that thing called the pandemic that helped Playstation and the entire industry but Playstation has been on an upward trajectory for many years now and there's no reason to think that good decisions he made/approved are paying off for the company, decisions that culminated over the past 2 years since he's been CEO of the PS division.

 

I will be interested to see if you respond at all, and if you do, what type of an emotional attack I should expect to see.

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Paperclip1776
changed wording

[Thephoenixshow]

https://www.playstationtrophies.org/news/news-33803-sony-partners-with-discord-to-bring-the-service-to-playstation.html

[Cloud_SOLDAT]

21 hours ago, Masamune said:

Honestly I'll probably just keep using Discord on my PC/mobile, it's easier to chat that way while gaming... don't know if I'd wanna have my accounts linked anyways. ?

 

I do like the pro of being able to upload screenshots directly to Discord though. Usually I have to transfer it to a USB, then to my PC (or if I'm lazy, just taking a photo with my phone).

 

& I'm just going to assume all this Ryan praising is just extreme sarcasm, yeah? ?

Or just send it to a second account on console, and grab it from the ps app ? I mean, with their "fancy" new app they could even add a feature to just grab screenshots from your running ps4/ps5.

[AJ_Radio]

10 hours ago, Paperclip1776 said:

Based on your responses above and the overall amount of reputation and posts you have cumulated over the years on PSNP, it's clear to me that you have a lot of flash and no substance.  Comments like the ones above bring nothing to the conversation but are designed to get an emotional response.  Sure, we all post stuff to get a reaction from time to time but your posts sure do have a similar theme in that manner. 

 

I'll be honest here. I don't care what most people think. I've gotten this same treatment on practically every forum I've ever gone to, even the ones where I was barely active at all. A good majority of everything you read has a lot of flash and no substance.

 

I've been around long enough to know what qualifies to get an emotional response and what doesn't.

 

10 hours ago, Paperclip1776 said:

Back on the topic, with the announcement that Playstation is partnering with Discord (highly improved service offering compared to what Playstation currently has) and the fact that he correctly reversed a big decision to close the PS Vita/PS3 stores, my question to you is: Why do you think Jim Ryan doesn't deserve some praise here?

 

The people who were before Jim Ryan did a better job. Jim Ryan, like anybody else in his position is purely about business. And likewise, the point of a business is to make money, even if they have to sacrifice some good to make ends meet. Their focus right now is the big blockbuster titles that will be coming for the PS5, and normally I would say that's a good thing. But when you don't have much else to offer then it starts to look bad. Putting all your eggs in one basket is hardly ever a good thing.

 

For indie titles, I'm likely to have better luck on Steam. Due to most indies being low budget and developed by a small team of people they don't require a lot of resources to run and play, so I can play them on my not so great PC computer.

 

PS Now is still not available in many areas. The PS Vita/PS3 stores are an absolute joke. Eventually they will close. We can safely say the older consoles that have trophy support are now legacy consoles due to their age.

 

10 hours ago, Paperclip1776 said:

Keep in mind, I'm no Jim Ryan fanboy but, he does seem to be saying the right things and recently his actions are matching what he's saying (i.e. enhancing the PS experience).  Oh, and by the way, Playstation had a record year in both revenue and profits, with a PS5 console losing money on every sale.  This is on Jim Ryan's watch.  Of course, there's that thing called the pandemic that helped Playstation and the entire industry but Playstation has been on an upward trajectory for many years now and there's no reason to think that good decisions he made/approved are paying off for the company, decisions that culminated over the past 2 years since he's been CEO of the PS division.

 

Well we just had a backlash regarding the announcement to close the PS3/Vita stores. Jim Ryan is just one person, he's just the most visible. He has several people working for him, that we'll probably never see because they are not in the public spotlight like Jim Ryan is.

 

I know Sony's history. They had unparalleled success in the PS2 era, but a series of bad decisions and a horrid launch had the PS3 drag far behind the Xbox 360 in the early years. Sony's flagship titles such as Killzone 2, Uncharted 2 and God of War III helped propel the PS3. The PS3 also had the advantage of Blu-Ray, the Xbox 360 didn't have that option.

 

There was that time in May 2011 when the PSN service has hacked and left vulnerable. Sony had to make up by offering free games and other services. The PS4 era was marked with massive success, and once again, Sony's flagship titles helped them along.

 

The PS5 launch was handled poorly. I fully understand that AAA games are more expensive than ever before, and the development time is both costly and takes a massive team of people. So far, there's very little that I want on the PS5. You can make the same argument about the early PS4 years. You had Knack and Killzone: Shadowfall, both of which were met to mixed feelings and opinions. inFamous: Second Son was the first proper PS4 title, but it pales in comparison to Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War 2018 and Marvel's Spider-Man. inFamous: Second Son was an early PS4 game, you can't knock it off too much. Horizon Zero Dawn and the later PS4 exclusives all had far more development time, and by that point the developers knew what the PS4 console was capable of delivering.

Edited May 4, 2021 by AJ_Radio

[Paperclip1776]

13 minutes ago, AJ_Radio said:

The people who were before Jim Ryan did a better job. Jim Ryan, like anybody else in his position is purely about business. And likewise, the point of a business is to make money, even if they have to sacrifice some good to make ends meet. Their focus right now is the big blockbuster titles that will be coming for the PS5, and normally I would say that's a good thing. But when you don't have much else to offer then it starts to look bad. Putting all your eggs in one basket is hardly ever a good thing.

 

For indie titles, I'm likely to have better luck on Steam. Due to most indies being low budget and developed by a small team of people they don't require a lot of resources to run and play, soI I can play them on my not so great PC computer.

I can see your point here: Jack Trenton, Shawn Layden, both charismatic leaders for Playstation prior to Jim Ryan and both propelled PS to a better position in the market in terms of quality games and return to market share after X360 took a lot of that away from the PS2 era.  I think Jim Ryan gets a tougher rap sheet because he doesn't come off as likable.  To me, he comes off direct and 'as-a-matter-of-fact' type attitude, maybe a little over confident.  Not terrible qualities in a leader but again, my perception of the man and why he might not be liked as much as the previous PS division leaders.

 

What I will defend Jim Ryan on is the current PS plan.  He's definitely going all in on AAA, blockbuster games.  No doubt about it.  And that makes a lot of sense to me because he knows that's what brought PS the competitive edge during the PS4 era.  I agree you don't want to put all of your eggs in one basket but if you're making a killing off of a specific type of product, doubling or tripling down on it in the next generation seems like a good idea.  While he's doing that, he's also not shutting the door on smaller titles, or maybe more accurately, experimental titles.  Examples include Destruction AllStars (not all of them will be home runs, this is one of them), Returnal (good reviews so far), Forespoken (Square Enix PS exclusive), and there's a couple of smaller developers receiving PS funding, like Firewalk Studios and Haven Entertainment that will likely be smaller titles, at least the initial offering.  There's also a lot of smaller titles announced back in September 2020 during the PS5 presentation coming too.

 

PS has not abandoned Indie games, look at how many new titles hit PSN weekly.  The door is open for all games but there's definitely a huge push for the internal studios to put out quality, AAA games. 

 

28 minutes ago, AJ_Radio said:

PS Now is still not available in many areas. The PS Vita/PS3 stores are an absolute joke. Eventually they will close. We can safely say the older consoles that have trophy support are now legacy consoles due to their age.

You brought up PS Now.  I personally think they've squandered PS Now.  It's not available in many regions and overall they haven't done enough to compete with Microsoft and other subscription services available in the industry.  PS Now has improved over the years: (1) stronger titles hitting the service, albeit temporarily, (2) reduced the price a few years ago by 50% which was a good move, (3) able to download PS4 titles.  But, the value proposition isn't in-line with their competition and it's the reason we don't see PS Now numbers at the quarterly investor calls - they're embarrassed to show them.  To compete, they need to find a way to add all or most of the PS3 games to the service.  The PS brand games would be unique to the service and allow them to be more competitive in this space.

 

Regarding the PS3/PS Vita stores closing down, I didn't like the short timeframe to close the stores nor how quickly it took Sony to determine they didn't need them anymore.  Yes, they made the right decision to keep the stores open for now but I agree that they will eventually close.  So will the PS4 store, so will the PS5 store.  For me, it's doing it at the right time.  There's always going to be critics even if they announced closure of the PS3/PS Vita stores in 2050 but they wouldn't get the backlash that they got this time around.  Closure timing and giving players enough time to prepare for the closure is important and should be for Sony to demonstrate good will to their customers.

 

42 minutes ago, AJ_Radio said:

Well we just had a backlash regarding the announcement to close the PS3/Vita stores. Jim Ryan is just one person, he's just the most visible. He has several people working for him, that we'll probably never see because they are not in the public spotlight like Jim Ryan is.

 

I know Sony's history. They had unparalleled success in the PS2 era, but a series of bad decisions and a horrid launch had the PS3 drag far behind the Xbox 360 in the early years. Sony's flagship titles such as Killzone 2, Uncharted 2 and God of War III helped propel the PS3. The PS3 also had the advantage of Blu-Ray, the Xbox 360 didn't have that option.

 

There was that time in May 2011 when the PSN service has hacked and left vulnerable. Sony had to make up by offering free games and other services. The PS4 era was marked with massive success, and once again, Sony's flagship titles helped them along.

 

The PS5 launch was handled poorly. I fully understand that AAA games are more expensive than ever before, and the development time is both costly and takes a massive team of people. So far, there's very little that I want on the PS5. You can make the same argument about the early PS4 years. You had Knack and Killzone: Shadowfall, both of which were met to mixed feelings and opinions. inFamous: Second Son was the first proper PS4 title, but it pales in comparison to Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War 2018 and Marvel's Spider-Man. inFamous: Second Son was an early PS4 game, you can't knock it off too much. Horizon Zero Dawn and the later PS4 exclusives all had far more development time, and by that point the developers knew what the PS4 console was capable of delivering.

A walk down memory lane: dominant PS2 era, terrible launch of PS3 (overpriced console, 1 year behind Xbox, lack of strong games at launch), PSN outage of 2011.  All past mistakes for sure.

 

I would disagree with the poor handling of the PS5 though.  The PS5 had one of the strongest launches in history, sales wise as well as game wise.  Spiderman: Miles Morales, Demon Souls, Sackboy and all of the 3rd party games.  Not to mention, all of the PS4 backward compatible games you can play on PS5, most of them with some type of enhancement or game improvement even if the games weren't specifically enhanced for the PS5, including shorter load times, improved visuals, and better frame rates.  Of course, this was on a title-by-title basis but the improvements were real and noticeable.  If you go back 30 years of gaming history for any new console launch for any system, nearly none of them had an abundance of new 1st or 3rd party games to play.  I thought the lineup was really good considering what most consoles launched with over the years. 

 

The issue, or perception of a console launch lineup that gives customers a bad taste is that these companies initially oversell their launch lineup.  They set an expectation that more games will launch day one with the console and the reality is a bunch of them get pushed out.  These examples include Gran Turismo, Destruction AllStars, maybe Returnal and I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of.  This causes customers to say the launch lineup was terrible because X,Y, and Z never launched as promised.  If they never promised these titles, I think the perception would be much improved.

 

In closing, I hope the PS5 lives up to the reputation it has: to deliver quality, AAA blockbuster titles throughout the lifecycle of the console while continuing to improve our overall PS5 gaming experience.  I believe they will continue to deliver new experimental experiences in this generation and hopefully at a higher rate than ever before.  I like that you know your stuff about PS, even if we can agree to disagree at times.  Plus your, you know, flashy comments too.

 

[AJ_Radio]

3 minutes ago, Paperclip1776 said:

I can see your point here: Jack Trenton, Shawn Layden, both charismatic leaders for Playstation prior to Jim Ryan and both propelled PS to a better position in the market in terms of quality games and return to market share after X360 took a lot of that away from the PS2 era.  I think Jim Ryan gets a tougher rap sheet because he doesn't come off as likable.  To me, he comes off direct and 'as-a-matter-of-fact' type attitude, maybe a little over confident.  Not terrible qualities in a leader but again, my perception of the man and why he might not be liked as much as the previous PS division leaders.

 

The guy who was head of Xbox before Phil Spencer took over was also unlikable. A bit arrogant and too full of himself, which lead to the Xbox One fiasco, which basically killed Microsoft in the previous generation.

 

I personally don't like business leaders much at all. They always go through with short term plans, but rarely consider the long term, which is usually several years to a decade at the least. Most business leaders don't play games, they listen to their investors and shareholders in the company. Don't think that Andrew Wilson of EA and Bobby Kotick of Activision know what they're doing or talking about, because they're purely in it for the money. Both companies have a long and storied history of mistreating their workers. How Activision has handled Blizzard Entertainment after they merged with them should be concrete proof.

[BrandedBerserk]

1 hour ago, AJ_Radio said:

Their focus right now is the big blockbuster titles that will be coming for the PS5, and normally I would say that's a good thing. But when you don't have much else to offer then it starts to look bad. Putting all your eggs in one basket is hardly ever a good thing.

 

For indie titles, I'm likely to have better luck on Steam. Due to most indies being low budget and developed by a small team of people they don't require a lot of resources to run and play, so I can play them on my not so great PC computer.

 

Majoirty of indies that are worth playing and many more are released on the ps platform so if you're struggling to find any you just ain't looking for em. Also why the hell would Sony focus on making smaller indie like titles when they have the means to make big blockbusters that generate a lot more revenue and sells consoles? It's basically what won them the last generation so it makes perfect sense to continue down that path. 

Edited May 5, 2021 by BrandedBerserk

[AJ_Radio]

3 minutes ago, BrandedBerserk said:

 

Majoirty of indies that are worth playing and many more are released on the ps platform so if you're struggling to find any you just ain't looking for em. Also why the hell would Sony focus on making smaller indie like titles when they have the means to make big blockbusters that generate a lot more revenue and sells consoles? It's basically what won them the last generation so it makes perfect sense to continue down that path. 

 

I have plenty of indies on my profile. The next indie game I will probably buy is Angry Video Game Nerd I & II Deluxe.

 

You need more than that. Sure, Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us Part II are games that get all the awards, fame, publicity and exposure, but you need smaller games as well to help sell your console. Sony Studio Japan made a number of niche games, but because their later titles didn't sell well, that didn't bode well for Sony. They're now gone. Sony is only concerned with the mainstream, western themed AAA games.

 

Nintendo still relies a bit too much on their exclusives, and on top of that they are expensive. The Switch as a whole is a vastly underpowered console and Nintendo hasn't been a proper competitor since the Wii and Wii U. I can't see myself buying more than a few games for that system.

 

I want to see more stuff like Demon's Souls Remastered and Bloodborne, not these cliche, heavily story driven, linear, formulaic open world western games that all feel the same. The Last of Us Part II is officially the most awarded game of all time, but when I look at it, all I can do is go 'Meh'.

[Guest]

Sony is going to ruin it like everything it touches. It's like the Midas touch, just the other way around. Lol

[gyrocop]

I think attributing some kind of success story to Jim Ryan here is going to only get people complacent about the less than ideal changes that will pop up every now and then. 

Jim Ryan does not care about the consumers, he cares about their money, and it just so happens that the consumers' wishes and corporate greed have common interest here. This is 100% a business decision, and a no-brainer at that. "Should we partner with the biggest chat platform catered to gamers?" Like, duh, obviously they should. Financially, that is just an easy decision. I'm not saying that this isn't good for the consumers. Granted, sole distributors of services on any type of platform discourages competition and it furthers the Discord domination to become some sort of virtual monopoly, so I could. But I'm not. I'm just saying that Sony didn't do this for you, but their shareholders. And praising them for something like this, is just sort of dangerous, because it is eliciting a positive response for something that didn't require a moral discipline to accomplish.

If Jim Ryan makes a decision that is not financially secure, but great for consumers, based on some sort of moral principle or diligence of doing the right thing for the consumers, THEN I will be impressed.

 

To underline: I don't blame anybody for being happy about this. I just don't want anyone to conflate this rational business decision with any actual respect or affinity for the player base.

Edited May 5, 2021 by gyrocop

[AJ_Radio]

6 minutes ago, gyrocop said:

I think attributing some kind of success story for Jim Ryan here is going to only get people complacent about the less than ideal changes that will pop up every now and then. 

Jim Ryan does not care about the consumers, he cares about their money, and it just so happens that the consumers' wishes and corporate greed have common interest here. This is 100% a business decision, and a no-brainer at that. "Should we partner with the biggest chat platform catered to gamers?" Like, duh, obviously they should. Financially, that is just an easy decision. I'm not saying that this isn't good for the consumers. Granted, sole distributors of services on any type of platform discourages competition and it furthers the Discord domination to become some sort of virtual monopoly, so I could. But I'm not. I'm just saying that Sony didn't do this for you, but their shareholders. And praising them for something like this, is just sort of dangerous, because it is eliciting a positive response for something that didn't require a moral discipline to accomplish.

 

We all saw what happened to Skype after Microsoft bought them out. It's really just big business at work. That's why so many corporations favor mergers, they favor the money and thus they favor power.

 

Does Comcast care about 100,000 angry customers? No, because they can just grab 500,000 - 1 million more stupid ones. 100,000 isn't even a drop in the bucket. Just like how us, the minority here on PSNP, aren't even a factor at all in the grand scheme of things.

 

Decisions like this are rarely, if ever, good for the consumers.

 

8 minutes ago, gyrocop said:

If Jim Ryan makes a decision that is not financially secure, but great for consumers, based on some sort of moral principle or diligence of doing the right thing for the consumers, THEN I will be impressed.

 

To underline: I don't blame anybody for being happy about this. I just don't want anyone to conflate this rational business decision with any actual respect or affinity for the player base.

 

You're not going to find that in this day and age. Maybe if you went to your local Mom and Pop store, but those kinds of businesses are quickly dying out.

 

Discord just so happens to be an immensely popular platform, particularly with social media. This was the perfect time for Sony to get involved. They go where the trends, popularity and money are concerned. Just like every major corporation in today's world. It's Economics 101.

[Yuber6969]

On 03/05/2021 at 1:35 PM, Wavergray said:

The Jim Ryan era just keeps getting stronger.

 

 

No.

 

I can't even say it as a joke.

[wafflestomper810]

I guess I have to learn this system also.  I just hope it won't record the conversations like what happened with the chat feature on psn.  Or maybe it already does, I have no idea.  I have been limited to mostly offline gaming for almost a year and half with the exception of a week or two here and there.

[DrBloodmoney]

1 hour ago, AJ_Radio said:

 

We all saw what happened to Skype after Microsoft bought them out.

What happened?

 

I’ve been using Skype since before MS bought it, and I can’t say I’ve noticed any material difference?

[NamoPh]

14 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

What happened?

 

I’ve been using Skype since before MS bought it, and I can’t say I’ve noticed any material difference?

 

It's been numerous years since I stopped using Skype so I can't attest to its current state, but up to the point I stopped using it, the functionality of its features kept deteriorating constantly. It's a lot of little things that just piled up, so one might not notice them at first glance. For example, it used to have a good search tool with which I could easily find old conversations that I wanted to reference, until a point when I just suddenly couldn't.

 

I was a Discord naysayer when my friends were pushing to move our chats over there, but nowadays I admit it has the functionality that Skype used to have.

 

Also, the purge of the chat history really bothered me, because as I mentioned I had stuff in it that I used as reference. Thank God your entire chat history is also stored in an unencrypted file in your local drive.

 

Speaking of, holy crap, the entire chat history is stored in an unencrypted file in your local drive. You can see the conversations of anyone who even temporarily logged from your computer.

[DrBloodmoney]

5 minutes ago, NamoPh said:

 

It's been numerous years since I stopped using Skype so I can't attest to its current state, but up to the point I stopped using it, the functionality of its features kept deteriorating constantly. It's a lot of little things that just piled up, so one might not notice them at first glance. For example, it used to have a good search tool with which I could easily find old conversations that I wanted to reference, until a point when I just suddenly couldn't.

 

I was a Discord naysayer when my friends were pushing to move our chats over there, but nowadays I admit it has the functionality that Skype used to have.

 

Also, the purge of the chat history really bothered me, because as I mentioned I had stuff in it that I used as reference. Thank God your entire chat history is also stored in an unencrypted file in your local drive.

 

Speaking of, holy crap, the entire chat history is stored in an unencrypted file in your local drive. You can see the conversations of anyone who even temporarily logged from your computer.

ah okay - cheers!

 

I’d heard similar sentiments to AJ’s before, (sometimes from him but not always!) and never really understood what thry were on about.

 

I’ve been using Skype basically the same since it’s beginnings - but always as an alternative to phone or facetime - never as a text chat app, so tbh, I haven’t noticed any deterioration, but if its more on the text side that it went downhill, that makes sense