“move fast and break things” applied to the ecology and humans. Except without the “fix it” stage

Nah. They want to be an essential service for games.
Verified users of appropriate age.
Integrated game chat.
Integrated game VoIP.
All appropriate-for-age.

Can’t develop your own moderation? Just pay discord.

So many companies will pay massive sums to outsource chat/VoIP/age-verification/moderation to discord.
And discord is already the “goto” gaming community provider.

Oh, and shop stuff.
Gift (buy) a friend a cool cosmetic through discord. Already has the community connections. Just needs the reason for games to tightly integrate it (moderation, chat, VoIP, age verification).

It is absolutely a positioning move

Literally the mentality.
Everything has to be a subscription.