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Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford says his hopes on Epic Store were 'overly optimistic or misplaced' (www.tweaktown.com)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by simple@lemm.ee to c/games@lemmy.world

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I'm genuinely shocked how much Epic poured into the store and it still lacks so much basic features. Sorting games is still extremely barebones, store is filled with NFT/crypto garbage, the store still looks like a college student's first front-end project, and last time I used the launcher to pick up free games (last year), it was still slow as hell. What were they doing in the past 5 years aside from dropping millions on exclusivity deals?

Epic is going to have to prioritize the store and try some new initiatives while also doubling down on earning pivotal exclusives if it is going to have a chance. I also hope other viable competitors arrive.

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[-] Tellore@lemmy.world 48 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I like how many games they give away for free, but tbh I've never played any of them there. Some of those games I decided to buy later on Steam anyway just to do achievements (epic launcher doesn't have achievements, cards, any meaningful statistics, etc).

[-] AutoPastry@sopuli.xyz 21 points 4 months ago

Sorry if this comes across pedantic, but in case anybody isn't aware there are some games that offer Achievements (Alan Wake 2 is one I know).

I do agree though, Epic just doesn't have the features Steam does. I don't think their barrage of free games idea is a bad one, but it feels like an afterthought when it's just not as fun to play them there. (Better Linux support would be nice too, at least there's Heroic.)

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works -2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

They have achievements on all games, it's been the case for two years

Edit: to be more specific, on all games on-boarded after March 9th 2023 (need to have the same achievements as on other platforms) and available at the dev's discretion since May 2022

[-] Tellore@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

I just checked this again, first for game I had there for free but bought later on Steam - City of Brass - and couldn't find achievements anywhere. I then looked into Fortnite and League of Legends - also no achievements. I then found there is "my achievements" link somewhere in my profile, from where I could click "browse games with achievements" and turns out, from few dozens games I own there not a single one has achievements.

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works -1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I admit that I should have been more specific, the change wasn't retroactive, so I should have said that achievements have been available since early 2022 and since early 2023 games can't release without the same achievements as other platforms

https://www.exophase.com/platform/epic/page/27/?q=&sort=awards

Over 1300 games with achievements

If achievements haven't been added to some games released prior to that it's on the devs though.

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works -2 points 4 months ago

https://www.shacknews.com/article/130172/epic-games-store-unlocks-achievements-for-all-games

They've had achievements for over two years... I swear all the anti epic crowd knows nothing about what their launcher is like at this point and just keep repeating what they read back when it launched... Just like the Steam boycotters back in the early 2000s

[-] rdri@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

Are you serious? Obviously people don't care about achievements on a platform that has almost no community-related functionality.

[-] smeg@feddit.uk -1 points 4 months ago

What has community got to do with achievements? My Steam profile is entirely private, the achievements are for me.

[-] rdri@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

My profile is also not public but it's visible to friends. Also I can make it public when I want.

There are also achievement statistics.

[-] smeg@feddit.uk -1 points 4 months ago

Fair, but my point is that plenty of people care about achievements without any community integration

[-] rdri@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago

Well did it help Epic when they added achievements? Guess not much. Either they never marketed this feature enough or most spending users never cared about achievements on Epic.

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works -2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The person I was replying to said there's no achievements on EGS, I showed them the proof that achievements are supported and they're now mandatory.

I don't care at all about community shit on Steam and consider all of it to be bloat, I still love the challenge from achievements.

[-] rdri@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

I see. Still, I can see that for many people achievements with no value are no better than their absence. Platform provides value, and for now only steam provides a lot of it with almost each purchase.

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works -4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I'm willing to bet all I own that most Steam users don't care about their profile or people seeing the achievements they got but they still care about achievements as a form of optional challenges they wouldn't have thought about otherwise.

[-] rdri@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago

If you mean just the percentage of users I might agree. But those people don't really correlate with the users who provide most of the profit of the platform.

[-] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works -3 points 4 months ago

Pretty sure you underestimate what the average gamers spend, you're in a bubble if you use the social features and it makes it seem like most people do, Steam has 132m monthly active users.