The Epic Games Store has managed to set itself apart from the competition in recent years and has been able to profile itself as an important alternative to Valve’s Steam. By having a lot of timed exclusive titles that were not available on other platforms, people started to see it as a viable option for games. However, compared to services such as Steam or GOG, the Epic Games Store lacked many features that gamers were used to, such as performance. Since then, the Epic Games Store has made slow progress in implementing achievements in its games. They started in 2020 by putting achievements in some more notable titles such as Ark: Survival Evolved. Since then, more of the games available on their service have performed retroactively.
Performance received a major update earlier in 2022 in an effort to improve functionality and prepare the app for upcoming features. The “My Achievements” section of the Epic Games Store has been updated to better show a user’s progress in the game and to make it easier to display by implementing measurable data. There were other UI improvements as well, but overall the update seemed to focus on making performance more accessible and having more granular information. Despite these design changes, many games still lack performance even with new releases.
Not enough games in the Epic Games Store have achievements
While some games available on the Epic Games Store have achievements, the vast majority of games on the platform do not. The Epic Games Store has hundreds of games on the platform, but just under 100 games have achievements at the time of writing. Many of these games are also available on other platforms such as Steam or the Microsoft Store and have achievements there. Many games like Disco Elysium and bugsnax have added performance despite being years old. There is still an opportunity for Epic partners to go back and put achievements into their games.
The reality of the situation is that Epic Games cannot get developers to put achievements in their games, despite the incentives to do so. People outside of developers who work with Epic Games don’t have much knowledge of how hard it is to implement performance in their games, so it can be seen that it’s more effort than it’s worth. However, putting achievements into games can help you tap into an audience that really appreciates these additions.
The Epic Games Store lacks a core audience
For many gamers, performance is a big draw when choosing the platform on which to buy a game. They’d rather buy something where they can get a platinum trophy on PlayStation or contribute to GamerScore on Xbox. Achievements have even directly impacted game developers, such as the developer of skull-like, according to Finish Line Games’ chief designer Jason Canam, who cited performance-based systems as a favorite innovation of the seventh console generation.
Many people who prefer platforms with performance feel that their time and money would be better spent elsewhere than the Epic Games Store. For example, PlayStation is still making improvements to its trophy system by making them more valuable. These platform differences help people buy a game on Steam or GOG instead of the Epic Games Store. Epic wants its platform to be a major alternative to Steam, so it needs more incentive for developers to implement performance so as not to lose this audience.
The Epic Games Store still has a lot to do to catch up with other platforms. Features are being implemented and it’s likely there will be achievements over time for many of the games available on the platform, but that change has to come sooner rather than later. Epic needs to do what it can to further test the waters with performance and provide incentives to implement it. The Epic Games Store should work with its partners and encourage a big push to add achievements to existing games and upcoming titles.
0 Comments