The Epic Games Launcher is poorly designed and is a major turn off

[Deleted member 18944]

The recent announcement from Epic Games that it would claim exclusivity on games such as Metro: Exodus and The Division 2 has ignited a fierce debate on whether or not this qualifies as good competition. Many points about how Steam pays developers compared to Epic have taken place, if having games be exclusive to stores is a good thing for the industry, etc. But something that I haven't seen been brought up enough times is just how poorly designed the Epic Games Launcher is, and how it's a major turn off (at least for me).

While I'm not saying that Steam is the pinnacle of launcher design, it does currently take the cake for being the best of the bunch, and if Epic plans to take Steam on, it should at least incorporate better design language and UI. As a result of installing some games for a LAN party only available on the Epic Game Launcher, I've run into a lot of issues with it, and I have a list.

• NO SEARCH BAR IN THE FUCKING STORE????????????????
• The store layout is really loud and has too much information in thrown in front of the user with too many differing colors. It's disorienting.
• The "Home" and "Epic Games" buttons at the top go to the same place
• The Library tab has a nice layout of your games, but there aren't any options to start the games with special parameters like you could with steam
• The Library tab doesn't offer any different layouts to view (like a list)
• THERE'S NO FUCKING SEARCH BAR IN THE LIBRARY TAB, HELLO?
• The friends tab is actually just a pop out window, and this is annoying. Steam does it too.
• When you hover over your status, you can't change it. You have to click on it.
• Only two options for status - Online and Away. Where is the offline status?
• Managing display name is done through external website
• No communities tab for any of the games
• No review section for games
• No profile customization

Epic's game launcher has been around for a while now, so having basic functionality like a search bar and offline statuses, a way to submit user reviews, and more, shouldn't be slept on and should have already been in the launcher itself. It's cool that Epic is giving developers a better revenue deal, but lacking basic features makes me not want to use the launcher at all, and if others feel the same, that's bad news bears for those exclusive titles.

Are there any issues with the current launcher that you have that I haven't listed?

 

[PopsMaellard]

Is Epic currently hiring any UX positions? Wild that they wouldn't blow some Fortnite coin on a great UX/UI team. Like not having a search bar is something an undergrad graphic design student wouldn't even fuck up.

 

[LewieP]

Really feels like anything related to making it good for users is an afterthought at best. The whole project is just about what's best for Epic, and to a lesser extent what's best for publishers or developers.

For it to work it has to also consider users.

 

[Sabin]

Can't spend money on the store layout and features when you are busy poaching all the devs.

 

[DigitalOp]

Is Epic currently hiring any UX positions? Wild that they wouldn't blow some Fortnite coin on a great UX/UI team. Like not having a search bar is something an undergrad graphic design student wouldn't even fuck up.

Click to shrink...

That Fortnite coin is what made them think they can bully the market into carving a space for them in the first place. I agree with you, they better hire more people to make their system better.

 

[0451]

I'm not sure if it's a bug or not but I have a very desired username and get dozens of friend requests a day so I naturally enabled the "auto decline friend requests" option but it still displays the incoming friend request notification which for some reason minimizes any full screen applications.

 

[chadskin]

Really feels like anything related to making it good for users is an afterthought at best. The whole project is just about what's best for Epic, and to a lesser extent what's best for publishers or developers.

For it to work it has to also consider users.

Click to shrink...

Perhaps they just don't want to cultivate a hyper-toxic pro-consumer user base.

But yes, it's a really barebones client. I don't mind it too much, as I'd probably just add Epic Store games to Steam to use Big Picture Mode, but if it ever wants to compete with Steam in any meaningful way it definitely needs to add tons of features.

 

[Deleted member 34618]

No point in actually making your core product appealing when you can spend all the money on getting Exclusive Deals instead to monopolize the industry. Epic probably studied what the streaming industry is doing.

 

[Lant_War]

I actually hate how bland it just looks. The games in the store take so much fucking space and I don't think saying it twice is enough: NO SEARCH BAR? WHY?

 

[water_wendi]

Oh wow i didnt notice there wasnt a search. Either because theres only like half a page scroll worth of thumbnails to go through or i was too busy playing Subnautica. i can definitely see why to Steam users the absence of a search bar would be a glaring omission.

 

[ASaiyan]

The design philosophy is literally anti-consumer, and it shows.

"We will moneyhat developers however we need to to get them on our side. The customer? The customer is a goddamn peasant. You are not worth our time or our effort. You will take your slop and like it."

Whether consumers will put up being bluntly disregarded and shafted remains to be seen. I fucking doubt it though.

 

[ColdSun]

Thread Locked. Posts relating to the Epic Store and its launcher should be posted in the Epic Store discussion thread here: https://www.resetera.com/threads/epic-games-store-discussion.86783/