Epic Games is expanding the functionality of the Epic Games Store by adding several new ranked lists in the Discovery portion of its storefront. In the past, Epic Games has been criticized by both game developers and users for having awkward discoverability within the Epic Games Store. It's not only been difficult to find games that users are looking for, never mind creating a storefront where games players don't know about are shown to users. These Epic Games Store changes could prove a valuable quality of life change.
When Epic Games Store users open the storefront's main page, they're presented with a garage of games. There's a carousel of featured games to start, a selection of games currently on sale, and then more subsections filled with content Epic Games believes a given user might enjoy. The content is presented in a disorganized fashion, which some have criticized as not being productive for users that want more information regarding the games they're being shown on the Epic Games Store.
The new sections that Epic has added to the storefront's front page should help by presenting clearer information about groupings of games. The new sections include "Top Player Rated," "Most Played," and "Top Upcoming Wishlisted." These join similar lists for "New Releases," "Top Sellers," and "Coming Soon." Each list features five games, but can be expanded to see a sorted list of dozens of titles.
More specific changes have been made to the "Top Sellers" list, specifically. Previously, the list showed just 50 total games, but it has now been updated to show 100 games total. It's also been changed so that free-to-play games will no longer appear in the list, which makes sense given that they aren't sold and so shouldn't be top sellers. While it isn't clear what metric Epic uses to sort its top sellers, the list provides a good way for Epic Games Store users to see what's popular and new on any given day.
As for why Epic may have added these lists, it could be because PC gamers have long-requested them. Steam has provided similar sections on its storefront for some time. "New & Trending," "Top Sellers," and "Popular Upcoming" lists are featured prominently on Steam's front page. Valve also sends out press releases monthly regarding Steam's top-selling games and hardware, and it has an entire section of its website and storefront dedicated to monthly top sellers.
It's true that the Epic Games Store front page remains very messy, though the same could be said about Steam's front page. What matters is that Epic is adding utility for users that want it. If a user wants to know what games they wishlisted on the Epic Games Store that are coming soon, now they can do that easily. It's a quality of life change that should improve many Epic Games Store users' experience on the storefront.
Source: ResetEra