Discord is about to have its most significant competitor to date thanks to the Epic Games Store. Epic Games Store is introducing a new party system that will rival one of the most popular elements of Discord, a voice chat service that allows players to communicate both in-game and outside of games.
Epic Games has been making a lot of moves to become a dominant platform on PC. The Epic Games Store recently hyped a shopping cart, something one might imagine is a given for any digital retailer. Nonetheless, this is a pretty big deal for fans. Thankfully, an actually interesting and somewhat less of a given feature is also coming to the Epic Games Store.
A party system, something popularized by Xbox Live many years ago, is coming to the Epic Games Store (via PC Gamer). Though Microsoft didn't create the idea of voice chat, it allowed a centralized place for communicating with friends who are playing any kind of game or even not playing a game at all. Over the years, services like Discord have built upon this and now the Epic Games Store will join the fray. Similar to PlayStation's 2020 party update, Epic Games Store will feature a party system that act more like groups that remain active at all times, even if no one is online. The update will include voice, video, and text chat, as well as other new social updates whenever it releases.
"We want to transform the Epic Games Store into a place where you can connect with your friends across platforms, effortlessly jump into parties with voice chat, and play games together without missing a beat," says a post from Epic Games. As Epic expands itself with things like achievements, it's clear that it wants to do much more than just have a store that sometimes gives away free stuff. Whether or not the Fortnite developer will actually have any luck with that remains to be seen.
Epic has been trying to reposition itself for a while now as more than just the Fortnite developers. With the creation of a digital retailer like Epic Games Store, which serves as a competitor to both Steam and now potentially Discord, as well as big acquisitions. Epic previously acquired Psyonix, developer of Rocket League, and recently welcomed Fall Guys developer Mediatonic under its wing. Of course, Fortnite has been the biggest factor in helping fun almost all of these ventures, but these new acquisitions will undoubtedly continue to make Epic one of the biggest players in the industry.
Source: PC Gamer