I’d consider all of that “gamey” stuff to be a distraction and waste of resource.
It may motivate certain types of people but I doubt they would be ones to actually finish games in the first place. I could be wrong but the sort of gimmicks that get a player to play a video game for a few more hours I don’t think will translate to actual game making where progress is measured in months, not hours.
Overall I am very happy and impressed with online learning area, I think it is best in class compared to others.
If the epic team really wanted to provide motivation and true value for people using it, I think connecting it to some sort of game jam or other event where people can actually put there skills to the test and show the world would be worthwhile.
That of course takes a lot more time and attention but in my opinion it’s only thing that actually means anything. Maybe it’s not a whole game jam but maybe after you have completed X number of courses in a progression path you are prompted to make a project on your own with certain criteria to meet and this can be submitted to the community/epic to undergo some sort of grading. And if you met the criteria you get some prize, like coupon for more learning courses or something from the store.
Just brainstorming but to me, I think game developers are very clever people and they’ll know if the dangling carrot is real or not.