Edit: Since the OP got edited by mods for providing why my package was getting refunded, it doesn’t make sense to readers anymore since there are missing lines. I’d rewrite what went in this thread in a simple and shorter way. As I’m writing this the refund is processes but I’m still looking for a response on this from Epic. This thread is derailed a lot and I don’t really care about all the 4 pages. Just want to hear a response to this post.
There are 5 reasons the buyer described for getting a refund.
These reasons were mainly
A) Landscape was floating in the air.
Defense I provided: That’s the basic rule of every game engine. Before having a landscape there is no other ground to base it on. So inevitably a landscape will be always floating in the air. And every game that has ever came out on the market or is coming out even such as Paragon and Gears of War 4 has landscapes floating in the air.
B) Distant mountains (static meshes included for designing the horizon lines outside landscape bounds) don’t seamlessly connect to each other and landscape.
Defense I provided: It is impossible distance meshes and landscapes would seamlessly attach to each other. A background mesh in nature is a mesh you’d move, rotate, scale to design the horizon lines viewed from player perspective when standing on the original landscape. These meshes are provided (as bonus content) for the user to either design their backgrounds with them or not. The fact that these would be moved around, rotated and scaled to create a visually appealing “background design” indicates each piece wouldn’t seamlessly attach to the other and landscape which is also clearly shown in the documentation. There are currently packages on the marketplace offering these kind of meshes as their primary content.
C) There is a sharpen post process material instance that has 3 parameters that are not named.
Defense I provided: The sharpen post process material was included in the package shortly before the r.tonemapper.sharpen CVar was introduced and from that point forward this material was dropped from every Post Process Volume in the package. Let alone the fact that the unnamed parameter was a simply scalar parameter that’d increase/decrease the sharpen amount according to the value user would give to it. This single material wasn’t what I was selling however, I’m selling landscapes…
D) Lava landscape has slope.
Defense I provided: The landscape refered to was the lava based landscape in which lava flows from one side to another. The design direction required to have big slopes in order for the lava flow to make sense. Giving the look of lava flowing down the slopes. I do not know what is wrong with that.
E) Landscapes have dust or snow particles moving on their surface.
Defense I provided: This is a in the landscape shaders that’s increasing the immersion. It’s exposed to the material instance as well so disabling them or reducing their amount is literally 1 left mouse button click. Again clearly explained in the documentation.
But anyway after emailing and also linking the staff to this thread, everything I provided for 48 hours as defense was ignored and the only reply I got in return of my defenses was that these are valid reasons for a refund and we decided we’d process the refund.
We have clearly provided reasons proving the claims were false yet as 1 year old sellers we are not trusted and completely ignored. I do not feel secure anymore working with Marketplace because any number of people could use the same or similar false claims and the way evidences are ignored every refund would be processed. Let alone the fact that 2-3 landscapes were used to create these false claims and the buyer still gets to use the entire 12 landscapes, materials, functions etc. and even develop a commercial project with it. There are 30 games coming out per day and really no way to find out who legally owns the package and who does not. Apart from all this, it’s still Epic’s job to make accurate judgement even if the seller was away and didn’t get to present any defense. In this case, the weight of lack of experience and the misjudgment is is falling on the seller only.
I still need to hear from Epic why a seller is treated like this, who pays for the money we lose because of the misunderstandings a buyer makes up for the marketplace team to get a refund and continue using the content, and how many more times this is going to repeat because this wasn’t the first time.
I did not copy paste the refund reasons as it was, I rewrote them and changed the word arrangement as much as I could while keeping the original message. I hope OP doesn’t get edited again.
Thanks.