Community Marketplace Featured Ideas

Community Marketplace
1

Happy Wednesday everyone!

The marketplace has grown exponentially in the short time that it has been around. We’ve gone from a few developers to a vibrant and thriving community of content creators in a matter of a few short years. To celebrate this, we have a surprise for you, the Unreal Engine community. We are giving you one of the slots we use to feature content, to do with what you will. This post will remain open for the next month, during which time we ask that you collaborate as a whole to determine what you want to feature in that slot.

Now, we aren’t talking specifically about a particular pack, that would be a tall order to fill. Rather, we want you to determine, as a community, how you want that featured content to be determined. Some examples to get you started:

Highest selling asset pack of the month/all time
Highest rated pack of all time
Monthly rotating featured (Community Choice)
Randomly/rolling the dice
Specific themed items

This list is not meant to be the options taken, merely a sample of what could be suggested. We invite everyone, community members and content creators alike, to come together and brainstorm to decide upon what you think would be the best way to go about featuring those who have helped to make this marketplace what it is today. At the end of the month, we will take the top 5 ideas listed here at our discretion to make a poll for everyone to vote upon, determining the final method to populate the featured content space. Having said this, if one idea is unanimously decided upon, that decision will take precedence over the voting process.

There are a few rules we’d like you to keep in mind during this process:

  1. Follow the Rules and Code of Conduct for the forums when posting on the forums.
  2. Respect fellow community members, content creators, and Epic staff.
  3. Do not disparage ideas, especially as a means to garner support for another. Having a negative view is perfectly acceptable, however do so in a civil and respectful manner.
  4. Do not spam to promote a suggestion.

It is especially important during this that we maintain a civil and respectful space, where everyone feels that they can be respected and heard. At any time, if you violate our rules, we reserve the right to take action, up to and including permanent bans depending upon the infraction in question. In addition, should this get out of hand or become a flame war, we reserve the right to close the thread and revoke the featured slot to be used for other purposes.

2

I vote for “Randomly/rolling the dice”.

3

Thanks for doing this.

I would say have a set of 5 or so featured at any time, with it constantly cycling through the set every 30 seconds or so. The set being replaced once a week maybe.
In terms of selection, I think randomized but with some filtering. For example, must be either unrated or 4 star+.

Some other thoughts:
I think anything that gave exposure specifically to packs that are already high selling would totally defeat the purpose of the idea.
It would be nice for rating to play a bigger part in the selection process, but before that can happen the rating system really needs some work, with more done to encourage customers to rate products they’ve bought in a meaningful way.

4

Not sure what the final purpose of this would be but featuring highest selling or highest rating doesnt really make sense to me. Those already have the attention they deserve by just being that: highest selling, highest rated.

A way for users to highlight/vote on assets they think are ‘underrated’ so that those can get some well deserved attention too. Im pretty sure there are some hidden gems on this marketplace that no one really is taking serious for whatever reason.
So I think Monthly rotating featured (Community Choice) comes closest to that.

5

[=Adeptus;601333]
Not sure what the final purpose of this would be but featuring highest selling or highest rating doesnt really make sense to me. Those already have the attention they deserve by just being that: highest selling, highest rated.

A way for users to highlight/vote on assets they think are ‘underrated’ so that those can get some well deserved attention too. Im pretty sure there are some hidden gems on this marketplace that no one really is taking serious for whatever reason.
So I think Monthly rotating featured (Community Choice) comes closest to that.
[/]

Hi Adeptus,

What you’ve described is exactly the type of situation we’re looking for. The highest rated/selling was an example meant to stimulate the conversation, not an end-all-be-all decision. We want to hear what the community would like to see.

6

OF ALL TIME.
OF THE MONTH.

I’m for anything that fits into either.

Also:

RECENTLY UPDATED (Engine updates with no additional functionality should not apply)

7

I agree with the sentiment that packs that are already among the highest selling don’t need extra exposure just because they are selling well. That honestly feels non-conducive and like it would just further cause the under-exposed packs to lose potential sales.

I feel like we should be taking the ‘on sale’ packs off of the featured slots, as they already get featured in their own ‘on sale’ category. From discussions with many users, people who spend money on the marketplace tend to check this often, and a lot have actually stated it is always their first point of call to check, even before seeing what new content is out. Freeing up those sale slots could allow for a number of additional packs to get much needed love.

I’m a big fan of randomising it, particularly if it can change often (a few times a week, daily, hell, every refresh haha). I also think packs that have recently had new features added, or received massive improvements in optimisation and such should definitely be featured. I mentioned in the discord chat about @'s landscape pack, where he added an entirely new landscape every month. That’s a MASSIVE reason to point a spotlight on that pack as that is really looking after the customer base (something that many marketplace sellers apparently are quite bad at). A community pick is a good one, however, I feel like this is in a similar boat tot he most sales one, in that one that the community knows a lot about is more likely to already be successful over those that sorely need the exposure.

Just my thoughts.

8

[=]
I agree with the sentiment that packs that are already among the highest selling don’t need extra exposure just because they are selling well. That honestly feels non-conducive and like it would just further cause the under-exposed packs to lose potential sales.

I feel like we should be taking the ‘on sale’ packs off of the featured slots, as they already get featured in their own ‘on sale’ category. From discussions with many users, people who spend money on the marketplace tend to check this often, and a lot have actually stated it is always their first point of call to check, even before seeing what new content is out. Freeing up those sale slots could allow for a number of additional packs to get much needed love.

I’m a big fan of randomising it, particularly if it can change often (a few times a week, daily, hell, every refresh haha). I also think packs that have recently had new features added, or received massive improvements in optimisation and such should definitely be featured. I mentioned in the discord chat about @'s landscape pack, where he added an entirely new landscape every month. That’s a MASSIVE reason to point a spotlight on that pack as that is really looking after the customer base (something that many marketplace sellers apparently are quite bad at). A community pick is a good one, however, I feel like this is in a similar boat tot he most sales one, in that one that the community knows a lot about is more likely to already be successful over those that sorely need the exposure.

Just my thoughts.
[/]

Hi ,

We’re actually going to be removing sales items from the feature list as we are looking into a different way to feature sales independent of this list. Additionally, we’re looking into new options for featuring content to expand and improve our feature system. This thread is a part of the effort to improve the quality of features across the board.

9

[= ;601421]
Hi ,

We’re actually going to be removing sales items from the feature list as we are looking into a different way to feature sales independent of this list. Additionally, we’re looking into new options for featuring content to expand and improve our feature system. This thread is a part of the effort to improve the quality of features across the board.
[/]

Ah okay cool, nice to know. Then I just restate what I said - randomised and recently updated gets my votes :slight_smile:

10

Maybe a themed feature slot based on the day. FX Monday, Model Tuesday, Audio Wednesdays, Blueprint Thursdays… ect

Then it should randomize between a few of the best sellers in that category throughout the day.

The only real problem to that is deciding what days are best for each category whereas Friday might get more views than Tuesdays… ect…

Anways, just my idea to throw into the pot. Thanks for trying to tackle this issue.

11

No matter what will win - please specify in the tag why it’s featured. Like “Random”, “Community chosen”, 'Highest whatever" and etc. Sometimes it’s hard to understand what and why is featured.

[HR][/HR]
As for my biased opinion - as much as I want to see highest rated/selling/grossed, because it’s essential for every marketplace(amazon, unity, ebay, steam and etc) to show popular products, I don’t think that slot for that kind of assets is a good idea. Basically it will save single product almost forever, until another one will take it almost forever. Maybe just category for most popular assets is a good idea so users are aware of best deals on Marketplace, but not this slot

Best monthly stuff is not a good idea either, because most likely it will be the product that already featured on the front page or was featured during this month. The highest sales always during release or sales. Basically what was featured once will be featured three times(Initially, first month and second)

Just random pack - well… It’s kinda fun, but also kinda useless. It’s rarely will promote what people need/want, but sometimes will hit of course.

Community choice - depends on implementation, although people with bigger communities will just always promote their stuff because it’s easier for them to push votes.

For themes we have thematic sales :slight_smile:

I think variant with favoring big updates is nice, but it requires some manual work from team to check what has been updated lately.

Also I really like @ idea to use ratings! Just randomly generate set from assets with 4+ stars and at least ~15 votes and cycle through that. And randomize set each week. It will promote just good assets, which did not get enough exposure, but had some love from customers.

12

Something else that could be good could be taking what people have already purchased, then compare that against what others have purchased and make it a “Featured for you” category, highlighting assets that people who have bought similar things to you also bought that you don’t own. Though I feel like that may be more work than it is worth.

13

[= ;600994]

Highest selling asset pack of the month/all time
Highest rated pack of all time
[/]

I really see no point in using the slots for those two points. If you are able to automatically determine what packs are highest rated or sold, wouldnt it make more sense to integrate a sorting filter which does exactly that: sorting by rating/times of purchases

[= ;600994]

Randomly/rolling the dice
[/]

And I think using the slot in this way would be wasted. I mean, we only have one slot and the dice is going to roll how many times per week? One time, I guess? that makes roughly 50 marketplace items per year. Thats way too less in my opinion, if you look at the amount (which is growing) of marketplace items. But I think it would be a cool feature if there was a button to randomly pick and show a marketplace item.

[= ;600994]

Monthly rotating featured (Community Choice)
Specific themed items
[/]

I like those ideas. I would actually like to add something, which might be a bit difficult to realize though: Community picked marketplace packs for a specific theme. What that means: Someone sets a theme and the community suggests a pack which covers different aspects of that theme. The only requirement: All marketplace items need to fit together (without having to fiddle too much with the content).

[=Adeptus;601333]

A way for users to highlight/vote on assets they think are ‘underrated’ so that those can get some well deserved attention too. Im pretty sure there are some hidden gems on this marketplace that no one really is taking serious for whatever reason.
So I think Monthly rotating featured (Community Choice) comes closest to that.
[/]

I also would like to add to this idea. What about having an upvote and downvote button for each item (which 3 or less ratings). Users could then upvote or downvote the items which they would like to see get rated and every month/week, the item with the highest upvotes/downvotes balance gets picked.
One would need a few restrictions to make this fully useful. Like: Not allowing votings for new marketplace items. Maybe forbidding vothings for the frist 4 weeks after a release would be a good start.
Also: Not showing the votings to neither the users, nor the marketplace creators, in order to eradicate any potential for competitions in that regard (which could lead to phony votings)

But we definitely need a way to highlight underrated marketplace items, for which the users would like to see more ratings.

14

Hey Guys,

Just to chime since there’s a little concern here, the list gave in his first post are examples of what you could do but aren’t the only things you can do. Feel free to throw out your own ideas, suggestions and see how that resonates with everyone else. If you like something on the list gave, great we’ll consider it. If not, post a suggestion you have.

This an opportunity we want to take to experiment with how we feature content and make this more effective for us and for you guys. So please let us know what you want to see with this slot. Nothing here is set in stone and we’ll keep working with this until we get something that works. If we try out a suggestion that doesn’t do as well, let us know what you guys want to try instead.

Thanks,

15

This would imply some feedback from developers:. A showcase of marketplace content used for a particular game.

Or maybe, imagine to develop a game and showcase several marketplace items that can be useful in the making.

I would also suggest to feature an author a week with an interview and some interesting story, either related to game development or the art he/she is putting in his/her content, the motivations, the outcome reached thanks to the marketplace, etc. This would mean to open a “call” in which content makers can tell their story for a chance to be featured. And unreal marketplace curator should select the candidates.

Make a contest for new content highly requested in the marketplace and feature the participants/winner

A side suggestion: maybe the marketplace categories needs to be subcategorized.
As a music maker I feel that having all the music in a single category is somewhat distracting and anyone searching for specific music is faced with a lot of content that will not match the needs. It has been a while since my last visit and I don’t know if something has changed.

16

Suggestion: feature Assets which are not selling good but get great reviews from the few who bought it. Nobody needs to know about the Blueprint Dialogue System anymore because everyone knows about it already. Better feature “hidden Gems”.

17

[=Fragment7;602451]
Suggestion: feature Assets which are not selling good but get great reviews from the few who bought it. Nobody needs to know about the Blueprint Dialogue System anymore because everyone knows about it already. Better feature “hidden Gems”.
[/]

yes, i strongly agree!
no need to help the best seller get more exposure! :

18

a random pick out of the top of each of the categories for the most wish listed item of the month
once you implement wishlists :stuck_out_tongue:

19

After seeing Community pick I’ve changed my mind a little bit and here are my thoughts:

I realized now that the idea behind new Featuring system is to highlight goodies, but 2 months(Each pick will be shown twice - as current pick and as previous) for same pick is a huuuge window. Previously we had around 1 week featuring for sale/new content and this jump from 1 week to 2 month is a serious one!
I believe that lesser window, at least a month, will be much healthier for everyone.

My suggestion for feature list:

  • Community Pick: community chosen pack from latest month, as it goes currently. To represent the best content that was released lately
  • **Staff Pick: ** Epic chosen pack. To represent great content from the past that was well received, had good rating, but did not get enough attention and deserves more.
  • **Best Seller: ** Epic chosen pack. To represent best sellers that have the highest sales, ratings, grossing and etc.

The idea behind this is to highlight every type of good content - which has been released recently and was great, which has been released a some while ago and did not get enough attention(hidden gems) and old goodies that proven its worth.

Mockup:

20

I agree with the suggestions @ gave above. =)