Absolutely disgusted by Marketplace refund policy

[SE_JonF]

@SaxonRah;551635

To me this is a non-issue, they will be breaking the law if they do so. Therefore legal action can be taken easily.

No, @pbarnhardt is absolutely correct this was/is a pretty significant. This common occurrence is what led to the existing refund policy because sellers kept noticing multiple refunds for products. Even now though, the marketplace staff isn’t consistent in enforcing their current refund policy because we still sometimes have unexplained refunds that pop up without any notification at all. I recently went through a case where a buyer was trying to come up with multiple excuses that changed on every encounter just so they could receive a refund. This sort of behavior only serves to dissuade developers from selling their content here. There is already another loophole that I won’t go into for obvious reasons that has caused me to put a halt to submitting any further products myself, as it is being ignored by the staff.

@apoisonedgift;551666

As @prototype6143 said, this is done to protect both sides of the transaction. Epic is merely the shopholder here, whilst the content is made almost entirely by other devs like yourself.

Without knowing the specific pack, it’s hard to really comment the validity of requesting a refund, but if the pack is not labelled as working with VR in the marketplace page, then the seller has done nothing wrong here and that would be why Epic aren’t issuing a refund. It’s just an unfortunate result of there not really being a ‘VR’ checkbox when we select platforms. If the seller had clearly stated it works with VR platforms, then you would get a refund more or less instantly, but it’s important to remember you aren’t dealing with AAA companies or anything here, you are dealing with other indie developers.

I’m sure if you contact the content creator, they will at least attempt to help you resolve your (if they are able - sadly most of us don’t have VR headsets yet haha). If not, then someone in this lovely community should be able to point you in the right direction

Well said. Many people don’t bother to read the description of the products they buy. If the product @tcla75 bought didn’t explicitly state VR support, then he/she has no grounds for a refund. Epic requires sellers to label which platforms our content was tested on. Even though for example there shouldn’t be any reason my content doesn’t work on a Mac, I can only list Windows as supported because that was the only platform I have tested my content packs on. The same goes for everyone else submitting to the marketplace. If in doubt, ask the seller. I had someone inquire about VR with my product before and I explained to him just what I did above. Platform support means I tested it on x platform. Just because it isn’t listed doesn’t mean it won’t work, but it hasn’t been officially tested so isn’t guaranteed to. That buyer ended up getting my product and his integration seemed to work flawlessly. But different products differ.

@greggtwep16;551681

The closest apples to apples comparison would be the Unity Asset Store which would also deny you a refund in this instance. As others have mentioned it essentially has to be this way because of DRM and those that would abuse the store in reverse.

That being said Unity would allow you to contact the seller and if the seller is ok with it then you would be issued a refund (plus that helps a direct conversation that may get the product updated). It doesn’t always go the way of the customer but a lot of times it does since obviously if not refunded you can expect the customer to give out a low star review which for much publishers is more important than the small sum of money. I would think if Epic wants to they could do the same.

The UE4 marketplace requires a support email address for this very reason. A seller can choose to refund you even if it is outside of the established policy, that is their prerogative. However they aren’t required to do so if your refund claim doesn’t fall within the parameters of a justifiable refund. Leaving a bad rating/comment because you aren’t able to secure a refund isn’t allowed at all. That’s pretty much extortion. The same individual I spoke of above who kept making up stories in order to get a refund did that with one of my packages, and the staff removed his rating and comment because of it’s retaliatory nature.

I also think it’s important to remember that as others have mentioned, there is no DRM on marketplace products. There has to be something to protect sellers from people who want buy a pack, move it’s contents to another folder and then request a refund. As I mentioned before, this was very common before the policy was updated, and still happens to this day (albeit harder to do). Most digital products of any nature deny refunds for this very reason. If you implement a refund policy that is easily exploitable as was the first incarnation, then you will start to see many sellers opt out of using the UE4 marketplace to sell their products. What buyers need to do is read the descriptions of products they’re interested in, check around the forums/reviews/elsewhere to see what’s being said about it, and if in doubt contact the seller. I can’t speak for others, but I am happy to answer any questions people may have about my products. I’ve even recommended other seller’s works when I know mine might not be the best fit for what the potential buyer is asking.