This doesn’t sound as a good decision, because you have removed lots of valuable information that belongs to the authors of the content and their customers.
Many times the Q&A and reviews helped me to decide whether it’s the right stuff for our studio or not.
Given the looong time it usually takes you to introduce new functionality, there will be months of limited functionality. Doesn’t sound fair and even meaningful.
Please return it back.
I hope this will put an end to the verify review process in order to get support. So many sellers do this and after you wait for verification you get access to their doc, which 9 times out of 10 sucks. Documentation should be re viewable before a purchase. Its a great gauge for how good the product is. A lot of discord questions go unanswered. Thanks.
Please re-instate the display of reviews and questions ASAP. The system was perhaps not perfect, but these features were incredibly important as they are the first place for customers to get support (as well as providing appreciation for the work of the sellers).
Also, them disappearing all of the sudden means that there is no way for sellers to flag pending inaccurate or abusive reviews. And it also means that any current support that was being provided just got suddenly interrupted.
There is nothing positive about this change, and the fact that it was unannounced is unacceptable.
Problem: Our review and Q&A systems were abused by some sellers and buyers and we don’t want to invest in proper content moderation.
Solution: Remove them both.
btw. even language model “thinks” it’s a bad idea:
You can not be serious, we’ve spent over a year of building trust and getting outstanding reviews.
This is a punch in the face for honest developers!
Only delete those that have keywords like “verification/verify” and discord tags
on user post review → Branch;
UE Playtime
>=
200 hours
AND
Get User Games → Find Fortnight → is valid? → NOT
→ TRUE: Post Review
→ FALSE: - Launch random UE Version
Totally agree !!! in this way, We will be able make a Copies of Reviews and Questions, also We can make our Websites, or Include Rating Function on our websites.
Update 0.1
on user post review → Branch;
. >=Get UE Playtime
. >=200 hours
AND
Get User Games → Find Fortnight → is valid? → NOT
→ TRUE → Switch on User Race;
Dwarf: Post Review → Get user wallet + $5 —SET user wallet
Human: Post Review
Elf: NULL
→ FALSE: - Launch random UE Version
As someone who has spent lots and lots and lots of money in the marketplace, I should thank Epic for this move.
Now I won’t be able to tell which content packs are worth buying or not because I literally will not be able to see what a single other person has said about their experience with it.
So now I can save my money because I refuse to buy content where there is 0 quality standards and the marketplace hides all feedback. I have (and I know others have) been burned by content that ‘looks’ great but falls flat in implementation, and my number 1 way of vetting content before I purchased was the reviews and questions. So so so many issues I have had with content packs, I solved not in some dumb discord server, but just by simply viewing the questions page of the content pack.
So again, thank you for curbing my spending. Doing stuff like this is going to make it a lot easier for me to not spend money in your marketplace.
I don’t think this is a good decision. Sure, there are some spam reviews and questions. But do we really need to remove each and every review ever made?
^^^I completely agree.
I agree. I have also dreamed of working for Epic (I am a software dev in fintech), and this morning is the very first time that I can see that they way their process works is just like every other bad IT department in America. Some person in a bubble waved their hand and now everyone that works there is going to look like clowns. Again, it just makes me sad…
I have ranted enough already, but I do want to add:
In the marketplace questions section, they already had ‘hidden’ questions that were ‘legacy’ … you would click a link and it would take you to those ‘hidden legacy’ questions.
Why on earth did they not do this? And to confirm right up front, they are not going to re-appear anywhere?!? And at the drop of a hat?
If they follow any sort of modern development process, they are not just releasing code at random. This would have been scheduled and in the works for more than 1 day. Which means they knew it was coming and didn’t say anything because of the feedback they knew would follow…
This transcends ‘was it a good or bad decision’ for me and starts to look more like ‘was this a shady decision or not’.
And ‘why?’
Just adding my opinion to the pile that blanket removal of all reviews is really unfriendly to the marketplace sellers like myself who have spent years never engaging in any kind of review manipulation. It feels like we’re being very severely punished for others lack of ethics. My own product Ultra Dynamic Sky had 8 years of honest positive reviews, which I feel was a big part of why new customers trusted the product. Starting from absolute zero is not something I feel I should have to do.
At the very least, products with significant numbers of reviews should be subject to a simple spot check. If reviews are being manipulated (which is very easy to see), they can be removed. If they aren’t, they should be ported to the new review system.
I want to say a personal Thank You to you. Your product is amazing. It has been the first addition to every single project I have ever made since I got it a couple years ago.
And I bought it when I was frustrated with other sky content packs that didn’t quite deliver, and I felt comfortable after reading (you guessed it) all of the reviews and questions that were available.
UDS review page was a joy to read. RIP.
eedobaba, please don’t stop doing cool things!
I wonder if this overwhelming negative feedback will change Epic’s minds.
Just chiming in as a seller to say this is such a blow. I spent a lot of time answering questions as quickly and as fully as I could. Implementing changes to the product based on those questions.
Reviews for my products were around the 5% mark of total sales and were hard won. I never used the verify via review/question route and feel doubly punished now. Nobody can tell what my stars are related to.
Yes, allowing for ownership verification is high on the list of new features we plan to roll out later this year.
We’ll have a major update to the storefront experience later this year that will include the new system for ratings and reviews, but it’s still several months from release. We’ll have more information in the coming months as we get closer to the release.
If the seller isn’t responding to you and the product isn’t working, feel free to contact us with the issue here. If the seller isn’t supporting a broken product, we can remind them of their obligation, and we can look at providing you with a refund.
“… but it’s still several months from release.”
Therefore and logically, you should re-instate Reviews and Questions immediately. It’s already been a day, and this is way too long …
Why suddenly remove anything related to reviews and Q&A that can be read now while leaving the “Review Stars”? Why not remove them altogether and at the same time? It feels like there are some readable content being censored and/or preventing some sensitive content being posted. hmm… 
I wonder what would happen if Amazon.com did the same thing to their store. 
Maybe just retain the Review & Q&A content for now and remove them when the new system is ready to be launched in a few days time and not months nor weeks. 
It will take months?!
Why would you already remove this function then, what is the logic behind that…
That really makes no sense whatsoever.
