They are not even showing their documentation without verification, it’s just a link to their discord. I thought a free documentation is mandatory, this shouldn’t be allowed.
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There is nothing in subsection 2.9 that disallows a limit to the access of documentation. Just that such documentation must be FREE to customer purchasing the product.
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And one can argue that in this particular example it isn’t free - you have to provide a service to the seller (write a review) for access to documentation.
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We could get into the semantics of the definition of Free, but without Epic’s legal department defining the term Free in the context of the provided paragraphs we’d be wasting each others time.
My opinion of the text from reading it is that a customer is not to be charged monetarily for access to relating documentation.
Not that the suppression of the documentation until sufficient proof of ownership is given constitutes an infringement.
I was about to say the same thing, just because something is given to you for no monetary cost doesn’t mean it’s free, you are still expected to do something in return.
Imaging having to leave a amazon review before you can get the user manual of your product. I understand the need for verification for support and other goodies but a documentation is a tough cookie
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I know this decision almost certainly came from someone other than @Unreal_Josh, even if he’s left in the unenviable position of being the messenger everyone presently wants to (metaphorically) shoot. So, uh… sympathies to Josh, before I go on a minor rant here.
ANYWAY. I’d say that I’m shocked anyone at Epic thought this was a good idea, but after reflecting on the number of times I’ve encountered broken links to old wiki entries that no longer exist, I’m maybe less shocked than I’d like to be.
Still, there’s rarely any good reason to do something so destructive with past information, especially past information that’s been provided by the community as in the form of the Q&A sections. There’s even less good reason to do it without telling anyone first and catching everyone affected entirely off-guard.
And it’s even more confusing that this would be done now when the supposed motivation is upcoming-but-not-yet-ready changes to the marketplace; deprecating the sections once the alternatives are ready makes sense, yes, ideally while preserving the existing content in some form, but… that does not appear to be the situation here.
And even Epic demonstrably knows this is a bad idea.
It’s not like when UE 5.0 came out, they nuked all the 4.x documentation from the website, nor did they nuke the 5.0 documentation when 5.1 came out! They have a dropdown, letting you switch to older, legacy versions of information because that information may still be useful.
I mean, sure, there’s a lot of issues with the Marketplace. Content providers have no good way to verify someone should have access to things… like, say, a git repository for the plugin source, or sample projects demonstrating a plugin’s use. Maybe there should be an API for this – tie your Github or Discord accounts to the Epic account, and then there’s a way for someone to validate that Github user X indeed purchased product Y.
(And even better, a way to revoke access if someone then refunds it. Because you know otherwise someone’s gonna buy a thing, get access to the source repo, refund it, and then just use the source build. It wouldn’t be common, but it would happen. Anyway.)
And it’d be amazing if there was a way to connect a knowledge-base for a given product on the Marketplace to that listing; right now, the Q&A seems to largely serve that purpose, albeit with really terrible discoverability.
There’s lots of changes like that which could make the Marketplace a really valuable resource beyond just “click button, obtain content”. So if the changes to the Marketplace are to address those sort of issues? I applaud them! I bet lots of others do too!
I just question why the existing solutions would be pulled before their replacements are ready. And it seems lots of others do, too.
Regardless of what Epic’s next steps here prove to be, please try to communicate them clearly ahead of time.
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Hi, from a buyers point of view!
I went to the marketplace tonight with some hard-earned cash looking to get me some juicy assets. As we all now know and to my surprise tonight, the reviews and questions are now gone. How, as a buyer, am I to evaluate and establish if what I’m buying is a great asset or a poor quality asset? I ask this because I have an asset plugin that cost £100 and it hasn’t been supported by the creator since September last year, it is still on the marketplace with 4 stars (because it was good pre-abandoned on UE4) and the discord support channel for that asset is now full of disappointed people, unsuspecting buyers could still buy that asset especially now the reviews have been deleted. While reading the review and feedback information I have always bought assets that I’m happy with and I’ve never asked for a refund. Should I now buy an asset and then find outs its not as advertised, then would I expect a refund for my purchase? Unfortunately this has put me off buying assets for the time being.
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Regardless of whether this was a good idea or not. Pease disable your notifications for unanswered Questions. Not good for my mental health having these daily reminders that question has not been answered (and no way to do so!)
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Very unfortunate turn of events, to use another example of a marketplace, imagine if Amazon, without notice, decided to remove written reviews, and only allow star ratings. At a very instinctual level, a buyer can gauge a potential purchase with a strong review, rather than a few stars, they are arbitrary in many cases. A five star for one person may not be the same for another as they may have differing expections.
Communication is a vital part of the Epic MP eco-system and without it, both sellers and buyers are blind.
Word-of-mouth is how many of our interactions as a society begin and to take that away in these very uncertain times is unfair at the moment.
I and many others hope these changes are temporary and a more streamlined Marketplace is in the works.
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@Unreal_Josh or someone at Epic, please escalate this up the chain. You have overwhelming backing from the community ( as evidenced by this thread ) to show that the decision to remove the review and question functionality before a new system is rolled out is a very poor decision that harms the community and reflects badly on Epic. Schedule some meetings, reverse some commits, you know what to do.
I am not a seller, but have spent over 15k supporting marketplace creators, gone through the verification process a number of times, written many reviews, and asked many questions.
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Here are some stats via the UE api showing “review for verification” abuse. This took Hugo only a few hours to write a filter for the data:
From all 68,160 reviews - 6% had a Discord ID
94% of reviews with Discord ID are 5⭐
82% of all reviews on the marketplace are 5⭐
-edit for correct numbers
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Don’t let stats stop them from making dumb decisions.
This is your fault?
The stats are not taking into consideration the difference in weighted importance & market exposure. There are assets that are significantly more expensive, technical, & attractive than others, which are the ones that tend to have more rigorous verification purposes for technical support - so the negative experience to the customer relying on legitimate Questions & Reviews being washed away by verification spam is still a problem that needs to be addressed in a way that it allows sellers the choice to do so without affecting the algorithm.
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While there may be some weighting, here is some more data:
14936 products have at least one review
389 products had at least one review with a Discord ID
80 products had more than 10 reviews with a Discord ID
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I am in a similar boat as you as far as investments and contributions. Aside from some assets that I have already researched through Q&R and am slated to purchase a license for soon, I will be drastically reducing my investments in the marketplace because the current risks outweigh the rewards for both buyers & sellers alike. I feel the most sympathy for asset developers of existing & planned technical products because the tediousness of multiple Discords and the slow communication channel of email make it much harder to invest with confidence in them. I am glad we have 3rd party aggregates offering marketplace legacies, but most buyers without experience/exposure to the community will likely not know about it & just stop buying over time.
The longer this drags on, the more damage it will inflict on the marketplace & the sellers.
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OMG, such an awful desicion on Epic’s part! Such a useful resource being able to read reviews and user’s questions. Please reconsider. I think this is a unanimous feeling among all of us UE enthusiasts.
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Hello - I’ll state it again for emphasis : this is IMHO a fallacy. Even the most complex product (say : a complex code plugin, or a full on locomotion system) doesn’t require a verification to gain access to a Discord chat server. Basic support can very well be done by answering the most simple questions with a link to a FAQ ; and advanced support can be done in a linear forum thread (do these even exist anymore for the Marketplace ? I don’t even know …) with the advantage of such threads being searchable easily for new users.
Now I absolutely understand the appeal of Discord : it’s fancy and it’s realtime, giving the the impression of immediacy and so-called “community”. But the existence of Discord should in no shape or form affect the Marketplace ecosystem, and products owners should imho never ask buyers for any Discord-related written comments for authentication, as this is artificially bending the metrics of the storefront. As a matter of fact even asking for a proof of purchase should not be a thing because it opens up security risks.
Now I do agree that perhaps Epic could provide some sort of token system, that sellers could then use as they please for external authentication - and perhaps this is being worked on. But removing Reviews and Questions in the meantime is incredibly destructive.
Anyways, there’s no way to know if this even relates to the current issue 
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I agree with you that Discord should be independent of the ecosystem, the marketplace algorithm, and the free documentation as per ECLA compliance. As a buyer myself, I have come across products that have a Discord I have little to no interest in for my personal study but impedes on basic installation & use. Others on the other hand, have excellent optional documentation, videos, examples, templates, and experienced developers.
So, I still support developer choice when it comes to how they wish to support their customers & what means they wish to convey that support should be left up to them. Furthermore, after the recent decisions of Epic, sellers without a Discord or other 3rd party interest are almost completely disconnected from their customer base, which is not fair to their months/years of contributions to the marketplace & the community because it impacts their bottom line in the short/long interim. They know better than us buyers & Epic staff members how to support customers. They all have different logistical approaches to that goal. Giving them flexibility is not unreasonable, so I can’t fully support you declaring it a fallacy.
I want to see a future marketplace where verifications do not wash away legitimate Q&R, but I don’t want to see Discord taking over the marketplace either. I think a fair approach is the best approach in this case.
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That’s also interesting stat and doesn’t sound right. But well, removing negative reviews is a thing too…
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