Given the state of FAB
the presence of content that is not appropriate to be sold much less professional
and to a lesser extent but it is still a factor in the lack of features that are required for us to serve our clients properly
We will be delisting from FAB on January 1st 2025 assuming Epic doesn’t provide some concrete publicly visible answer to the following
Content that is infringing on the trademark/copyright of well-known brands
Content that even describes itself as “not my work” ripped from whatever
Lack of written reviews or some similar platform operated public facing user feedback channel
A means for the paid upgrade, subscription or similar Currently there is no way for us to release the next version of our tools on your store.
I don’t expect it is malicious but it is gross incompetence and we don’t want our products associated with a store that tolerates that sort of content in the first place. In the second place, we simply can’t provide the services our client needs via your store
Considering these factors we will not be moving the remainder of our library to your store and we will be delisting soon.
On the point of the clearly stolen content, I encourage any legitimate publisher to take a hard stance as well. If Epic doesn’t clean up the store and clearly give a publicly visible policy and procedure to answer this sort of issue then we should not support FAB at all.
We do offer direct means for customers to engage with us.
You can also license our tools via GitHub Sponsor and Patreon and since the shovelware explosion that is FAB … FAB is really not even a blip on our radar in terms of traffic and revenue. Even if it was though I would hope Heathen as a company would still take the same stance and not support or be party to a platform that doesn’t’ have a clear policy and procedure for dealing with these factors.
And as noted FAB frankly even if it was “clean” isn’t fit for purpose, no written review or similar voice for the consumer. And no means to vN+1, paid upgrade, subscription or similar so we simply cant fully conduct business via FAB anyway.
Don’t get me wrong
The idea of FAB at least as we understood it is great
A unified platform and storefront for hobbyists and professionals to find quality content for any engine is a GREAT idea.
But FIRST AND FORMOST it needs to be trustworthy that means Epic has to be ACTIVE in making and keeping the store clean.
That mess we saw on Sketch and similar is wholly inappropriate and has no place on what FAB could have been. Since we can’t trust the content on FAB our customers can’t trust the content on FAB and we don’t want be associated with that
FAB is acting like Wish … don’t want that won’t be party to that
Nice to hear that, you are Fortunate to have Backup Plan with Loyal Audience.
But Rest of Sellers don’t have this Option.
For rest of Sellers running away won’t solve Problem, Instead we have to raise our voice.
In Past they tried removing Reviews, after Backlash they reversed their Decision.
Same have to be done this Time as well.
We can see some Effects such as Roadmap, they will add Reviews in Future as per their Roadmap.
Written Reviews and lot of other Features I saw on Community Forums (although not sure when those Features will be Implemented)
Although they ignored action on some of the most Important things such as Copyright Infringement, Ripped Assets, AI Generated Content, etc. but it doesn’t mean we should stop raising our Voice.
Eventually they have to take Action. Just don’t Stop your Voice.
I saw they removed popular Topic of Copyright Infringement and Ripped Assets, We have to create another one, If not on Forums then on Reddit or other Platforms.
It is not perfect and we still can’t update our assets as there is no facility for a paid upgrade, discount for owning other versions or subscription
But they are at least addressing the hard stop regarding theft and copyright infringement.
So from our POV not that it really matters to others but just sharing our train of thought
We will keep what’s in place in place and when that version falls out of support we will delist from FAB. Hopefully sometime soon they will get a means to do paid updates in place so we can release our next major versions but until then we can at least wait and watch.