So Epic **AGAIN **just deleted a critical / negativ marketplace review just because the seller demanded it, even though the problem I gave as reason in my review still exists and was NOT fixed…
**And **despite Unreal_Josh (Sr. Marketplace Manager) promising the last time that this will not be happening again and that there will be a better process in the future:
Yeah so much about that, because I did **not **get a detailled response and notes, and just like last time all I got was:
This is seriously unacceptable to make a promise like this and then you just delete another critical review without ANY due process - e.g. getting in contact with the author of the review to validate if the problem still exists on their end. Because in my case it still does, nothing has changed. Yes I just downloaded the asset and tested it again to make sure.
All the marketplace seller had to do, just like the other seller last time, cite “technical inaccuracies” and Epic deletes it without any question at all.
I can only imagine how many critical marketplace reviews from other users have been deleted like that, and it seriously calls into questions the thrustworthyness of every single marketplace seller AND the whole marketplace in itself, if critical reviews don’t remain online.
There needs to be a major change in how the Epic marketplace team handles critical reviews, and I don’t think having the notion that marketplace reviews can’t be trusted is good for the (actually trustworthy) majority of the marketplace sellers either.
Furthermore, just deleting a review without actually involving the author of it is NOT a respectful thing to do. We customers take our time to write reviews, sometimes a lot of it, and our opinions matter. It’s an effort on the customers end to make the marketplace a better place.
Just deleting reviews like that speaks volumes about how little Epic actually thinks of the marketplace customers.
If you attack the seller in any personal way they have the right to report it. Some people also write random rubbish and things like that should be removed too.
For example:
Over 60 people rated something, they are satisfied.
1 guy comes up, rate 1 star and say “-it doesn’t work”.
Chances are that person didn’t even read the 2 minutes guide on how to use something, but raste to give a 1 star review. To me that is plain abuse of the system.
Just saying “-doesn’t work” is not valid feedback when a dozen have it working well because they just read the guidelines.
In my case, and the dev was even so cheeky as to message me to tell me it will get deleted, the “technical inaccuracy” was that I said the performance has become worse. I even wrote “for me” next to it.
That was enough to get my review deleted. Before it was deleted, the dev even wrote a lengthy reply, acknowledging the other points in my review as true.
The point is that there needs to be some form of dispute. Or do you want to scare away potential buyers from using the marketplace in future? Because that’s a great way of doing it.
Yes of course, personal attacks and bot text shouldn’t be allowed and deleted.
The problem I see here is that a dev can simply state any negative review to be “technically inaccurate” and that is enough for Epic to delete it, without checking if that’s actually true.
And that there is no discussion or dispute about it.
It took me over an hour to write my review. And to see it getting deleted just like that really feels like Epic doesn’t care about customers after we dished out money already.
The reply form should be enough for marketplace-authors to contest bad reviews. Only bot texts and personal attacks should be deleted.
Well, that’s what happens when “if X then Y”. In the end, who decides what makes something “technically inaccurate” or a “personal attack”? Sorry, you want the existence of a “deletion” option, then you must also accept the consequences that comes with it.
Actually, I would rather not delete reviews at all and just have the reply stand to contest it. There needs to be a delete option though, for posts that break the law, are spam, personal attacks, and such. Doesn’t mean it needs to be abused.
Because you are right, who decides what is “technically inaccurate”? That is easily said but I didn’t see Epic using my computer to check if it’s actually true.
Deleting reviews because the dev doesn’t like what is said, is really a north korean approach to free speech.
personally I am in favor of the current system, if allowed, people : the trolls types, will pollute the message area with very negative garbage, I would rather have the current system than the trolls over running the forums.
there might be an alternate system that’s even better, if so, please post about it, epic might change the current system.
God Bless you. May Jesus Christ be Chartaible unto you.
I’m not talking about changing the system but how it is used. Negative reviews should be contested in the reply function, not simply deleted because the seller doesn’t like negative feedback.
I’m not sure on this guy but I’m most definitely not backing him but the aim is most to kids trying to accomplish something. I’ve had my fair share on more of something like CG trader where theirs like 1000 good reviews of course maybe kids. Then you import the mesh has errors which unreal engine reports. I worked long and hard for stuff like that not to happen. Also courses like Udemy because a kid would love to get started but someone seeking professional learning is complete trash. I don’t think I’ve had to much trouble with unreal engine marketplace maybe only one product. But Yeah… 60 of those of reviews are more then likely younger age just happy they can get something working… For a professional sometimes it’s just like WTH is this. Like recently I purchased a sandbag that had 30,000 or I think 80,000 polys from cg trader. Basically the key is to Create everything yourself and make everything yourself. My final project will consist of that. Even when you want to buy a placeholder and you’re doing everything 100% it’s like why would you sell me something like that? I wouldn’t sell you a broken game…?
On top of that I personally have one course where supposedly the author agreed with me and it’s kind of like a first step thing. and it had over 100,000 good reviews. But I don’t see over 100,000 C++ quality games now do I? It’s basically a exciting lure and copying what he did. I won’t say the name because it’s not worth it. To me it was god awful and the lure was to mainly young adult or kidss.
So in general speaking their is a problem in the 3d marketplace in general the solution is to create your own.
Call my bluff I’ll share it and name a few with pictures and details(not udemy) just say for me entire udemy wasn’y good except one,one course that was only a hour but super informative and excellent!. Well it isn’t from ue4 marketplace but just in general as what I see. I barely purchased anything from ue4 marketplace but 99% of it was good as far as I remember
You have a point. When you look at most reviews (positive and negative) it’s usually just one sentence. And it’s always either 1 star or 5 stars. It’s like these meaningless Steam reviews where you have people say “great game get rekt” or nonsense like that.
The Epic marketplace is running danger of turning into a massive crappy asset place like the other 3D marketplaces.
Then I want to counter that and take the effort to write a detailled review for over an hour and it gets deleted because the dev didn’t like what I said. No contact from Epic, no question to me, no discussion, just delete it.
Yeah, that’s really how you encourage a great community…
First, I’d really like to thank Epic for the free game engine and ways for people to explore creative and so on.As I’m not a yes man,you’ll always see me speaking my mind. As far as I recalled I believe the vast majority of stuff (3d assets as I remember) are not professional (soo soo). Now I understand the seller base,but I’d like to see people grow also. I’d rather have someone learning hello world and studying everything and come back with the accomplished feeling ready to tackle the work head on. And I say this with someone that loves gaming seriously I’m a gamer for life/first hand experience. Trust me I’ve been through my fare share of 3d purchased from CG trader even as placeholders to be like WTH is this,paying money for something to be bad is just wow,really??? Ultimately, no professional is going to buy anything from a website and create it their selves. We can only do the best to our ability and hopefully accomplish our goals in the future!!!
-This is speaking of 3d in general. stuff from UE4 I believe I either had no interest or only 1 product out of a lot was bad that I purchased
I don’t think their will be 200,000 Kobe Bryants but if I could teach 20 to be really good do they really love the game? Are you determined?-Quote
@krisgoku2_Dev if you want to talk about the quality of the marketplace assets, please make your own discussion, this one is about Epic deleting negative reviews solely on the sellers wishes.
Ahhh, you didn’t get the lesson I see. I’ll keep it short simple maybe better for you. The Epic store or any 3d storefront doesn’t always come from professionals. So don’t expect professional results or behavior.
That may be true, but Epic brands itself as a professional business, therefore we should be able to expect professional aka not arbitrary decisions when it comes to removing critical feedback.
Thank you for reaching out and calling this matter to our attention. The removal of your review was completed without the level of escalation our team would expect. We’ve recently expanded our team, and with that growth, comes a few growing pains. We apologize for how the situation was handled, and are using this as a learning opportunity to guide the team.
As the Marketplace team investigates each flagged review, it’s necessary that they reach a determination on the review’s contents and relevance to the product. In the case of your review, this should have been escalated internally before a decision on action was made. Since our previous forum discussion on flagged reviews, the team has made changes to ensure that individuals are notified in the event one of their reviews is removed. We recognize we should provide more clarity, and we’re updating this process to include detailed responses and notes. You can expect this change to occur in the near future.
We will be following up directly via email about your review. Please keep an eye on your inbox for our message.
We believe in constructive feedback and it is not our intent to prevent you, or any customer on the Marketplace, from sharing your legitimate experiences with a product or seller; that information may prove valuable for potential customers.
If you have any additional or future inquiries, you are always welcome to create a case with the Marketplace—we are more than happy to answer questions and help find a resolution to your concerns.
Thank you for your continued feedback, as it helps us improve not only our team, but our services.
Thank you Josh for your reply. I accept this to be a unfortunate misstep and I believe you’ll do better in future, as you have done with now notifying customers if their review get’s deleted.
I do not agree with the requirement that I have to remove the first part of my review, where I talk about the devs behaviour - privately messaging customers and telling them not to talk about certain things is completely inappropriate and not professional at all.
On the contrary, I do think this is part of the product, as the way a customer is treated will very much affect how said customer will be able to use and enjoy a bought asset.
But it is your rules and I comply to them regardsless. I just think it would be good to let the dev know that such a behaviour is not acceptable on a professional marketplace business.
I do have to ask though how the dev was able to connect my private Discord account with my Epic account, does he see the usernames of people who buy the plugin - or in my case who get granted access to it (as I bought it prior to marketplace release)?
Because this could pose a security risk, for people to be able to link together an email and username.
Part of the request was because the seller was dinged for how Epic handled the case, so that shouldn’t factor in to the review. The behavior of any seller on Marketplace does matter, and something we take seriously. The challenge is that when an issue happens outside of our official channels, it’s harder to confirm. If unprofessional behavior is happening, we’d prefer to work on that behind the scenes through the help system and take action that way.
We respect the privacy of our customers and don’t share individual buyer information with sellers. When a seller is working with a customer to troubleshoot an issue and wants to confirm that the product was properly purchased, we will confirm that the transaction is valid, has not been refunded, and we will provide the date of the transaction. No details about the customer are shared.
