The FAB Marketplace had potential, but for me and my audience, it’s been a disappointing experience. Issues with both customer and seller experience are leading to frustration all around:
Customer Experience:
Poor Search Function: Customers struggle to find products due to an inefficient search system. Searching for term X first shows unrelated items Y and Z before finally reaching X. This makes the shopping process frustrating and time-consuming.
User Interface Issues: The site is extremely cluttered; also please replaice the endless scroll feature with proper pagination. This chaotic layout makes navigation confusing and deters users from exploring products effectively.
Missing Features: There’s no wishlist, making it impossible to save products for later. This prevents users from easily tracking sales and deals, which benefits both buyers and creators. Additionally, the absence of a wishlist hampers repeat visits and long-term engagement with the marketplace + missing Questions Tab / written Reviews.
Product Page Problems:
Product Images: Customers can’t zoom in on images … I mean everyone has at least 1080p Product images or screenshots, so why we can’t zoom in? I wanna see details without be forced to download any kind of demo … I mean when iam interested in this Product, I will download a demo or watch a video after I watched the images and thought “yea maybe thats what i need”
Product Infos: Product descriptions should be fully expanded - i mean why not? there is nothing at the bottom which is more important than the feature list of unreal assets?, and details like Unreal Engine version compatibility should be maybe on a better location on the page (right sidebar) (to avoid misunderstandings and mismatched expectations).
Lack of Reviews and Q&A: Without written reviews, it’s difficult to discern if low ratings are due to user issues or product flaws. A Q&A section would be helpful, as the previous question tab allowed users to see common inquiries without needing to contact support directly. This feature would enhance transparency and provide valuable insights for potential buyers (!) Also not every Customer wanna write an email or has discord installed … yes people are lazy, but you as Store wanna have sales and we also wanna have sales, so UI/UX->The Store Features are important
General Issues:
New Releases Section: There’s no “New Releases” page where customers could find new products where they maybe or maybe not thinking “oh dam-n never thought that I need something like this, but yes!”.
Quality Control: Your new Policy to allow really everything leading to an influx of low-quality and even stolen or branded content. This is especially problematic for beginners who might unknowingly use unauthorized assets in their projects. The lack of quality assurance compromises the marketplace’s reputation and user trust. For Example:OLD MINE (Quixel) vs. MINE (some user who stole the Quixel Assets and is reselling it . So what happens if user buying this stuff for $0,99 because they don’t know quixel ?
Seller Perspective:
Limited Impact of Verification: While verification exists, it’s insufficient given the platform’s overall customer-unfriendly nature, leading to fewer sales. Sellers find it challenging to gain visibility and credibility in such a disorganized environment.
Negative Reviews: Receiving a one-star rating without feedback is frustrating. Previously, unjustified reviews could be removed, but now sellers are left in the dark about the issues. This lack of constructive feedback hinders sellers’ ability to improve their products and services.
5 Reviews to get “Star-Rattings”?: Most users don’t leave reviews, often resulting in no feedback displayed. Negative experiences are more likely to be shared, skewing the perception of products unfairly. This imbalance makes it difficult for quality products to receive the recognition they deserve.
Overall, the FAB Marketplace needs significant improvements to address both user and seller concerns. Enhancing search functionality, adding user-friendly features, enforcing quality control, and establishing a more transparent review system are essential steps to revitalize the platform and restore trust among its community.
I hope this will help to improve the FAB Marketplace, even when I don’t understand who approved this one and thought “yea that will be the next Evolution of the Unreal Marketplace”. In my opinion there is not a single point which was improved
Transfered Unreal Engine Marketplace Assets has lost the submit-date. 5 year old assets are now on date of insert to fab. With the wrong date, i have bought 1000… assets in october 2024 instead of my original purchase date.
Sorting assets from new to old is therefore a total disaster, everything is now a mess.
Resulting assets only show with “asset-name”. “asset-autor” is missing, instead, the asset type is unnecessarily written there
jumping to asset-page (x) is gone. instead it requires endless scrolling to navigate through the assets, which sucks. After 5 seconds you are no longer interested in browsing
The “personal-license” (in german “private lizenz” >> “für den privaten Gebrauch”) suggests that you are not allowed to use the asset commercially. What is allowed here?
I think it is fixed, last time when I tested Search Algorithm it was working with Asset Name and Seller name input as query.
It refers to License for Individuals/Company earning less then 100K UDS / year at the time of Purchase, Yes it can be used Commercially. (I agree Personal License isn’t best name to Describe it)
For example:
[Rifle Animset Pro] from [Kubold] is listed with publish-date [September 13, 2024]
Yes, published to fab on 2024, but very old(and cool) asset for ue-marketplace.
If you bought this asset 2020 then the date is quite implausible and sorting through your own assets can only lead to chaos.
Thank you for organising these points. Although many of these issues have already been raised by others numerous times, your summary is excellent. I hope both developers and customers can refer to this article to understand what’s happening with FAB and take action. Those who resonate with these concerns can join in providing feedback to the FAB and UE Marketplace administrators.
To me as a developer it looks like the release date for Fab was set far too early. A feature like Wishlist is really not a big deal. There will be no going back to the old marketplace. It’s not a problem either. They just have to keep working at full speed. It’s like with games (e.g. Cyberpunk). Since you can see that the costs for customers have increased significantly (Personal/Pro), it must have been desired by company policy to release it before Christmas/New Year. Too bad.
Just trying to help the desperate souls like me. You can still go to this website and see the reviews: https://orbital-market.com/, just search for the assets.
I could not agree more, I really hope Epic takes action on the influx of negative feedback they are receiving about FAB. Everyone is complaining about the downgrade in relation with the Unreal Marketplace.
For FAB to be reach the minimum quality of an online marketplace they need to bring back writen reviews, FAQ section and wishlist as soon as possible and properly migrate the missing information from assets that migrated from the Unreal Marketplace.
The minimum 5 reviews to get a rating also must be dropped, for a review system that don’t even show the name of the user that left a review this is total insanity. A reliable and trustworth review system as text, a username and a score. Users are smart enough to decide if they want to buy or not a product that has only 1 positive review, this minimum requirement just made it harder for new quality assets to standout and grow.
Fab is absolute garbage. I still like to stick to my trusty 4.27 and have absolutely no plans to shift to the UE5 junk. Fab has made my life harder by removing my ability to find the dwindling number of assets that support UE4. Now with the addition of more platforms and that I can’t search in the Epic Launcher, it’s just a nightmare looking for anything. Go to Fab on the web, fill out a tax form to find what you want, then fiddle with the Fab controls to add the asset to my library, then come back to the Epic Launcher, refresh my Fab library there and THEN, if the Epic gods deem fit, I will be allowed to download the asset. Also fed up with this new bullshat about assets requiring a compatible engine version. I DON’T WANT TO USE 5.4 FOCK OFF. Before this Fab bs I could just download the UE5 asset in a UE4 project (despite the warnings) and then get it to work now they’ve dumbed down the marketplace and made everything a steaming pile of dogshat
You will no longer receive emails from fab/epicgames for purchased assets (including free ones). How are you supposed to prove that you own something without an invoice,
especially for commercial use?
The license (personal/pro) of a purchased asset is not displayed on the asset page.
Only “You own the item” appears
Every step epic takes is 1 forward, 3 sideways, and 2 back. Fab web site sucks. Launcher still blows. Engine focuses on stuff I don’t care about (to be fair they are angling for crap I don’t care about)… but good grief. This fab site blows! Hate it.
Must agree with everyone here, this FAB Marketplace so far is totally awful.
Assets are mixed.
Customers no longer receives discounts. What’s with the Pro and Personal additional.
Currency shows wrong
Wishlist is gone, can no longer add to favorite a product.
Reviews from other buyers is missing. Who cares about stars. Internet is full of bots.
Way to many forwards and backs, trying to look on an asset or buy something and redirects to this fab, add to library then redirect to Epic Games Library.
. So what happens if user buying this stuff for $0,99 because they don’t know quixel 
?