But to be fair, there are people who are selling environments and props for hundreds of dollars. Of course, it’s no reason to blackmail them into getting an discount when they can easily report you for it.
Most of them in my experience fit the price better in quality and quantity than certain loud individuals.
Demonizing their own market over trivialities is a great way to never sell anything. Pricing things to where the buyer could commission better (and exclusively) also accomplishes this greatly. Some people never seem to learn that the marketplace doesn’t exist in a bubble. No reviews and QA is just lost sales.
6 Likes
I’ve only left one bad review and have never asked for a refund. Epic would make a very big mistake losing a customer like me 
Edit: Sorry, that sounded like a threat. I’m just very LOYAL. Things keep changing. If I need to change my priorities then so be it.
1 Like
Honestly, text reviews are a key indicator for me when deciding whether to buy a product.
For example, there was a 5-star product with “support” for Unreal 5.4, but when I looked into the text reviews, several people mentioned that the product requires Apex destruction. This was a dealbreaker for me since Apex is no longer supported by Epic.
If there hadn’t been any text reviews, I wouldn’t have known and might have spent 50 USD, only to request a refund a few minutes later.
9 Likes
Ah, so it prevented a sale! We should delete the text-review feature then… /s
In all seriousness…there are many scenarios like this where I have also seen a low star-rated asset, but bought it anyways because of text-reviews clarifying the limitations and finding that they don’t apply to my use-case. So it goes both ways.
5 Likes
Another fun fact- We can’t edit ratings in Fab. How could anyone think it’s a good idea to prevent users from editing their ratings on top of no written Review?
4 Likes
Insane. I edited ratings on marketplace all the time when sellers responded to/fixed an issue if I identified a bug or problem.
4 Likes
Hi @G-MAGA . We plan to fix this, allowing buyers to adjust their ratings.
Another Little Request, Will Fab Team Remove the Fake Reviews (Especially Discord Verification) that are now Shown as Rating? Since those Ratings are Really Misleading (Especially for 100+ Reviews)
8 Likes
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.
6 Likes
A reliable and trustworthy review system only needs 4 features:
• User name
• Mandatory review text
• Review score
• Reporting feature to handle unfair reviews and trolls
The Unreal Marketplace review system already had all these features.
In fact, the Unreal Marketplace review system and FAQ section were already reliable and trusthworthy as they were, if Epic just transfer these features and migrate the missing information I garantee 80% of the sellers complaints about FAB will go away.
The other 20% of complaints can be solved by improving the product search filters and bringing back the wishlist (also migrate the missing info from the Unreal Marketplace).
The minimum 5 reviews should also be dropped, as it only hinders the progress of serious sellers that pour their heart and soul to publish a good product.
Clients are smart enough to decide for themselves if they want to buy a assets that only has 1 positive review.
And even worse, having only a star rating makes FAB suscetible to review bombing, either to improve a asset rating or to decrease competitors assets ratings.
This “new review system” only achieved one thing: it affected the clients and sellers trust on Epic Games, but it is not late to listen to the feedback and fix the situation.
5 Likes
This is an immense step-back even from the internet itself, it look like 1970 catalog now and stars review without comments have no value at all.
Communication is a key for a lot of things: pride and motivation of authors, user purchase even with mixed score, finding answer, giving feedback, explaining the review given, quickly reporting a problem.
Technically migrating the old marketplace review and comment database to fab is almost nothing to do, so it’s a political decision.
Why ?
10 Likes
But just adjusting the rating is not enough to handle the situation.
The review text section was key to gather feedback, sellers could also respond clients that needed help to orient them on what to do or where to open a support ticket to solve any issues.
But now, unhappy clients are must likely to just drop a 1 star rating and NEVER get in touch with the seller to inform what is the problem. And since there is no username on the reviews either, there is no way for the seller to track down the client to offer support.
Mandatory reviews text must come back, as the ability for sellers to reply to the review text directly to address any issues and offer support.
This new review system lacks transparency and reliability, since you can’t verify who left a review its impossible to distinguish bot reviews from real clients.
5 Likes
This sounds like complete fantasy. Only customers can leave reviews, and for Q&A, which developer has time to create a fake account, leave bad comments, then wait weeks for the price to go down? Most add-ons cost the same as 4-10 hamburgers. This is ridiculous.
Last but not least, It’s technically ultra simple to detect fake accounts with zero purchase and such unique activity. I don’t buy this explanation.
8 Likes
Enough of the crying. Just adapt or leave.
BTW, Sellers have public Emails so they can easily be contact for questions or problems.
I support text reviews (after purchase), already said that.
Q&A was a loophole for lot’s of Devs to do exactly that. How do they have time? Cause they’re bad at what they do, want everything cheap and are jealous of competitors gettings their stuff approved.
Tons of FAKE ACCOUNTS abusing the Q&A system because they didn’t have to purchase the product (unlike text-reviews), so that gave them the opportunity to HARASS other’s product publicly. When got reported, they had nothing to lose for any BANS cause they used fakes or they would simply erase the comment (but damage was done). This was a common practice among a large group of Devs to force prices down on Seller’s products. Epic knew this… and it is why you get a star ratings on FAB. You add the Discord cheat and you got what you deserved. So stop crying and move on.
This still make no sense, even bad developer can’t wait week for the price of an addon to be possibly 10$ lower and there is a very limited satisfaction and effect to post negative question.
Technically, it’s pretty straightforward to block Q&A for new accounts with no purchases or to automatically clean up Q&A from accounts that didn’t buy the addon after a week. I’ve managed several big forums before, and there are tons of automated ways to clean up bots, spam, or negative behavior without affecting real users. It’s even easier when purchases are involved.
5 Likes
- Questions, I see no reason not to include it.
- Reviews, generally good but was often sort of not valid, i.e. someone points out an issue and rates 1 star, a week later the developer updates the package with a fix, still the review reflects the older version. Or, someone gives 1 star due to a technical issue un-related to the project, or using wrong version, or not following instructions. Perhaps the solution is to only allow written reviews without a star rating. This way people can review and the reader can make his own judgement.
And I am missing a feature which displays the sales.
2 Likes
Little Correction, Review are Indeed Useful while Ratings are not that much.
As a Buyer 1 Star Product make me more curious then one 5 Star Product, then I read the Review and most of the times it is because of mistake/Misunderstanding from Buyer side, But the more useful thing to me is How Seller respond to Criticism, From that I can Judge how helpful he would be in Situation where support is needed.
While as Seller it Helps to Improve Product.
4 Likes
I would second this. Having devs spend weeks on some sort of bar/tiered based system as a “new improved review system” is counterproductive / a waste of time and resources.
The thing everyone needs and is asking for is (1) very low effort and (2) a much better solution than the alternative being proposed.
3 Likes