I need to spill my guts out!

[TechLord]

I purchase many products from the Unreal Market Place (UMP) and can rationalize a NO REFUND policy with the absence of DMR or other protection. However, I’m not interested in refunds, I’m only interested in the product meeting my need, saving me time/money, and support. If the product fails my expectation, I would rather it be fixed/improved or credited by the Content Provider to receive something that solves another problem. If the Content Provider is not in the position to offer any of these options, a refund or partial refund is the only solution. Think: Repeat Business.

I’m not in favor of Content Providers removing their products from UMP after I’ve purchased them. Its a virtual slap-in-the-face, and price discounts add insult to injury (unless Provider is crediting such a discount for UMP purchasers). UMP Providers that remove products from UMP, lose my trust and future purchases. Its a feeling of abandonment. However, I would be interested in a off site store offering new add-ons and extensions to complement existing products in the UMP (as current UMP Policy doesn’t support selling Addons/Extentions in the Marketplace).

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@BoredEngineer;567789

Mmmm… wait, are you saying that you are buying MP assets as a final content for your specific projects? How do you even imagine a landscape/character/vehicle/materials or code logic not made for your project to fit perfectly your project?
Like let’s say I buy Simple Towns package but they have only single lane roads and I need at least two lane roads and a limo for my game, I guess I have to refund it now? To me, MP assets are suppose to be place-holders, a basis for a prototype or a foundation from which I can extend content by contracting creator. You can use them to establish your pipeline/workflow or learn how something should be done. Sure there will be odd cases when something is so generic that it will work just good enough for you, but refunding landscape because it doesn’t fit specific idea of your game level is just… I don’t think this is a correct way to approach assets on marketplace, it doesn’t work like this even when you contract people, nothing will be exactly as you want.
Nothing personal , I’m biased towards more custom art and code instead of using assets from MP directly as they are. Maybe I’m wrong and too old for this … but I know that it’s impossible to create or find assets that satisfy all criteria.

It’s not sellers fault that there is no way to preview all possible details of the asset. Providing something like a template for building packaged demo for pure art content could be nice (assuming it becomes a standard practice to use it). But I foresee the same rhetoric repeating with code/plugin assets.

Personally I would take a different route - use MP to publish assets that demonstrate your skill, use them as marketing tool and target custom contracting work. I believe it would be more productive environment facilitating easy outsourcing of workload to experts instead of building something that is suppose to please everyone from wannabe devs to veterans.

The potential distribution volume is what makes selling assets in the UMP attractive. The same type of volume would severely backlog an Asset provider, possibly losing profits /damaging reputation if not prepared to scale up. Epic gives away plenty of High Quality Assets to prototype with for FREE and competing in the ‘prototype’ space doesn’t offer the same exposure and sense of accomplishment as being featured in a commercial product.

I purchase items from UMP with 100% intent to use them in commercial products (I would suspect that 1000s of other Game Devs purchase with similar intent). This offers me the greatest return on investment. I’m not spending additional time and money, otherwise I would do that from the start. I’m aware these assets are sold to the masses and I also desire some form of exclusivity. The solution for me is Out-of-the-box Customization.

Savvy Content Providers realize Out-of-the-box Customization and extension of Assets is the expectation now, and will capture these profits. Content Providers who fail to see the paradigm shift in Asset demand will miss sales (I only purchase assets that are demonstrated to be readily customized/modular), but more importantly Marketplaces not designed to support the new paradigm will lose both Buyers and Sellers.