@TechLord i didn’t quite get a point about seller removing asset from a MP
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Nah you took it kinda wrongly But I do see your point.
Its a theory as to the reason. Personally I never ask for support on stuff and I can fix most of the things that bother me on my own, so really i dont care. However there are real privacy laws in most countries when it comes to personal information. IF the person gives it freely, no problem. But a company wouldn’t ever want to ever put themselves in a situation where they gave out something personal. In many countries, email address which could be considered a nickname is considered private.
To sum it up:
- I’m not giving all of my CC numbers directly to 100 random individuals across the world and I doubt you or many others would either, so without the MP most creators couldnt sell their stuff
- I dont know how support works , I’m just theorizing as well. But i agree buyers shouldnt have to support EVERYONE except purchasers. But epic facilitates the transaction and takes a cut, it should be on them to **facilitate **the support as well. A simple ticketing system works wonders. And the Seller VS buyer direct compare isn’t really accurate. If you’re selling you’re putting yourself out there, you can reply as the business entity or personally but when you purchase something, your information stays with the entity you purchased with and thats as far as its allowed to go. There’s no argument there, thats the way it is and should be.
If a buyer is upset, they deal with epic and the creator …if they get no help they leave a review and worst case is they’re out $x. If a buyer GETS a bad review and it ruins their asset and their business… who knows who that person really is. They may take that further. Theres more of a of that happening then the buyer tracking down the seller over $50. lol … at least I’d hope so.
I feel like my main point hasn’t been proven though. See this? Did Amazon give me this user’s credit card? No. Did Amazon give me this user’s address? No. Did Amazon give these details to the seller of the product? Probably not.
Same thing.
Do sellers on the marketplace really want any of that info? Probably not. Do they need that info? Nope.
On epic’s end -> Purchase is tied to account. If payment doesn’t clear, or a refund is issued- access to ____ is pulled.
User requires support. Seller can query the user’s status. “Hey, does this user have access to this pack (can only query packs you sell)” would be more than enough.
And if sellers are going to attack people over ruining their business, surely they realize they can always recover from one single review as long as they don’t hunt down the person who left a review?
And buyers can certainly go on a vendetta against sellers. After all, it’s simpler to be able to buy rather than sell (as it should). You can hide better as a content consumer anyway.
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Yeah. Its a bit different with amazon tho right? While I actually like the verified purchaser thing, esp for reviews. That should DEF be . Does the seller actually know that information unless the buyer posts that review? I doubt steam, PSN, Microsoft etc actually notify game studios the usernames of all their purchasers. Amazon probably wouldnt either unless Amazon in the specific transaction is acting more like ebay in that the product isn’t stocked by them and instead links you to the seller direct. the seller does need personal info in order to directly ship something to you.
Well access to the asset IS pulled if your CC doesnt clear isn’t it? Or if you get the refund?
Anyway, the sellers technically dont need a database of people who bought their items. Epic could facilitate this as I said. If they make it so you can’t open a support ticket on an item you haven’t bought that solves it, same should apply for reviews. If a ticket comes through to you as a seller, than you know its legit in this case and if they ask for support you can see their username. Realistically though, I doubt sellers support pirates very often(sure it happens tho). Most pirate…ers(?) would most likely not contact a seller for something they haven’t bought. So the odds are low already. Plus if the pirate has an with your asset, there’s a good all of the legit purchasers have that too if it’s actually asset related. If so the is probably being talked about on the forums already. Privatizing the support through tickets is not good as it would make duplicate tickets of the same. The forum is best since it helps anyone who has an. In the case that you get contacted privately/directly for support, pirate or not with a legit asset. You’ll most likely find the fix and post the fix(or a status update if it needs an MP update) in the forum to stop people emailing you about the same thing again. Overall I don’t think sellers supporting pirates is a massive. I think its best to fix things like making sure only legit buyers can post reviews and rate the products. That would be most helpful to buyers and sellers.
Another angle, probably many corporations wouldn’t **want **to give you access to all the buyers info either, for other reasons other than privacy too.
If you make an asset and sell it to 10 000 different people. 10 000 email addresses “pre-screened” as viable consumers, in itself has a ton of marketing value.
Anyway, I’m just bored tonight. Didn’t intend to hijack the thread. Back on topic some valid points all around . I think making sure only verified purchasers can RATE and REVIEW would go a long way in preventing refunds and disappointment. Also adding an incentive to review and rate would help too. The issues describe by the OP seem more related to the epic staff not really looking closely before making a decision, or not fully understanding the type of asset well enough to verify the legitimacy of the claims made by either side. I actually did buy this asset on sale at some point awhile back… I never looked closely at them though as I havent really used it so no idea if the claims are legit or not myself.
Sure, I myself see cases where I would use assets from MP for commercial project. But I realize that it’s not going to be a simple plug and play and I’ll have to work on those assets to get exactly what I need them to do. The is that several people already voiced an opinion that if asset is not matching all requirements of their project then it’s a viable reason to refund… Regardless if it’s otherwise a functioning product which does what seller says it does.
There are different situations with standard assets used in commercial games too. For example, Rimworld and Prison Arhitect used the same 2d character assets at the beginning of development, later each of them modified/commissioned new art as game went further into development. Should they now go back and refund those assets? They are not used in development anymore and were changed as the are no longer fit for the product. To some people it might sound like a good reason for refund.
I’m not really asking you to be dragged into this discussion, just sharing my frustration and establishing a context for what I’ve said previously.
I thought I saw it all with the seller hate and scary stories. Now we are trying to get peoples personal information? Seriously? Why do so many people have such a low opinion of us? We have done nothing to earn it, these are just wild “what if” scenarios that can be applied to anything. Every online business retains customer emails and order numbers for the purpose of providing support. Because epic has opted not to do so, we have to extend customer support wait times for up to a week just to confirm the email and order number you will still have to give us just to hear a response back from the staff. One time it took me over a month to hear back for an order confirmation. And who gets blamed for that long wait time? The seller. When we could do it in a second if we were provided with the basic information every other online marketplace provides to their vendors in order to smoothly operate their business. It’s getting real tiresome to have people act as if we are bad people.
The only things I have been keep hearing from Epic up to this moment in return of the defenses are that “the reasons buyer claimed are valid”. Which are not.
None of the reasons fit into this as nothing was incompatible, broken, buggy or different from whats advertised.
In a nutshell I’m constantly being told that the buyer didn’t like one of the landscapes and one of the materials wasn’t named so refund is processed.
None of my concerns are still addressed and OP is still unanswered. I’m explaining what the issues are in detail but every time I get a email back it’s almost the copy paste of the previous one and doesn’t really seem like I’m talking to someone. I assume I’m not allowed to post the emails .
It’s not like pretending sellers are bad people…
Some kids will just say anything to justify self-interests.
“-I pirate X because Y…”
“-I demand fulltime support, I paid you $10 bucks for an asset.”
“-I demand nobody refund my perfect asset!”
The weird things is, some of these “kids” are grownup, but mindset is still the same.
One of reasons laws and Eula do exist.
I haven’t seen any seller in state there shouldn’t be refunds. Only that there needs to be a valid reason within the confines of the policy - i.e. something is broken or doesn’t work as advertised. Anything failing to meet that standard as per the current policy is not grounds for a refund. The then becomes proving something is broken, where in two recent examples the staff have ignored the evidence presented by the sellers despite their overwhelming nature.
The problem is, we cannot overtake laws.
And in pretty much any country, laws grants consumers the right for refunds. No matter what.
Doesn’t matter what rules Epic gives to Marketplace, all major country has consumer protection and regulations; Unless Epic has 100% proof that the product is flawless they are forced to send back the money. Just give up on this one.
Even if 100% flawless, consumer still can refund if wish so.
That isn’t true at all, there are many businesses with no refund policies in place. iTunes is one. So long as the refund policy is communicated to the buyer prior to being purchased, that policy is binding. In the case of Epic, the refund policy is communicated through the marketplace terms which satisfies this requirement. Refund laws are also put in place to protect buyers from faulty products, which pretty much every refund policy (including Epic’s) accounts for.
Eulas and policies are null if the consumer sicks action in law.
Many software providers state in their eulas we are prohibited to sell our licenses, for example; however some countries give us the right to resell software we paid for. The same with digital goods, if you action the law then it’s country’s law the standing point; not a business eula.
But many ppl know that or won’t bother with legal actions.
What Epic can do is try to avoid legal actions from both sides, because expenses. That’s the only real use for eulas, really.
I don’t know what you’re referring to, but almost every court I’ve seen has upheld EULAs - especially with software. You agree to the terms before using/buying the product. It is legally binding, and no one is forcing you to use that particular product. It’s like saying 1st amendment applies everywhere in the U.S., when Epic has their own limits on the kind of speech you can have on this forum. You can either agree to their terms and use it, or disagree and not use it.
If that’s the case then we’re being tricked into it. You shouldn’t write “circumstances in which a buyer can get a refund” and then process a refund based on something that’s exactly outside those circumstances. Should either live up to the word or write in plain text that any buyer can get a refund for any reason even as small as “a material file not named properly”.
@Maximum-Dev He’s completely wrong on this. Refund laws deal with defective products or breach of agreements, and the majority defer to the refund policy of each respective business so long as it is disclosed prior to sale (which Epic’s is).
Another thing to consider;
Most EULA and Licenses state that any legal action taken must occur in a specific country, and be subject to the laws of that country. This makes it irrelevant whether your country allows something or not, if they want to prosecute you for doing so they could. It doesn’t usually happen because re-selling software is a low value target. Mass reselling (a website or store) will get their attention, which is why you don’t see many companies selling used software directly. Some like G2A let users re-sell keys, but the company itself does not because doing so would make them a target for a lawsuit.
I think you misunderstand…
What I’m saying is, even with eula agreement, buyer can action law to refute that eula for whatever reason.
Also consumers have rights that are global to any kind of product/service. A buyer can simply argue that a given eula rule goes agains’t consumer rights thus it is invalidated by such. It’s up to the judge to decide if consumer is right or not; meanwhile the Eula is valid.
What Epic cannot afford is risk a consumer persecute legal action and win, so if there’s any chances of the consumer being right then is better for everyone to simply give the guy his refund and move on.
He has a video of proof that the product isn’t what he expected it to be… For many judges out there, that is good enough. Epic was right issuing him a refund, avoiding possibility of further damages, the case then ending not a big deal.
No, I think we understand perfectly. You’re saying that laws trump refund policies or EULAs, and we’re saying they don’t. Refund laws defer to the aforementioned so long as they are communicated prior to purchasing, which is the case . If you want a more thorough explanation then you have a few posts above which would explain it in more depth. But continuing to say that refund policies and EULAs aren’t applicable, despite the opposite being clearly declared by law is grossly misleading.
The law is at consumer’s side; that won’t change. You can try though, make some fancy eula 
You can write anything you want in your terms, but if the law doesn’t support it, you don’t necessarily have the right to uphold it.