One of the reason i moved over from the unity engine to udk3 (and now 4) was because of the community. Always extremely helpful, shared experiences, idea’s, problem solved for the most part. So what could i be bummed about? simple put it basically because the unity forum, and although i like money just as much as the next man, was the problem with the unity forum was that nobody wanted to share anything anymore because you could just sell it in the store…basically what happened here (although some people are still awesome sauce, i have a few i try to keep up with the posts). At the same time i understand its beneficial for people to be profitable from whatever they do, but am i the only one that ended up feeling this way? i did not mind the subscription it was a fair trade off in my mind that i happily paid.
For free content I would recommend you to take a look at those sites 
- ://www.blendswap/
- :///
- https://forums.unrealengine/forumdisplay.php?12-Community-Content-Tools-and-Tutorials
Well aware of the links thanks (just because i do not post does not mean i dont read the post, if you notice ive been on here since last march a year now, and was in the udk forums before that) think you missed the point on that one.
I just mentioned those links because you can find lots of free stuff there (and also for the new users that they know that there are links with free assets) 
Now to your topic. The asset creation process is a very time consuming one and so most people want something for the time that they invested. That’s why most of the people put it on the marketplace instead of releasing it for free. Even when there wouldnt be a marketplace, people will sell the stuff instead of giving it to the community (like with the UDK stuff -> there you can just find more assets because the engine is pretty old. Not just 1 year old als the UE4) Of course there are some exceptions (the guys in the community and tutorials section)
Nice to meet another UDK forum user -> I was also pretty active there ( - ) 
I feel like people are still sharing tons of stuff that they could charge money for. If anything, I think the marketplace are pushing people to create more content for the community, rather than keeping it within their own project and not share the information.
I certainly don’t feel that way. The stuff on the Marketplace, by and large, is high quality game-ready material ready to drop in your game. Most of it would take a fair amount of time and effort to reproduce. I never mind spending $20, $50, or $100 (or more) to avoid several hours of effort by someone on my team, and I absolutely do not mind people getting paid for their efforts. If anything, I think a lot the stuff in the Marketplace is underpriced.
I don’t think the two things you’re talking about (marketplace, people giving help in the forums) are really related, though. The Market is for finished, ready-to-use assets, the forums are for help you making your game and discussion around Unreal and game dev. With a little searching here, at the Answer Hub, and the Unreal Wiki, you can find information on how to do most things you need to do. I’ve rarely had a situation where I got stuck and nobody would help me. On the contrary, I often have on many occasions gotten help from other devs, Epic support people, and Epic engineers.
I’ve been in the Unity forums on many occasions. I don’t see the parallels. I rarely got the help I needed back in my Unity days, and it seems like most people there were primarily interested in either bickering or trying to get other people to do their work for them.
I don’t see that here at all and don’t really get the sense that we’re on a slippery slope toward it.
If you WANT to feel that way - you will certainly do, but reality is far away from described “problem”.
Almost 700 topics in community content/tools tutorials with huge amount of active topics and complex systems like this, https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?62187-Pipe-Generation-System or this. It’s not some single examples, there is too much stuff like this to continue this list. Some people also doing **crazy ** amount of learning content(wink-wink Kitatus).
I’m kinda disappointed with this thread, because community giving tremendous amount of stuff for free and accusing of THAT just a real bummer.
I concur with this. I had no intention of releasing my procedural systems to the public, however, I’m now considering it. I intend to give my BP Systems away for Free and charge a nominal price for supplemental Audio/Visual assets. My focus is generating profits from games, not tools, but, I don’t see any issue generating profits from tools. I wouldn’t expect Artists to give away free audio/visual assets, but, there have been several shocking instances of free giveaways recently.
I can understand what the OP is concerned about. Although, I don’t see a correlation between paying a subscription and UE4 Community participation. Not everyone was paying a subscription, anyhow. My only concern is Engine updates. Anyways. Yes, there was a mass migration from Unity, but, that doesn’t mean the UE4 community will become like Unity. If anything, the newcomers will learn the Unreal Way.
I have been given a lot of free assets and have helped support some content creators with purchases. It is important to understand that you can’t get everything for free and as much as young developers need support so do the ones who are further along in creating a lifestyle out of game development.
If you visit Unity’s forum and click ‘new posts’ you’ll face an almost infinite list of [RELEASE] this [RELEASE] that… Beyond that, trolls on the gossip sections pretending they are ‘hard at work’ but never actually do anything.
And that drove me away from that community, slowly. I know what he is talking about, I hope something like that do not happen around here; but I fear it’s going just to be exactly the same after a few years.
Fair warning, somewhat of a rant…
@ActivistMonkey You have got to be kidding right?
Just recently you have:
-
[Free] Various models](https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?60784-Free-Various-models) [High Quality]
-
[Free] Various models [Comment]](https://forums.unrealengine/showthread.php?60784-Free-Various-models&p=240909&viewfull=1#post240909) - Us considering to release some free+paid content from a cancelled project (rather large asset set)
-
Response to demand for FPS character rig + arms/hands
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We need Fps Characters! [Comment] - Us offering to take time out of our busy schedule to cater to the UE4 Community through the UE4 Marketplace with AAA level of quality animation + weapon sets NOTE: would be paid but we would try to offer at a very low price + provide samples for say the AK47 with the very basic animations for free]
-
We need Fps Characters! [Comment] - Us offering to provide as either a very cheap or even free AAA grade FPS rig with included arms/hands
The list goes on and on and on…
[HR][/HR]
No offence but you as you sate below, you’ve only really lurked on these forums and not contributed much, if anything yourself (prove me wrong)
So either pay up for assets on the UE4 or various other Marketplaces around the world wide net.
(UE4’s Marketplace is ridiculously under-priced in most cases compared to places such as Turbosquid & they work in-engine off the bat in most cases)
OR…
Suck it up and make your own assets, even if art isn’t your field you can always make use of BSP brush + extremely low-poly placeholder assets until you can find an artist to come aboard your project either paid or free if you’re lucky.
Unreal Engine 4 Documentation, Unreal Engine’s YouTube Channel & TeslaDev’s YouTube Channel among many other sources of information are your friends
[HR][/HR]
– TO EVERYONE ELSE –
My apologies if this has turned into a rant but I think it is safe to say that I am not the only one offended by such blatant disrespect from someone who has clearly been around long enough to know better of this community and its generosity
Well you did mention your site above so I figured not to repeat it (my mistake :().
With that being said,
&stc=1
Not saying that there is not tons of free materials out here in the forums, and im super happy about it, what i was pointing out was that i would not like to see it come to be like unity were nothing is really shared and its all just ‘buy it and look at the examples’ kind of thing. Yes people need to make money, for most its a hobby. Maybe i am wrong and it is not going to the point that unity is to alienate the community and focus on the profit, hence was the discussion.
As for your turbosquid…really…
Lurking quote, lurking i don’t think would be the right word to use in this context. Yes i do spend more time reading and doing my own thing instead of posting blueprints and art, why? because i am definitely not experienced enough with UE4 to give somebody correct information on how to fix a blueprint or other assorted pieces so i just keep my mouth shut, and it seems because i work full time and i really only spend around 2-4 hours a day on the pc (at the beginning and the end) no real reason to try to keep up with posting reply’s. Aside from getting off topic and ‘offending’ you and ‘blatant disrespect’ im not sure you have felt that word yet (which i had no intention to until your response).
The reason i was quoting the subscription was i felt like when it was all, for the most part, subscription with no market it was more of a a ‘less post it up for everybody to play with’ kind of thing, as opposed now to a ‘lets put it on the market for everybody to play with’ which i guess in its own right is perfectly fine.
I’d share more, but I’m too busy of late 
That said, I still send stuff to Rama for his Blueprint library when I have something useful to add.