I regularly frequent Trello to see the new packs that are being voted on. Haven’t had a chance to look in the past week, but today I see there is a pack named “Modular SciFi Interior”. Just a letter (s) away from the pack I announced a long time ago, and have been working on for some time now. Naming conventions are one way to set apart packs on the marketplace, and I chose the Modular SciFi: “name” to distinguish myself as best as I could from the existing scifi pack on the marketplace at the time which was Manufactura’s. Imagine my surprise when I see this on the Trello board, I immediately thought I may have inadvertently submitted the pack prematurely to the marketplace team. Upon further investigation I was able to determine that these were not my assets, but again were using a naming scheme I had been using, and had announced since sometime late last year.
Now I can’t say with 100% certainty whether or not Mr. Cooley was aware of my original pack, or the announced Modular SciFi: Interiors pack. Though it does seem odd that he wouldn’t have some knowledge of a pack that’s been on the marketplace for months, or a followup that was announced shortly after the release in December. Especially in terms of investigating competitors, which is something I would assume is a practice every vendor participates in as it helps us to make vital decisions. On the video Mr. Cooley provided, you can also see the pack was originally named “The Stasis Pack”. Even on his own website here, it is referred to by the aforementioned name. Not quite sure why it was changed.
This is the double edge sword that comes with showing work and announcing things early. On one hand, you want the customers to know you are still hard at work on new content for them to obtain and be able to see the work in progress - but on the other hand you want to avoid situations like this where it seems someone may have seen your declared intentions and decided to cash in on it before you do.
The issue isn’t with the pack being a scifi architectural pack, but the name which immediately caused me instant confusion so I can only imagine what it will do for consumers. Especially since the Interiors pack is the one I have been saying will be the immediate follow up to the Hallways pack. What sort of mechanism can be put in place to avoid situations like these? Brand confusion can be a big issue in a competitive marketplace like this, more importantly when trying to maintain the integrity of your product. As of now this submission from Matt Cooley prevents me from using the name I had intended to use for my pack that is due to be submitted this summer, following in the naming scheme established by the first installment of the series.
Speaking of naming conventions, the asset naming conventions inside asset packs should be sensible, not random. For example, in one of my material packs, there is a brick material and texture named “Material08” / “Texture08”… This is idiotic, and should not have passed through the QA process.
I’d say that there should be some monitoring of the names! This could greatly confuse buyers and cause several issues for the sellers!
I understand that it adds more work to the marketplace staff and of course they couldn’t monitor the whole web for potential announcement of asset names. But if there’s a WIP asset posted in the UE forum, with potential buyers and supporters, I think it’s logical to ask that there are no packs submitted with almost the same name! I hope that this specific incident was just a random coincidence (I do think it’s weird that they didn’t google it, since your forum post comes up first - but you never know) and can be easily worked out! But it would be nice if there are some guidelines or a specific procedure if this happens again!
Well even if I wasn’t working on the Interiors pack, the naming scheme alone would be problematic. Take for example Manufactura 4k. He has a series called “Top-Down”. Whether it be Top-down Interiors, Top-down Dungeons, Top-down SciFi, etc. If someone were to create a series of assets and submit them under the name "Top-down Medieval, you would assume that it were another addition to Manufactura’s series. For packs that revolve around an expanding series, this proves even more troublesome.
Aida Entertainments naming scheme involves the type of weapon followed by the color, which is either dark or silver. I.e. Sci Fi Weapons Dark, Sci Fi Weapons Silver, Military Weapons Dark, Military Weapons Silver. If someone other than them were to create Cyberpunk Weapons Dark, and Cyberpunk Weapons Silver it would cause instant confusion between vendors.
I think maybe creator or series pages on the store would be a good idea. A page where people could find all assets from a single developer, so they would know what belongs to a specific creator.
I do not think it can impair you. It took a while to me realize your complaint about “SciFi”, “Sci-Fi” nomenclature. One of the first things I see in the marketplace after the item’s image is the author’s name.
And nomenclatures such “lowpoly”; “Topdown”; “SciFi”; “Pack 1,2,3,4…” frighten me a little.
Hey lunybunny, you’re missing the point. As I mentioned above it isn’t the use of the word scifi or the fact that its a scifi architectural pack. Its the use of the words “modular scifi” followed by interiors or another word, which was the naming scheme I chose to differentiate my assets from others. It becomes an even bigger problem when he chose the same name “interiors” as a pack I had announced was in the works since last year. This prevents me from using a name I had been talking about for months, and also creates brand confusion. It isn’t about the individual words you listed above, but the established mixture that vendors choose to distinguish their product. Brand confusion can tarnish the integrity of a product, and isn’t an issue to be taken lightly.
I’m also not sure if you have the right person, I have never complained about “scifi” vs “sci-fi”.
As far as naming conventions go, it would be simple to append a developers name to the title, i.e “Manufactura K4’s Top Down Pack”, or “SE_JonF’s Modular Scifi Environment”. This clears up any confusion related to naming conventions immediately.
Modular Scifi Interior is a concise and descriptive name for what the pack is. It is a set of many modular pieces, scifi themed, and for interiors. If you want your pack to stand out based on name alone, you need to be more creative with the naming. The pack author’s name is already very visible, though, so I don’t see a real issue here.