No, that’s not a very good way of looking at it. Typically, there are two categories of people doing things in life. There are students/hobbyists and professionals. Both spend money on their craft. If you’re using the assets in a retail game, that makes you a professional. You spend money to earn money. Students and hobbyists also use money. It’s very hard to find a quality education for free, don’t you think? Let’s not talk about university in America, but there’s that. Online options? Digital tutors monthly for 30+ dollars a month. Want something more personal, where a trainer works with you personally like in a classroom setting? CGSociety workshop is about 600 dollars for a couple months of training on a specific topic. You could buy an asset on the Unreal market place for, say, 60 dollars and dissect it, figuring out how to create it yourself. Point is, it takes money to learn in a good environment. Hobbies cost money, too. Do you like arts and crafts? That can cost you 50 dollars or more at 's for a single project, depending on what you’re doing, of course. Play a recreational sport? Membership plus equipment can add up to hundreds of dollars in a year.
With the rise of Blender, Unity, now Unreal, and other pieces of software, people getting into video game development expect everything to be free, except the cost of buying a computer. That’s ridiculous. Yes, if you want to just have fun or learn, you can do video game development virtually for free. Items like assets on the Unreal marketplace are premiums to your hobby. You’re not entitled to them. They are not granted to you. Let’s go back to the arts and crafts example. You can find free stuff lying around to use to do some arts and crafts stuff. Used clothes that you don’t need anymore, newspapers/magazines, and so on. However, if you want some good quality, new, fashionable stuff for your hobby, you’re going to have to pay a premium, because that’s what it is - a premium. Video games aren’t, and shouldn’t be, an exception to this culture.