So browsing FAB today I noticed Leartes presenting some of their “humble bundle” assets in a way that not only gives a false pricing impression, which violates a FAB rule … but they are also lying about the availability of the asset pack, using FOMO practices.
The price doesn’t actually reflect the real price on FAB. They just copied their humble bundle style false sale tactics.
Furthermore, the “30 days limited time” is a lie as well, as the packs are already up for longer than 30 days.
It’s bad enough they do this, but why have you handpicked these packs - which clearly break your own FAB rules - for the “new” and the “featured” section?
PS: For those who don’t know who Leartes is, “they” are a single person from Turkey, who pretends to be a studio of 20 or 200 artists (his claims have varied over the time). His entire business model is to buy models from inexperienced 3D artists, to sell them as their own and pretend “they” created these models themselves.
There is countless reports about him on Reddit about him exploiting and underpaying artists, often students, not properly crediting them or ghosting / attacking artists who ask for a better salary.
He is banned from r/gamedev for “being a bad industry player”: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1bybppm/is_this_studio_legit/
I agree with this 100%. While rules may be slightly vague in regards of wording, at the end of the day it says following: “No temporary claims of discounts outside of actual store-wide sales”.
This right here is pure FOMO deception, which obviously breaks the rules AND being featured on top.
If Leartes wanted to run a permanent bundle at -90% discount available forever - there would not be any problems. Speaks volume about actual value of that art too.
Yeah, I still remember epic staff promising us, after the FAB anouncement, that every seller will have equal opportunity and treatment.. guess that was just an empty promise after all.
I can’t say I see anything wrong with the fact that packages of inexpensive but high-quality work are selling longer than promised.
They’d be better off directing their anger at those who litter FAB with junk.
There are plenty of examples in FAB where some are more equal than others. And you can get used to it.
Take, for example, the temporarily free content. It’s almost the same companies over and over again, and the same recommended ones are always the same.
The relevance selection has been the same for a year now. I can’t imagine what criteria it’s based on.
And if someone wants to sell their stuff cheaply and for longer than promised—that’s their business.
And this is always the case on all platforms. Sometimes it’s a familiar moderator, sometimes it’s just a casual chat with a manager, and that’s it.
And we can’t do anything about it.
So we need to pay less attention to this and at least push for waste sorting on FAB. Otherwise, there are fewer and fewer people.
I showed in the opening post why he is breaking FABs own rules. And it’s not only about him breaking rules, it’s about these rule-breaking assets being handpicked by the FAB staff for the showcase (and new) section.
It sends a pretty bad message if the rules do not apply to the people with connection to Epic.
We can protest both problems at the same time. Besides, Epic has made it clear they have no intention of removing or moderating AI and low-quality junk on FAB.
FAB has quite a few already very unpleasant signs.
Personally, I see a major problem in the fact that the abundance of junk from FAB is constantly driving away buyers; their numbers are constantly declining.
On the other hand, these bargain-priced sets at least somehow attract buyers to the site.
There are far more serious problems:
Rating manipulation, price manipulation, a year-old relevance-based selection with unclear logic. And 1001 other problems far more serious than a couple of cheaply priced assets.
I get what you are saying, but please create your own discussion about these problems and don’t derail this one. We can discuss different problems at the same time, but in seperated threads.
