I understand your point of view. But in all fairness it is technically built to fill a need. The intention would not be to deliberately undercut other developers but provide foundations of some systems at an affordable price. Bridging the gap between a $125 product that gives you a full set of functionality, to a $25 product that gives you the foundation of the system.
For example the ledge climbing system that is available.
It contains a lot of functions that makes life easy. And everything is done already.
But if there was a smaller version available that laid out the ground foundation leaving you with only a few hours of additional development time to get it up to the same level then surely the unethical factor becomes less of a concern as you are not creating knock offs but instead giving people the opportunity to buy similar products at more affordable prices. Technically it would also then no longer be considered undercutting someone.
So I am not talking about creating identical knockoffs but instead about targeting the gap i see in the marketplace.
The price of some of the assets have had some heated debates on the forums. And truthfully the argument i sided with that the artists who created something should charge what they feel it is worth. That’s fine. And there really is no point in complaining about over priced products. But the only solution to the problem is to then create similar systems and sell it for the price i feel would be more applicable. Taking into consideration as mentioned to not cut prices so low that it would end up hurting not only myself but the marketplace as a whole.
And i’m not deliberately picking on the ledge climbing system but its the only point of reference i have to make a valid argument. It took me 3 - 5 hours to create a ledge climbing system that works. It then took me another day to fix bugs and add additional functionality. This was on par with the initial release state of the one available on the marketplace.
Worth $125? Perhaps to that specific developer. To me? No way. At 2 days worth of development time it would be the price if i was to sell sole ownership of the system. Not if i was intending to sell it to the masses.
Which is why i feel there really is a strong argument to address the massive gap of pricing i see on the marketplace. (PS the current ledge climbing system on the marketplace is pretty awesome and big thumbs to the developer… im not picking on you i promise)
Its an opportunity to make money not by ripping off other developers, but by catering for a realistic market.
It just makes more business sense to approach it this way than to pocket on the notion that nothing else is available. I am not sure how long it took some developers to create some systems. But in all honesty some of things available there are no more than a days work priced at sole ownership prices.
I am not saying this is what i am going to do. I am trying to understand how Epic and the community feels about this. If it will aggravate too many people then i wont consider it further. But i need to eat and i do see an opportunity here.