I have had to take down 3 different products now because the fab team decided to show ratings if there is only 1 rating now and the stance on moderation is “if its not illegal it stays up, and the seller needs to figure it out” despite sellers having no resolve to make here. and because text is not mandatory(thats not the solution here) I had to take down 3 different products some of which sold fairly well because people left a unknown 1 star rating, never sought any support or left forum comments so I have no clue what happened, and I have no way to fix it and it is literally killing my business. some of these are free products that I made free out of generosity too which makes it even more annoying, because now 1 person left a 1 star rating without context everyone else who could have benefited from this asset can no longer download it.
Please fix this, just bring back the 5 star minimum or at the very least let devs choose that option in the seller dashboard panel. this is horrible design and being used against sellers maliciously. There is 0 reason I should be forced to take down products that are good to no fault of my own or my product, and that others who would need the product now get punished. I have defended fab for a long time but this one I cannot defend, this actively hurts everyone sellers and buyers.
At this point I may just have to publish new listings for some of these which is absurd, and should not be necessary, the solution already existed which was to have a 5 minimum aggregate before making a decision to display it, just bring that back it allows buyers to voice their concerns, gives sellers peace of mind they wont and cant be blackmailed or harmed, and provides a accurate rating once it is displayed. the fab team listened to the wrong people on this and now my business is suffering and my customers are losing products that would help them.
They really should make mandatory make the lower reviews to have text into them and make us have a way to dispute said low ratings (at least an explanation, if something is broken we should know). It’s their right to rate something low if its not what they want, but they should at the VERY LEAST tell everyone that its not their jam and not just 1* and call it a day cuz ■■■■ you. This indeed hurt the seller product with no reason at all.
To be fair with FAB’s team you’re also exploiting and abusing the review system when nuking products with low ratings and reuploading them for the sake of a clean slate, this should NOT be allowed. Not only you’re going to get flagged as untrustworthy seller but also gain a reputation of nuking a product you SELL due to something its not the client’s problem. People who bought a product expect it to be online indefinitely and if there are any updates in it once so ever, they also expect to get it for free and not have to deal with rebuying something already paid for.
With that said, free stuff is free stuff. Beggars can’t be choosers.
Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the review system. We hear you, and I have passed along your feedback/requests to the appropriate team.
We aren’t always able to update threads with new information as it occurs, but we appreciate the feedback. Please don’t hesitate to provide more in the future.
Thank you, I think allowing sellers to enable or disable the 5 star threshold would be the best solution, since that code exists already in fabs backend and from a consumer standpoint it just looks like the product has no ratings but people can still voice any concerns they have.
That was the best feature of fab in my personal opinion as a seller because it gave me a peace of mind and allowed me to know that when ratings did appear they were a accurate reflection of my product since 5 random reviews would be true.
I dont want epic to delete my customers reviews either just because I dont like them, fairness for both sellers and buyers is far far far better than censorship over arbitrary ruling. outside of illegal activity including slander/defamation, reviews should never be deleted, they are a way for customers to voice concerns, however when you prioritize one party at the expense of the other you create a horrific power imbalance in the marketplace. and for the record, like 3 of my products would have 0 ratings shown if what I wanted got put back in place, so I have skin in this decision too, the pros just far outweigh the cons for bringing this back.
lets say written reviews were mandatory, that wouldnt stop this issue, my products would still have that 1 star rating only it would have some random text blob associated with it that no one could verify, and I would still never be able to recover from it even with a response since it would be seen as hearsay and too ambiguous for any random shopper on fab to determine who is truthful without an existing consensus aggregate.
I remember you advocating for this before, people on storefronts dont know who is truthful, so even if a buyer left a 1 star, they had a explanation with it, and I left my own rebuttal. the average shopper first off would likely not click a 1 star product, secondy they would have a confusion on whats going on and whats truth, and then they would see a price tag and just buy one of the competitors. You have to have a aggregate, even something like what steam has where ratings are not shown outside the review section until the threshold is met would be better than nothing because then at least a customer can see the product first and have some initial inclination to purchase beyond a title and thumbnail while comparing across 50 other products side by side.
my proposal was also a toggle, so you would be able to enable the non threshold switch for your products, I am honestly not quite sure why you would care whether I want other sellers to have a aggregate before public display or not, as it doesnt affect you. I am okay if you choose to buy one of my other competitors because my ratings dont appear for you until a consensus is formed.
and who decides who is true? Thats dystopian dude, I dont want that. It is always best to try the reasonable attempt before the nuclear attempt.
Just give sellers the option to hide ratings until the 5 threshold is met, if you or people want to boycott sellers who do this I am in full support of you and the others who have an issue with a aggregate policy being a option in doing so. I cannot understand why a threshold and letting buyers have their own agency on who to buy from based on their own convictions is an issue. If you are a seller who is concerned about reviews being hidden and harming your monthly unit count, then just turn the feature off. Its a win for everyone
If the product is good, ask current users to leave a review. Publishing new listings because you don’t like the reviews is your choice but feels like borderline fraud and could become a problem.
Mandatory text would be good, but it’s their right to rate something low.
There’s plenty of free junk on FAB.
There’s plenty of paid junk on FAB.
Better review transparency is good (I’ve noticed it now displays Free Code, Refunded, etc). It already shows the username, but I would not be against also displaying things like account age and/or total review count.
Obviously Epic decides what kind of reviews are allowed.
And seller being able to hide reviews themselves is an absolute no go, that opens the door to abuse; Then scammers and sellers with bad & broken products can just hide the reviews and the customers will have no idea they are buying a bad product.
Also I agree, deleting and reuploading an asset because you got a bad review is abusing the system.
