It is not the first time that this happens. My comments regarding a product on the marketplace that the seller created a new version of at an higher price and not offering any upgrade path to that for current customers have just been removed again, claiming the reason for removal was because my questions didn’t have anything to do with product features.
Sorry but, what? So the money I paid for mean nothing to anyone?
Also many sellers have inflated priced like never before with all sort of silly excuses.
I really doubt that they are selling more copies this way and making more money than before…
Anyway when I buy a product on the marketplace and then the seller releases another version of it practically ditching real support and new features for the previous one I am not an happy customer at all. The worst is not allowing current customers to even pay just for the difference between the previous and current product, trying to force them to shell out money for the full price again regardless of having already paid for the previous version. (this is not clever marketing, it is just disrespectful of current customers that paid for a product to then all of a sudden see the money spent on it practically being lost with not even an option to just pay the difference to get the new version)
Even if Epic is not involved sellers can offer a “pay the difference” on their own websites or other payment systems and then ask Epic Games Marketplace to add the new version to paying customers.
I wouldn’t call Lite a version priced above $100 … Although I see that nowadays many vendors are inflating prices in the $400 range and even higher… and I bet they are selling 10 times less copies. I really doubt any AAA or even medium sized software houses would buy anything on the marketplace instead of having their own code and 3D models produced in-house by their own paid employees. So I fail to see how the “let’s inflate the price” thing could be giving sellers more money than before. I bet >90% of customers both on Unreal Engine Marketplace and Unity Asset Store are solo or 2-5 people indie developers and giving the fact that less than 10% of them makes any real money and even less become rich enough to create even a micro software house… sales of products on the digital stores for developers at an high price can’t be higher in number of copies.
There are a few products on the market that have a justified high price, and they sell a lot.
But I agree in general, most of the high-priced items are from people who never see any sales ( they have no stars ). And yet, they keep hammering the market with more and more of these products, with no difference between them. I really wonder why???
( I’m thinking of characters in the same poses with slightly different clothing ).
If they increased price 10x and got 1/10 of sales that’s a win actually. Same money, less support needed. Though I doubt that’s the case.
I think it might due to lower support cost…
The other thing is also ‘waiting for sale to buy’ as every other month there is some big sale. Higher base price, better money during sales. 70% out of $400 is 280 - that looks like a huge saving… It is looking like we are going towards udemy business model here…
It’s a strange thing when a market is targeted both at b2b and b2c.
And maybe that’s target for those expensive assets? Esp. that buying asset is tax-deducible event…
No stars don’t mean no sales. I would say that for each star there is 50-100 sales… maybe even more as now you have to write a review (you cannot just give stars). Also even without sales they might just enjoy doing that, and if once in a while someone buys it - great.
Or they are understaffed and don’t really have time to do proper reviewing. Maybe assets by sellers that had published some assets already get scrutinized even less…
Esp. that there is no real emphasis put on quality control or assurance really in legal documents. I’m building my first assets for sale at the moment, so I read all the legal documents and publisher guidelines very carefully. There is no responsibility taken by Epic for anything that’s on the marketplace. Ah, and if someone for example does sue Epic… you are obliged to defend them. So any QA that Epic employees are doing is basically from the goodness of their hearts
A seller doesn’t have to give you an upgrade path. You bought whatever they claimed to be selling, at the time they were selling. You go that, right? Whatever they do next, is up to them, and whether you want to buy something else from them or not, is up to you.
Nobody expects The Song (remix) to be free, just because they bought The Song. You get what you pay for, when you pay for it, and if the developer chooses to provide an upgrade (or a free song remix) to people who already paid, that’s nice, but there’s no implied expectation that they will do that forever with everything they do.
This expectation that people should work for free, is quite corrosive. I understand that it might be hard to understand how Facebook, or Tik Tok, or Gmail, can be “free,” when some content pack cannot, but believe me: Facebook, Tik Tok, and Gmail have very different business models. (For those products, you are the actual product.)
Supporting current customers with new updates adding new features is not working for free… there is nothing stopping any seller getting new customers just keeping doing that.
So what are you talking about ?
Ditching support on a product and release a new one at an higher price without giving current customers a way to pay just the difference between the two is not clever marketing at all, it really is a very bad way to do any business.
It doesn’t matter that in the the last couple of decades it quickly was injected in the IT market first and then spread to other markets as well to force people to accept that.
There was a time not long ago when customers experience and satisfaction were paramount. Then some CEOs of big multinationals decided to use IT licensing to milk customers instead even for very expensive products so perpetual licenses with years of free bug fixes and new features got removed from the market and anything became an ongoing never-ending monthly payment with customers never owning a product anymore. Many companies and smaller businesses then started doing the same and the whole market became a huge mess overall.
Having frustrated customers might gain some managers a quick buck for some years but it doesn’t work in the long run.
If the thing you bought doesn’t actually work as advertised, then, yes, the seller should help you fix that (assuming it’s the seller’s fault.)
If the “problem” is that “you don’t have the latest and greatest anymore,” then I think your expectation is not aligned with reality. Pay for art to get it. Or don’t, and don’t get it. Seems pretty straightforward to me. If you think someone else is providing better art with better terms, then give your money to them instead. That’s how a marketplace works!
No marketplace ever worked anything like that before the “make everything an endless monthly payment” and “ban perpetual licenses” that some CEOs promoted in the IT market not many years ago and other rich people followed doing the same against customers.
Although new software versions were released that didn’t happen continously every year or something making the previous version obsolete and unsupported. Customers kept getting updates and new features.
The nonsense of milking customers endlessly doesn’t have anything to do with a free market. Not respecting customers and the money they pay for is the worst any seller on any market could do.
I have been paying for upgrades to new versions of software since basically forever. Each new version of Photoshop, 3ds Max, Office, and even Windows always came with an upgrade cost.
You just want free stuff. It’s OK to want free stuff, but, in general, you should know that the world isn’t going to provide you with free stuff, at least not without some pretty significant compromises (making it “not free” in practice in some way.)
I don’t know what you paid for upgrades then but many software houses in the past allowed to pay a cheap upgrade and not oblige to buy the whole product once again at full price to get the new version.
Some software houses are still doing that nowadays although most don’t anymore with the whole “let’s pay monthly forever to own nothing” thing forced on customers.
DAWs, VST audio plugins and virtual instruments… there are still quite some software houses selling cheap upgrades to the new version of their product. They don’t force customers to pay full price again to get new features.
