Noticed that a bunch of user reviews have been purged from the asset store. Seems that unfavorable reviews get censored.
Where can I go to find real user reviews? As a consumer I want to hear all the bad things too. As a matter of fact I would much rather see what is wrong with a product than see what is right with it.
There are some really weird things that go on after purchase that I really want to know about. Did the people get the help they needed? Was the documentation there as promised? Did they get suckered into some scam?
Also, I want to know weird things that I am obligated top do. Like the way I need to advertise for ShaderForge if i include shaders that I make with them in my asset store products. i basically payed a guy to advertise for him, and i do not really own the shaders i make with it if he retains rights to them.
I bought a ramp shader utility that promised Documentation, but that did not come through. You have to beg the guy in an email if you want the documentation. Guy still has not emailed me back! Support site is basically a page with his email address on it.
Warnings for both products have been removed, along with some other unfavorable comments with low star ratings.
Where can I go to get real reviews? Is there a sub-forum in reddit? Should i make one?
More than anything i want to hear warnings about bogus, or bad products. I am still furious about having to advertise for ShaderForge if I decide to use it on my assets.
Really? Cause you make it sound like they just removed YOUR reviews, and you are trying to pretend it’s much bigger than you. Tell us what you said. Did you give them a MUCH lower rating than they deserved just to try make a point? Sounds like you did.
You aren’t obligated. You’re just a dick if you don’t. Unity FINALLY has a decent node shader, and you’d rather pretend you coded those by hand than see it succeed and give you a better product to make your assets with… People like you are why we can’t have nice things.
I have only noticed that aggressive and or reviews with a lot of cursing or messy text get removed by asset store management and theres still plenty of negative post in multiple assets. If people can’t express themselves properly then I can’t really blame UT for removing those posts even if they have some valid points.
For issues you can always try contact UT if the asset store author does not do anything or asset has false info.
BTW ShaderForge author has been great on the forums and has explained why he had that rule which will be removed or altered in future. You could have always posted in the SF thread like others did (or maybe you already did).
As asset buyer I always check the forum posts about assets before buying to see any issues or how well the author handles stuff.
a bit offensive reply don’t you think? he had valid points in his constructive post
Yes he did, I just chose not to address the constructive points, because I agreed with them.
Unity should have picked up that shaderforge (and other packs) submitted to them had their own license agreements included. At the very least the custom licenses should be removed from the asset so as to avoid customer confusion, but I think they should go further than that and reject the submission and inform the author that his terms wouldn’t apply in the asset store and that he must remove them himself if he wishes to resubmit. Then the author has a choice to get exposure via the asset store, or sell the asset elsewhere with their own license agreement.
Actually if you read the terms of use for asset store publishers… if you sell an asset on the asset store then it uses the asset store license… period. You’re not allowed to supply your own licensing. The author many have included his own license document but in any case it’s invalid if the asset was purchased through the asset store because the publisher agreed to those terms.
As for reviews, I’ve seen (and still see) plenty of negative reviews around. Nobody is “scrubbing” reviews. However, as a publisher I can tell you that only a very small percentage of purchasers ever post reviews. That may be because so far I have all positive (all 5-star) reviews on my asset and people are much more likely to post negative reviews when they have problems than they are to post positive reviews when things go well.
That being said… one place I like to look to learn about the assets is in the Assets and Asset Store forum section. Nearly all published assets have a thread there (and if they don’t, they should because it’s great advertising). Most users use it as a support thread. I have fielded a few questions via email (my email address is included with my asset) as well as the contact form on my blog but the majority of folks with questions or who have found bugs have reported them via the forum.
I think this is great, because I can identify the source of the problems and post an update as to the status of the fix (or a temporary workaround if one exists). So if you’re looking for honest unfiltered info, the release threads are generally good places to find them because you’ll see a lot of:
A) Bug reports
B) Questions about how to use the asset
C) Feature requests
D) Feedback about the asset
And those four points are important because you can see how quickly the publishers respond, how quickly they fix bugs, how willing they are to offer assistance to their customers, how flexible they are with their asset model, and more importantly how the digest and respond to feedback (both positive and negative).
Not every author is going to be super strong in every category. For instance, I try to offer the absolute best service I can across the board, but my strongest points are A and B. I try to fix bugs immediately and give out package updates via Skype or through registration on my website instead of making people wait. I also will come out and say exactly where I screwed up and why the bug exists. Additionally, I go above and beyond to provide examples when people ask questions.
Now, I’m not trying to self promote… there is a point. If you read the reviews on my asset you’ll see that they reflect the last paragraph in that I provide good support. The asset may not be perfect but I’ll make sure it works. It’s also verifiable by reading my release thread.
The point is… this goes for any asset. Find the release threads… read the comments (as painstaking as they may be). And definitely pay more attention to the most recent few pages of posts. As the asset gains success, the author may be more responsive and dedicated to it. An example here is the Ultimate FPS Controller. I’m sure it has had excelling support since day one, but the release thread for it at last check has 140 pages and as nobody in their right mind is going to read all of those… the best is to read the last few (even 10) pages to see how (and if) the author is responding.
I have seen two categories of reviews being removed on the store:
Abusive or non-sensical messages.
Drive-by reviewing, in which a complaint is plainly a misunderstanding from not reading the package description or similar, where authors are quick to respond with assistance, but the user seems to never come back.
Keeping either of these around serves neither author, nor potential customers (who would be scared away from a, for them, potentially useful product for no good reason).
Generally I have observed the following constructive review trends:
Hapy user, happy review, everybody wins.
Unhappy user, constructive negative review. No response form author. Package drifts out of existence.
Unhappy user, constructive negative review. Author promptly responds with support or updates the package to fix the issue. User gets the update and is happy, edits review and rating. Everybody wins.
Aside from the natural selection bit, the responsive author gets an even better deal as potential customers get to see the responsiveness and level of support of the author out in plain view, making for a much more reassured purchase decision.
Takeaway is:
Fire and forget reviews serve no-one. Always check back - maybe your problem is fixed or an easy workaround is available, enabling you to get right back on the horse and be productive.
Authors should always strive to be as responsive as possible to reviews. It is a net win for everyone.
Use the same etiquette you would on the forum. Reviews are moderated just the same.
Do you have some examples of the reviews which were removed? If they don’t fit in any of the above then perhaps someone made a mistake?
PS:
While the ShaderForge license is somewhat off-topic, let’s just address that quickly:
Clearly that was an oversight on part of the asset store review team and it would be removed down the line. Custom licenses used to be allowed, with a pop-up being presented pre-purchase, letting the user review it before purchase.
I used to have a similar license for Behave, offering the product for free in exchange for splash-screen advertisement. Advertisement subsidised products is not a new concept from Unity, tech products or any product for that matter. If you would rather not participate, there’s usually a full-price competitor or other alternative.
Hi, I dont like to talk much on this topic, but i feel that the emotion coming from the customer is because they feel they cant get a refund. And from my point of view if the product i purchased didn’t do what i thought it was going to do, i’d want my money back.
So i thought i’d point this out (in caps):
IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU HAVE PURCHASED, CONTACT THE ASSET OWNER. IF YOU ARE STILL NOT HAPPY YOU CAN GET A REFUND.
you did not lose your money, you can ask for your money back if the product did not fit its intended purpose. I’m pretty sure the entire world works in that way. (end rant).
As AngryAnt described the censoring happens very rarely. And even if you report that kind of reviews, changes are not really high that the reviews are removed.
Being a publisher, I can show you the other side of customers that often spend more time to write reviews than trying to understand an asset. I can give you a few examples of reviews I got, where the reviewer never contacted me and didn’t take the time to have a look at the readme file, the pdf documentation or the YouTube videos. For each asset, I have also a thread and the readme contains my email address and since the email address can be provided in the Asset Store, it is also there and the links to YouTube and the forum thread are always in the asset description.
That means I really care that the users get the information they need. There hasn’t been a single unanswered question since I have assets in the Asset Store, which means since 2011. I spend a lot of time to even test my free assets.
If you would do that and then you get reviews like:
That person extracted a zip file containing the API specification which is nothing else but a bunch of html pages with several js scripts. It’s not really a surprise that Unity complains. It would have been a matter of minutes to resolve the issue.
No instructions, would translate to no documentation, no YouTube video, no support in general, no demo scenes, just nothing. It would have taken minutes to make things clear.
I don’t even know how an extension without harmful code could break Unity! This is just insane and totally disrespectful. For me that one is clearly over the top and I report it on a monthly basis. But no one at Unity cares.
That’s the ones I love most. That person sent me a pm or mail, wrote in the forum and then wrote a review. I explained that this is a Unity bug and that I have a workaround on my end and whether he wanted to get the current development build. After I did the best I could, I got at least a three star review. Of course, the rating wasn’t changed after I uploaded the version with the workaround.
To sum my point of view as a publisher: Removing certain reviews makes a lot of sense! I seriously to consider to remove my free assets, if they don’t remove at least the “this package broke Unity” review. In fact, I have a date in mind. If nothing changes until then, all my free assets will be gone.
And to go even further: I haven’t even complained about the one star ratings without reviews. Why do people give one star ratings without reviews? For me as a publisher another reason to remove my free assets. Even worse, this also happens with paid assets. Why is it so hard to take a few seconds to write a review with a reason. Nothing is perfect, and I as publisher want feedback! I want to improve my assets where possible!
One problem I have is that the asset store doesn’t send any kind of notification that you’ve received a review. So as a publisher, you pretty much have to check all your asset store pages daily to see if any new reviews show up to find out if anyone has used the review system wrong and is asking questions there instead of using the forum, email, or website contact form. I only have 1 asset, so its not a big deal for me, but I imagine some of the artists have many dozens of assets on the store and asking them to go check each asset page every day seems a bit crazy.
The Asset Store team has added a RSS feed notification link in the publisher administration (Info tab) a while ago. I use this link in conjunction with a Feed2Mail app to receive all review activities of our products by email.
@Dantus
I agree, luckily Unity removed a few inappropriate reviews for our products. One star ratings without reviews is still a big problem, at least for publishers. Nearly all of our reviews have 5 stars, yet one product lurks at a 4 star rating because of those who don’t contact us and just rate it. I said it in the Google group already, but I’d like to see a separate overview for each star as well as an overall rating on the Asset Store (think of Amazon or Google Play). This won’t happen anytime soon I guess
We very infrequently remove or delete reviews. The few times we do, it has been historically for one of the following reasons:
The review was a complaint about a bug or something lacking which the publisher since fixed or added,
The reviewer was nasty and used foul language to the point it wasn’t really appropriate
Nonsense reviews like “dhjahsdwuhjksdhfdsf”
Most recently, I removed a handful of reviews from a person who was writing bad reviews to blackmail a publisher into giving him free assets. “Give me these other assets of yours for free and I’ll make my review positive”
Never, ever do we remove or censor a review just because it’s unfavorable. If you write a bad review, that’s fine, just keep an even-keel, be civil and articulate.
Additionally, I go above and beyond to provide examples when people ask questions.