I can’t speak for the asset store, but… Some personal opinions until there is an official response:
Don’t forget the difficulty and complexity of this situation and of digital assets in general.
There are already enough people who are outright stealing, and sharing or selling all of our assets (our being the collective of selling developers, as I put a few things on the store before joinin UT). Many like to “buy” the asset and then claim a refund, for whatever reason. Often they work on sharing sites and get points or kudos for sharing the most number of assets, or be the first to share a new one.
There are people who put up duff assets on the asset store, either out of ignorance (they think it’s great!) or on purpose, even some putting up stolen assets from either other developers or items directly ripped from commercial games. These the asset store team deal withdraw effectively if any slip through. There are even more that have become stale over time, having once been the goto asset, and now are long since outpaced more serious developers as the assets store gains traction. (There is also a cycle where the support of an asset bogs the developer down so much that newer assets without the need for supporting a large userbase can outpace it in development speed.)
Returns are difficult because there is nothing physical to return. I can see why developers are reluctant to refund a sale. It’s not like the developers can put the product back in a box and put it back on the shelf and put some sticky tape on the flap and try to resell it… The product barely actually exists. And there are no guarantees that the person who is doing the return isn’t going to use them anyway, or use the code as a base to start a rewrite of their own.
I have had two request for refunds that I can think of (taking the UT hat off, and speaking as a developer before I was with UT) and both played out the same way. Neither of them had tried to contact me on my published website, my published email nor the forum. They had contacted the asset store directly. The asset store contacted me about the refund, asking if I’d refund the purchaser. I said we should talk first. The asset store offered them my sites and addresses, even tho they are listed. As I still had not received any contact and they were still asking for a refund. I reached out and contacted them thru the asset store support technician with a message to send to them. One never responded, and the other did and just said my product just didn’t work and refused to tell me why nor would work with me to find a solution, and the interchange lasted one round of email. In both cases I didn’t grant a refund. If I could have worked with the user and found they’d purchased in error, my product didn’t work in their project, I was give a chance to fix my asset if it were broken for them, whatever, I’d consider a refund. Even just saying honestly to me, I don’t want it now, might make me say - Here, have your five bucks back. (One product was five dollars, the other twenty.)
I have yet to buy an asset on the store that I didn’t think deserved to be there, especially for the price. A few cheap things I bought, were… well… Cheap! And not very well thought thru. Several were abandoned and went stale, but the code is still ok and I can maintain it myself. I’ve never felt I’ve needed a refund. Many are slow to develop, as the developer has a full time job. I always research my purchases before I buy. I often email the developer and ask questions, and look at their website, and read their forum thread. If they don’t have these, I hesitate to purchase, especially if the price is not trivial. I was one of the first purchasers of EZGui, if not the first purchaser; and I’d been in contact with Brady discussing my project and what I needed his package for, and checked to see if his product (at over $100) was what I needed. It was, and I was happy to help make him one of the first big publishers on the asset store.
It’s not perfect, but that’s the nature of this store - and the nature of the prices we see for these assets.
Now, imbarns, if you he contacted the Asset Store and have not received a reply, I’d suggest you either keep it up, or contact support@ to get some traction. You might be an edge case. From my (distant) vantage point, it appears that the asset store team is working regularly to deal with publisher/purchaser issues.
In theory: “all sales are final” as it’s software, but the team has offered this window for returns, which is great for the purchaser. Let’s hope it also doesn’t hurt the publishers who are often working very hard to produce good product.
(and again, these are all my personal opinions having sold on the store!)