Bad review from a clearly non technically qualified buyer

Hello community, we recently got live our Sci-Fi Modular pack on the Unity 3D asset store. It started out with several good sales at the number of 10 up to the moment we got a negative review from a buyer.

His main argument was that the assets did not look as good as on the videos we supplied for the asset pack and that it was not optimized for games and an engine like Unity.

From his comments that he was able to achieve 3-4 fps we understood that he lacked the technical knowledge to set up Unity as it was supposed to in order to get the best results. (Like to note that we got 30-45 fps on a 2010 PC and 60 fps on a modern PC with a GeForce 980 and over 100FPS using a LOD system)

We replied asking if he had written the readme.txt file supported with the asset that has simple steps needed to setup Unity so that the asset will run. Furthermore stated our technical support email for him to contact us in order to help him set the asset to run correctly. But it has been over a week now and he has not contacted us.

His review was a one star bad review on an asset pack that was featured on Unity's homepage. Have you encountered buyers with no or limited technical knowledge giving bad reviews to your assets? How do you deal with such a problem? and what are your thoughts in a direction to evolve the asset score so that reviewers/buyers get stars as our products do. (This is done in many sell/buy communities - where buyers rate but also sellers rate the buyers )

Thank you for your time and we hope that we can initiate a talk about this matter.

 

I have several of these, you can reach out to them or report the review but their rating will still stick.

There are several discussions about this on the Asset Publisher group, but IMO if a review receives 5:1 "unhelpful" votes then the review should be removed and the rating reset. Ratings should not be possible unless a review is written to support the rating given.

Until then, you basically just have to deal with it.

 

Such is the fault of a feedback system. There is simply no way imaginable to provide a trustworthy rating system which is either open or closed to controls.

 

well seeing on your sketchfabs, theres a dank load of wasted tris (when detail is made that will never be truly visibly noticeable) , but whatever dont mind me, iam not a pro modeller or anything, and i cut tris like mad and stick to low poly things... lol like 8 or 12 sided "cylinders"

.. like on "Police Robot Cop" .. you see the top of the mesh, where the sphere comes to a point, thats a big waste of tris, the topology there should be like the rear of that sphere.

that pack does look pretty sweet though,
good luck to you

 

His name wasnt justbrosingthanks was it? *chuckle*

 

The package looks great, but to be fair, I notice you move very cautiously in the video and fps don't seem to be consistent.

Maybe you can specify each asset poly count to avoid surprises and bad reviews.

 

I'm not a pro modeler or artist either but by looking at the Sketchfab examples (+1 for including them) with wireframes enabled there is a ton of waste geometry that should be done with normal maps or optimized other ways (like in the bike or med robot).

As an outsider reading the review I don't really see it being a total noob post but not an expert either.

 

I just read the comment he gave and have to say I don't understand the title of this forum post. From where do you take the "clearly non technically qualified buyer"? I don't want to side yet but I have to admit your post here does not read like a professional reply. You do not in any sentence take a stand to the allegations. Is it true that the poly count is so extremely high? Then that is something he can rightfully point out and I would be thankful for that in a review.

I own many assets (400+) so I have seen quite a lot. I once bought a keypad which was looking nice in the video but then turned out to use a realtime lightsource for each button (!) and had like 100k polygons. It was absolutely ridiculous and unusable. Some asset creators really don't understand their craft and what is important. Too many polygons delay your whole pipeline. So many things can and should be solved by well crafted textures instead.

From your video I judge the complexity of your models should be very basic and there should not be much need for polygons. You state that you get 25-60fps. I honestly would not advertise with this number. It seems super low given the fact there is no game logic yet, no enemies animated, no effects, no gui drawn etc. We are talking about a super bare minimum scene. I would probably not pick it up because exactly of this. This hints for me to the fact that something is wrong with it the way it is crafted.

 

Not to pile on, but your post made me curious about the modeling. I agree with 10FingerArmy, advertising 25-60fps as a good thing is not a selling point. For just models, I would expect much higher performance, particularly for environments that should primarily be textures/normal maps.

I think it's nice to include the Sketchfab preview, as it allows a person to see modeling before purchase. Had the reviewer seen that, and also noticed the 2GB package size, I think they could have realized this pack is not meant for games. The models look great, I think you would do well by optimizing.

 

ok, so I went and read the review.

IMO, I think they have a valid complaint, but not entitled to refund.

While you do state that the bike has 50K polys, there really is no mention of it being more than performant for any particular use other than for desktops. You have, for the most part provided clear examples of the pack, you do not provide any details regarding poly counts for the scenes or memory usage for the scene..., it is clearly a buyer beware. You can't just state.. 'these scenes run at 60 FPS on my computer", and expect it to run the same on anything else. That's just bogus.

If you want to improve your packs, provide LODs of the models and a range of mats that use .5k to 4k images along with atlases for lower poly, mobile like assets. The previews are fine for a couple of the showcase pieces, but instead create still images of the scene "with" stats of those scenes.. poly counts, # of lights, memory usage + textures.. et al., somehow to clearly show the user the 'cost' of creating such scenes as your examples.
.
This is why I do not buy art assets, too vague, not flexible, and low re-use with a ton of effort required to retro-fit someone elses work to make it "work" for real.

This may seem like a harsh critique, but is meant to help you.

 

All the Sketchfab models are initial model with no optimization the models used are optimized for the asset store

 

Cautious move is so that people can notice the details. There is another video posted that the camera runs in these corridors. fps is never consistent as there are simple and more complicated scenes that camera goes by.

 

That is a weird decision. Shouldn't you show what a buyer will get and not some first version you made at some point?

 

Actually I get these fps number with a really big scene full of post effects and particles in many points. One of the problems was that the video was around 5 minutes cause we wanted to show much of it and felt that 5 minutes was too much but eventually we went for it. The buyer states that he get 3-4 fps which is ridiculous and it only shows that he had not even read the readme.txt file. To give you an example most of Unity's demo projects that are given for free if you just load and play then they don't work, a certain amount of settings must be set first in order to get the shown result. ie The Blacksmith.

Off course i take a stand and say about the effects (that you can use as many as you want) , about the fps and I state how much we get on 2 machine types, and about the polygons which i even ask to point out which 4k model he is talking about

 

The pack is 2GB cause it has a lot of 4K textures so that the buyer can do as he pleases with them. Models on Sketchfab are there to show the look not the actual model in the engine which is optimized for PC.

 

The 50K bike is a detailed bonus. I hear what you are saying but I state that it's for Desktops. Most assets for 3d Models I see in the asset store do not provide polycount or memory details about scenes. I present two cases of a 6 year old standard PC and a modern PC to give the idea of how it performs. A person who's is really interested in using these for games could use other assets for LOD creation like Real Imposters LOD system and get over 100 fps with this pack. As for usability this whole pack is modular one can make anything.

 

What the buyer is getting is shown in the videos which are realtime renders and in the photos you got a point in that. We used Sketchfab to show the model and give the ability to the buyer to rotate and have a better view did not intended to show it as a poly count measure though

 

I'm giving up. I have the feeling you are in constant fight-back mode. Neither your product (though showing quite some potential) nor your communication seem very professional. Several people in this thread tried to give some valuable feedback. I suggest to digest it. We are all trying to help and be constructive. The thing about coming to a forum is though, not everybody might be your opinion or see things your way.

 

I am sorry you feel that I am "fighting -back" I am just explaining things so you get a better understanding of this thing and I also read everything people say very thoroughly cause this is why i posted in the first place.

 

non technically qualified buyer

Seeing your FPS and poly-rate iam not sure if even you are a technically qualified seller

 

well i guess you do this for a living as i do and you got experience. listen friend i posted this as a way to get input and give input for serious pros not people that want to write their "smart" comment just to create a digital fight. Also i can't consider this an insult from someone who has this kind of attitude. Writing in a forum is like talking to real people not to a monitor, i guess you try to insult many around you, to do this here. so please I am not going to continue this with you.

But to answer to what you are implying. The buyer states that he got 3-4 fps from the asset pack. This will happen if certain options are not set in unity for many assets. Including the Blacksmith and the Nordic Village. So in the read me file there are steps that need to be taken in order to play the scene right which he clearly did not read. Thus the conclusion he does not have the tech knowledge since if he had he would have more than 3-4fps on an asset pack that was featured for a week in Unity homepage.

 

OK. It sounds like the models are optimized, but TBH I find it odd that the Sketchfab models are not the actual models in the package. I don't buy a lot of models, but as someone who appreciates good modeling, the way I would look at your pack is to view the wireframes in the Sketchfab preview, assuming that you are showing off your modeling skills.

I would be most impressed with low-poly models that have a high-fidelity look, and less impressed with high-poly count models because they inevitably cause problems and slow-downs. I would not want to have to use other software to optimize, for two reasons - it's more work and I could easily mess up the UV mapping, thus ruining the model.

 

You are right it was a mistake to have these on sketchfab not optimized as the final models in the pack! And I realize now that we should have some wireframe images in there to show some topology. So now we are stack with these and the only way to change them is with an upgrade version right ?

 

Dealing with sucky reviews is a learning process in this field. Basically, you'll find that negative reviews usually correspond with perceived broken promises. If the video contents aren't in the package, with demo scene so they can get what you were showing they'd get, then that's a problem isn't it. This scene is optimised and so forth, it just so happens they don't get what is in the video.

So the one star review is a learning process for you.

 

I guess you are right. Thing is what is in the video exists in the package since it was recorded from the included scene. but I get your point. Thanks

 

Well if he isn't getting the framerate you're getting with similar hardware then it's time to smooth that kink out, perhaps provide a more optimised scene / clarity of information. Customers are difficult creatures that need that care.

 

The only way to get a similar frame rate is to follow the info on the supplied readme.txt file. To be getting 3-4 fps as he says it shows he hasn't bothered with that hence my remark of not being technical. Either that or he is using a 15 y.o. machine. What is also confusing is that he has not contacted us by email for any help.

 

He's said he's using a 960. That's recent. If someone has to follow a readme to get decent fps, then that's weird. Why wouldn't it be decent fps just opening the demo scene?

 

Looking at the buyer's purchase list and reviews, he seems he know what he's doing...

 

Here is the important part of the readme file

Many asset packs including Unity's require you set up Unity before using them. In order to correctly set this asset pack and enjoy it certain Unity 3D settings must be set.

- Edit>Project Settings>Quality : V Sync Count: Don't Sync
- Edit>Project Settings>Player : Rendering Path : Deferred, Color Space Linear

The default Settings for the project Scene1 is for Realtime GI. To enjoy it fully some Baking must be done since most Lights Baking option is set to Mixed. Go to Window>Lighting and check Auto for baking. Give it some time cause it is a big scene.

Furthermore all Light Probes are set to Realtime, so you need to change to Baked if you desire a baked scene.