Buyers Beware publisher 3DRT.com

I purchased asset "Real zombies pack" by 3DRT.com two weeks ago.
Asset was not good as I expected with few "by design" issues and publisher declined refund, was rude and unresponsive. So I left a negative review.

Next day 3DRT.com disabled that asset and today resubmitted Real zombies pack again of course with clean review history.

I waste my money, lost support and can't even download pack anymore - it disappear from my PACKAGES list and from the store!

Asset Store support do nothing and say: all sales are final, go to the publisher and ask for him...

I feels like 3DRT.com cheated me.

Here is the original review.
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If you need zombie pack better search for Kalamona, Honeti, Niklas Hallin or AceAsset but not this one.

1. No Humanoid animation. So you can't retarget other animations.
2. Actually there are only 1 male and 1 female mesh with very small difference. You can even share textures on them.
3. Extra formats (max, x, blend, etc.) not include in package as advertised.
4. Textures are dark and low quality, no normal maps.
5. FBX model files text serialized with size about 50 Mb each.

Awful customer service I ever seen.
When I asked for refund contact person Max become rude and unresponsive.

My first and definitely last purchase from 3DRT.com and most useless purchase at the AssetStore. Waste of my $125 money!
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Is the old pack the same as the new pack?

 

Wow, that is amazing. I have had a few things that have not lived up to the hype but nothing this obvious. I hope the Asset store folks at least flag this. I spend lots of money in the Asset store and I am having a tough time trusting them these days. I see lots of what are probably fake reviews, no contact information or dead websites, and abandoned projects. While I try to research, it isn't always easy. Losing $125 is a lot. Sorry this happened to you.

 

I agree this is unacceptable, I will think twice before purchasing from them in the future. Also I agree that this should be acted upon by the asset store people. We do not want it to be common practice that assets are just reuploaded when they get a negative review...

I also throw way too much cash at the asset store, so thanks for the heads up!

 

I had several things from them on my wish list. I hope they come back and fix things.

 

That's pretty scummy behavior and it feels like Unity should do at least something to discourage it.

 

So they uploaded a new package with the same product, so therefore, anyone who paid for it cannot re-download it. Even if they fixed the problems they took away the ability for customers who paid to download the item. I thought Unity had a policy about removing paid assets? Didn't that happen already and there was a lot of stink about it, resulting in Unity getting involved?

Possibly it was a mistake. They may have fixed the problems and resubmitted it and it was accidentally uploaded as a new product rather than replacing the old one. I hope so anyway.

 

Absolutely the same. To prove my words I attached two images.
Original asset was available at https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/6728 (now it not functional because asset disabled).
Today resubmitted asset at https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/29114

3DRT.com disabled asset then wait 14 days I think for refund expire time.

 

It wasn't mistake. 3DRT.com disabled asset then wait 14 days before resubmit. I think he wait for refund expire time.

Asset was:
- Purchased 21 January
- Disabled 29 January
- Resubmitted 3 February

This was done deliberately.

 

At least they reduced the price!

No not funny i know.. Perventing paying customers from downloading a purchased asset should not be possible, at the very least a disabled asset should still be visible for customers already owning the asset!!!

 

Yes, it seems they are kidding.

I don't want any asset from 3DRT.com or replace.
I full of it, just want my money back or better be give away my $125 to someone homeless!

 

@den3d, Did you flag the new asset? I imagine Unity doesn't want to be letting people pull an asset and then resubmit it under a new number, especially when people have purchased it under the old number.

 

Well let's see if someone from Unity can explain what happened?

 

That is absolutly true.

The fact that the last version is not kept for customers, is terrible terrible policy. I have many assets bought in sales that i have not touched yet, i dont even know anymore how i could keep track of all my assets, they are so many and how could i know some have just dissapeared from the list.

The last version should be kept active for users that have bought an asset or at least have a warning that the asset will be removed somewhere, so can be downloaded before vanish.

 

Thanks for posting this. I had occasionally thought of buying some of their assets but always found them to be expensive. Now I certainly wont go anywhere near them.

 

Absolutely. This strikes me as the bigger story here. I've spent thousands of dollars on the asset store. You're telling me it could all just go poof and vanish on a whim? Not unless Unity is prepared to give me back all of my money. But that is a separate issue...

Removing the asset and resubmitting just to circumvent bad reviews should get them kicked from the store permanently. Better for Unity to put their foot down now then chance that this become common behavior.

 

I always thought about buying from these guys also. Wont ever be doing that now... Sounds like they've lost plenty of money pulling this stunt resulting in this bad advertising.

I'd also check the consumer laws where you live. If the product is not how it was advertised then you can likely get your money back. Sounds like that was the case. They advertised the additional model formats and it's not included. Demand your money back, if it doesn't come then take it a bit further. I don't know how asset store payments are processed but if you paid via credit card lodge a claim with your bank, they will refund you and then chase payment. You don't need to worry about a thing then.

 

Nice idea, I did it right now.

 

Agreed to both 100%. I have spent nearly $4000 on assets and imagine my surprise when i learned they can be removed without ever knowing !!!

From that point i am constantly with the thought to redownload every asset every month to grab new releases or get a new HDD for my laptop so i can keep the full collection always downloaded, which involves an inactive Unity for days since downloading creates all kinds of problems when working with it.

I hope the store will protect our purshases better in future and not allow such terrible policies to asset developers.

 

This... very much! Unless it is one of my highly used assets I would never notice if one dissapeared from the list...

Yes indeed... At least keep latest version for disabled assets visible for the accounts owning the given asset.

 

Unity should remove this author from selling stuff in the assetstore.

 

The sh*t is going almost 2 days, and yet no one from Unity. I didnt spend a lot of money (100$+), but if that is how the asset team works(mean policy, regulation and etc), I'll probably stop buying, like seriously. Or i'll get only few which are from top rated developers.. This case will leave all new publishers alone...

 

The assetstore and staff is a heaven for thief's. I purchased a Shooter Kit, later ppl in the forum founds out it uses stolen items. Now the item is gone, I can't use it cos its other people intelligent property and I don't get my money back… Since Unity getting 30% from sales, they should be legal responsive for money back… I will contact EU lawmaker regarding this issue.

 

Really hope someone @Unity will have a look at this, maybe @caitlyn ?

 

this happened with dfgui because it was abandonned, but in that case its kind of worst practise

 

Yes, DFGUI is still available in PACKAGES list and I can download it but disabled asset from 3drt disappear.

 

I think only the assets kept locally would be in that list. Is DFGUI page on the store still active to download ?

If not, when erased from the HDD probably will not be able to be downloaded again

 

It's possible the resubmission of the asset (and deletion of the old) was an honest mistake on 3DRT's part. They may have thought that they needed to submit a new item when they changed the price, and they may have not considered the consequences of dropping the older item.

Last summer an expensive asset I'd purchased suddenly had two entries in the asset store. This was related to their attempt to put the item on sale and then return it to its regular price. I think their intention was to disable the one that was at sale price, but they didn't realize it would interfere with the ability of customers to get future package updates. So it was a mess for a while, but it all got straightened out.

3DRT seems like an established company. Maybe 3DRT puts out packages that are overpriced for the Unity market, and maybe they tried to address that in this case by resubmitting the asset at a lower price, and maybe they didn't understand how the asset store works and the expectation on the part of the customer that they should be able to maintain a permanent download connection to every asset they've purchased. Some asset stores don't work that way. Some let you buy once and download once, and that's it. I imagine that's especially true of art and music assets, which unlike scripts might be thought of as finished products at the time of sale (no future support needed).

 

I deleted local DFGUI copy from HDD.
Then DFGUI is still in my PACKAGES list. So now I can Download it then Import.

 

It is not first time 3DRT.com submitting asset.
He has a lot of them and he knew that does.
And why 3drt waited 5-6 days after cancellation and before resubmission?!

 

That is great to know, i wonder why it is happening only for certain packs, seems strange.

I hope Unity can clarify the policy behind it, so we know exactly what to expect.

 

DFGUI was removed, because the Developers felt it wouldn't be that reasonable anymore since Unity's new UI stepping in. However, it has been open sourced long time ago: http://www.daikonforge.com/forums/threads/dfgui-open-source.2248/

 

Could have been a mistake.

I haven't found a lot of negative reviews on their stuff. In fact, very few reviews at all, even positive ones and they create a lot of stuff. The prices of the other products have not been cut.

They have been around for a while. I remember them when we used T3d so not sure they really care what the Unity community thinks of them which is sad, because they have some unique stuff.

 

Seems strange behaviour considering how many assets they have and how long they have been in the "game". I doubt getting rid of the negative review is worth the backlash

 

It is, because a low score decreases or may even stop sales. And affects the overall image as a developer too. The backlash of a discussion in the forum which will be seen by a few people comparing to the hundred of thousands of potential buyers.

 

I doubt Unity is a large market for 3DRT. It's my impression their prices are too high for typical Unity buyers. A Unity buyer would expect far higher quality stuff for the prices they charge. (Some would dispute this, but I'm just giving my impression. If you take their price and divide by 10 I think you've got a more realistic number.)

As for the price change, maybe the person who did the resubmission for 3DRT is new and not the person who normally does that task.

Why did they wait 5-6 days? Who knows? But it could have been for internal reasons, like being sick or on vacation or something, and have nothing to do with your complaint.

I do think you should get your refund, of course. And while I figure Unity would rather have sellers set the price on their own assets and let the market decide their true worth, maybe the store should expect some degree of trouble when a company places rather modest assets at such an inflated price.

 

No, this is definitely not cool and I'm afraid it slipped by us.

We have disabled the second asset package and will re-enable the initial one upon the publisher's request (since it isn't something we generally will do, as it is the publisher's decision to elect to disable a product).

You may wish to let 3DRT know how you feel.

PS We sincerely apologize for the delay getting back to you all on this. I'm afraid our little team is pretty backlogged... we're working on getting better.

 

So, what about the 'zombies-extra-formats.zip' file ?! >
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/6728

 

So it looks like you still have the old one.
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/29114

 

Cool, but I prefer to get money back.
It not necessary for PayPal refund procedure, can you give me Asset Store gift card transaction?
Or replace this asset with other from another publisher?

It is very difficult to communicate with the 3DRT.com he rude and unresponsive. I afraid I lost support from them any way.
Really, I lost a lot of time and nerves over the past two weeks and I hope for a small compensation.

I hate this asset over the past 14 days

 

I know I called for the developer to be banned earlier, but it got me thinking.
This dev has many assets on the store. Leaving aside what we think about quality or price, surely someone else has bought them? If kicked, and their assets removed from the store, does Unity have the capability to keep the assets downloadable for those who have already purchased, and only disable new sales?
If not, it might be something to think about adding going forward.

 

@caitlyn I do not know who and why, but asset disabled again last 24 hours.
I'm full of this story, can I get a refund or replace from other publishers?

 

As much as I sympathize, I am not sure Unity needs to refund you. You probably will need to get the money from the developer of the asset. If they won't respond, then file a complaint and chalk it down to a bad experience. I have had several of those, not usually with the asset store but still quite painful. To be honest, those pictures of the zombies look horrible on the asset store. lol I once considered their villager pack and went to their website where they had full previews. Not sure if they have this for the zombies.

I do hope Unity does something about this seller or at least tells us what is going on. I have bought some expensive assets here and don't want to lose them. I must admit that is one thing that makes me nervous. If the seller can remove the item with no notice and you bought it for future use, you could lose it before you even use it.

Is there anyway we can easily save the packages out from our download manager without installing them on a project?

 

What you mean by "need to refund" ? Assetstore takes 30% and operates like a store. If the goods are defective, buyers are entitled to a refund.

As you can see ,crap gets sold, and Unity does nothing to protect the buyer, u will buy from such store?

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/buyers-beware-all-sales-are-final.194783/

 

You can make a copy of your Asset Store dir, thoug you obviously need to download the assets first, they are located here on windows:

%UserProfile%\AppData\Roaming\Unity\Asset Store

 

Amazon does a similar thing with the Marketplace and as far as I know, refunds are only available for items purchased from Amazon, not from the outside sellers. And yet, I still buy from them if it is something I need. It is a risk to buy from storefronts.

3drt is an established seller that has been around for years. They have a fancy website and sell direct, yet they are also obviously a risk. Anytime you buy something, regardless of where, there is a risk, and this is especially true of digital content.

One thing about Amazon, enough complaints and the seller is off their page. Same should be true with the Unity Store.

Thank you, Ramsdal.

 

BTW, this is a link to 3drt's website and to the zombie asset. If you watch the video, it shows you exactly what you get. I would not have paid even the $39 (current sale price) for that asset. In the future, look at the website, read forum posts, do research before you buy anything, especially digital content.

http://3drt.com/store/characters/real-zombies-pack.html

 

Hope you paid via Paypal. Let Paypal deal with the fraud. They protect sales. Escalate a case and demand money back. Paypal will take it from assetstore since they forward the paypal purchases.

 

Credit card companies can and will do this as well. I would save this as a last resort however.
Give the asset store team time to look into this. It may take a few weeks, but when I had a problem they were able to refund me. The circumstances here are slightly different, but I think you are justified if you can no longer access the assets you paid for (you probably would not get a refund for just the quality of the assets being poor, unless they are obviously different from what was advertised).