Livenda Labs CTAA - HTC Vive - beware

Hi all, In case you're patiently waiting for the CTAA plugin for HTC Vive, be very aware of promises made by Livenda.

We paid up front for the HTC Vive plugin, and beyond taking our money and not delivering, Livenda Labs have gone completely silent and not answering any of our emails.

No contact details on their website other than an email address so watch out for this mob.

 

Well, may I point out that there already was a thread on Livendas CTAA here on this very forum where many longterm devs voiced their opinion that people should be careful when dealing with livenda, given their bad rep in the past and bad user expierience many here that have dealt with livendas assets in the past had.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/livendas-ctaa.426329/

I would urge everyone to think twice about dropping 250$ on an asset from a developer with such a shady track record.


Personal opinion: If a developer is not selling his assets on the official Unity asset store, you should be careful. It could be that the developer in question just wants to avoid giving Unity a cut of the sales. Maybe the dev thinks he has enough traffic without going trought the asset store...

Or the dev just has such a bad track record that the Unity asset store kicked him out, or his official pages were filled with negative reviews.

Livenda at least got kicked from the forums due to customer neglect in the past. No idea if Unity extended that to the asset store, but that isn't unlikely given the extremly bad rep livenda has managed to get.

So again, think twice before buying Unity assets outside of the official store. There might a different reason to it not being on the asset store than to maximize profits. At least spend some minutes to research the dev of the asset first.

 

You are probably still protected by PayPal 45-90 day dispute policy and can try a refund and possibly link to the above thread as additional info.

 

My recent experience with Livenda & CTAA:

I purchased CTAA from their website ($250). After about 10 hours I received a download link (Dropbox) for "PC version of CTAA".

I did not receive any download links for VR versions of CTAA (Oculus & Vive), so I sent them an email. (From the forums it seems that this is a common complaint...)

After not getting any response I used PayPal's dispute center. Suddenly they became very responsive and I received all download links within couple of hours.

Okay so their customer support sucks. And I agree that it's "risky" to purchase assets outside of Asset Store, you have absolutely no guarantees that you will receive regular updates. These guys just seem to like to ignore all customer support requests...

BUT having said that, I also have to say something else.

Their product just really shines. Anti-alias quality is beyond anything I have ever seen in Unity, and still drop in FPS rate is minimal. Things made with Unity just no longer look like "made with Unity"... I no longer feel tempted to turn to Unreal Engine for visual quality.

What I want to say is "please give those guys a chance", even though their customer support sucks. You just don't want to "shoot down" a developer who is making Unity so much more interesting and useful tool for all of us... Maybe in the future Unity will provide free anti-aliasing solutions that will equal CTAA, but right now, this is by far the best there is, in my opinion.

Besides, Livenda guys said (on youtube) that they are planning to bring CTAA to Asset Store, but only after launch on their own website. Maybe it's safer to purchase it then...

And Livenda, if you read this, please consider bringing the price down to more reasonable level. There is a HUGE market of "Unity hobbyists" for whom $250 (let alone $500) is just wayyyy too much. You are missing this market with this kind of price tag.

 

Sorry, but to a degree I factor "company ethics" into my purchase decisions.

I'm amazed where you find the good will and patience to defend Livenda, after you literally had to threaten them via paypal (which as far as I know can have pretty hardcore negative consequences for sellers) to actually receive the thing you already paid for in advance.

 

Always read up on products and publishers before buying, some of their forum threads are pretty hairy.

 

Yeah, me too ... Likely it tells how much I like CTAA itself ...

 

Does CTAA support Single Pass forward rendering in VR?

 

Are you able to tell me which version of Livenda's CTAA has been already delivered to you?
Is it 2.55 or 2.6?

 

A small update on how things are going with Livenda...

Althoug they claim on their website that "all updates are FREE and regular", I have never once received any single update after the original purchase.

Recently they advertised via e-mail "upgrade from V2.5 to V3 $60". Well I purchased that update.

And guess what I received... Absolutely nothing. Not download links, nothing. And their customer support e-mail remains totally silent. At least PayPal returned my money...

 

I would suggest you use reviews and do the proper research when spending money online. It is people like the op blindly trusting and throwing cash around that allows people with dodgy business ethics to thrive.

This is entry level expertise for using the internet.

 

I've seen nothing about Livenda aside from horror stories. This is, what, the second or third thread on them here?

 

Yeah, it still surprises me people have unlimited trust online. So, no sympathy from me.

 

Also, many people are bound to need support in the future at some point, and once PayPal's grace period is up, they'd be screwed. It's not even just ethics, it's good sense.

 

Did anyone actually get a 3.0 upgrade link after purchase. Looking for some kind of hope.

 

Thall33 - Any news about the upgrade to 3.0? I need that product badly, so far the presales support had been great. Anyone?

 

So it seems Livenda is back.

Has anything happened with them so that they deserve the clean slate the mods/Unity want to give them?

 

They didn't exactly break rules last time. Just had poor customer service in some threads so those threads got locked. I do the same courtesy to any asset store author who lets their forum communities run amok unchecked. It takes a steely hold on the reigns (some business professionalism) for an asset author to manage a very popular asset's community.

Mods have had no specific instructions about any users. If they screw it up again, then we can consider action. Meanwhile people can and should search about who they buy from.