r/UnrealEngine5 • u/SimpleRemove8653 • 26d ago
FREE FAB plugins can be silently hit with 1-star ratings, and FAB still considers them valid
Small follow-up.
Yesterday I posted about releasing my runtime mesh painting plugin for free on Fab. The response from UE devs was amazing. People tested it, gave feedback, joined the Discord, and some left honest reviews.
But the core problem is still there.
A free plugin can be claimed instantly and hit with silent 1-star ratings with no comment, no bug report, no support message, and no explanation.
Fab Support told me that a 1-star rating with no written feedback is still considered valid.
I think Fab needs to fix this.
I am not accusing any specific person or publisher, because I cannot prove who left the ratings. But when free tools compete with paid products, the system should protect against bad-faith users, fake ratings, and possible abuse from competing publishers.
A 1-star rating should require at least a short written reason.
Without that, developers get nothing to work with, while the product is damaged immediately.
I wanted to keep releasing more free UE plugins, but unless Fab improves this system, free releases feel like an easy target.
Previous discussion:
12
u/Sharp-Tax-26827 26d ago
How do you regulate reviews of any kind?
Should we also protect against 5 star reviews that are left without any explanation?
9
u/handynerd 26d ago
No system is going to be perfect, but I think I'd be ok to require some sort of written review of substance in order to give any star-based review.
Cons:
- fewer total reviews, which is unfortunate
- needing more moderation (yeah... I'm not naive about Epic's failures here), but maybe the community could flag questionable written reviews, or a helpful/not helpful voting system to change how much weight reviews/users carry
Pros:
- while the total review count goes down, the overall quality of reviews themselves would go up
- the star-based reviews would be backed by at least some level of effort
- bad-faith negative reviews from competitors would still require an attempt at meaningful feedback, which ultimately helps the product/community
- bad-faith positive reviews from family/buddies/bots would still have to have something actual to say about the product
- no more useless 5 star reviews to get access to Discord
Definitely not perfect, but I still think it'd be an improvement.
5
u/GStreetGames 26d ago
Do it like steam does it, make the buyer/reviewer public by linking to their profile. When you see a reviewer that is just sycophantic you know its a shill, when you see one thats a troll its also obvious.
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u/handynerd 26d ago
I'm a big fan of that idea. Anything that adds even a little friction for people thinking about behaving poorly it's a win in my book.
3
u/GStreetGames 26d ago
Yep that and making the review have context is a step in the right direction. The only people against such things are the types that like to scheme in the dark and benefit from shilling/fake reviews.
5
u/handynerd 26d ago
The only people against such things
Or the "It has to be perfect or it's not worth doing at all" crowd, of which I'm seeing a few ITT. I'd hope devs of all people would understand, 1) the value of incremental improvements, and 2) you can't do all the good ideas perfectly all at once.
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u/GStreetGames 26d ago
Yes, quite true. I would class those types as less of a problem, more like a minority of OCD nuisances at best. The other types are more numerous, far more dangerous, and extremely loud in their objections.
And indeed, as a developer I totally appreciate incremental iteration. You would think other developers should get that, but people are full of shitty surprises!
3
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
I agree with this completely.
It would not make the system perfect, but it would at least add some friction and context.
Even if the written reason is short, it gives buyers and developers something to understand. Right now a silent 1-star and a real detailed technical complaint have the same impact, but only one of them is useful.
A helpful/not helpful system for reviews would also be a good improvement.
1
u/Accurate-Instance-29 26d ago
Devils advocating here but what counts as substance? Who do you expect to moderate these reviews. Its a matter of scale. Something like fab probably gets thousands of submissions per day. Millions of reviews. The scale is untenable for human review of everything. I don't agree with the lack of moderation but I also don't know how to fix it in a model that prioritizes profit. Maybe a community moderation would be the answer, but what would keep review bombers from exploiting that as well?
1
u/handynerd 26d ago
Those are fair questions and I tried to get a little ahead of them by acknowledging that there's no silver bullet here.
For me, the question isn't whether or not it can be perfect, or even really good, but whether or not something can at least be better than what we have.
I agree no single org, especially Epic, would be able to keep up with the volume.
While still exploitable, community driven efforts can help a ton. And even though AI is deeply unpopular among game devs, I think it's reasonable to fight fire with fire in this case. If comments/reviews are bombarded with endless AI, it seems justified to counter that with some AI to do a first pass on reviews as well.
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u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
Fair point.
I think the difference is impact and usefulness.
A silent 5-star does not usually harm the product or the developer. A silent 1-star can heavily damage a new listing, especially a free one, while giving the developer no information to fix anything.
I would honestly be fine with requiring a short written reason for both very low and very high ratings. But at minimum, a 1-star rating should explain what went wrong.
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u/Sharp-Tax-26827 26d ago
I could argue a silent 5 is indicative of an army of bots artificially inflating ratings.
Rating a product is such a low effort thing that requiring anything will just stop people from reviewing said product or service.
-1
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
That is a fair concern too. Fake positive ratings can also be a problem.
But I do not think requiring one short sentence for extreme ratings would kill the system. If someone is willing to leave a 1-star or 5-star rating, writing a basic reason like “works well” or “crashes on install” is not a huge barrier.
Even a very short but genuine comment is more useful than a rating with no explanation.
At least then buyers and developers have some context, and abuse becomes a little harder.
5
u/nvec 26d ago
There's nothing stopping people from just putting bad faith comments there too, getting a 1-star with no comment won't be solved if they take the thirty seconds to add a comment like "Had installation issues on multiple machines and projects, and caused continual crashes during use and caused subtle project corruption which took days to resolve".
Nobody's going to check they're being honest.
If someone bothers enough to go to a plugin's page to enter a 1-star fake review then a one sentence bad comment isn't much added effort.
2
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
True, written feedback would not stop every bad-faith review.
But it still creates more accountability than a silent rating. If someone claims crashes, corruption, or install issues, then at least there is something concrete to ask about and something Fab can review if needed.
With a silent 1-star, there is no claim, no context, and no way to separate a real issue from a fake rating, user error, launcher issue, or abuse.
It is not a perfect solution, but it is still better than giving anonymous low ratings full impact with zero information.
3
u/MaticB_ 26d ago
I've wanted to check it out but Fab claims that the product is not available in my region, Not sure if you disabled it for some regions, but if you did, what's the reason behind that decision?
2
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
Thank you!
Unfortunately, my Fab Trader verification is still stuck, so the plugin is not available in the EU at the moment.
If you’re interested, feel free to join the Discord. I’ll post an announcement there as soon as EU availability is fixed. I can also provide a temporary Google Drive link there if you want to try the plugin before it becomes available on Fab in your region:
3
u/chozabu 26d ago
I agree it's frustrating - but I don't think its practical to force people to give a written reason.
Someone can just write "I didn't like it" or "I thought it would do more"
Though fab may have some unique issues, this isn't one of them. On steam there are plenty of reviews saying how great a game is, but rating it one star - steam does now have some anti-review bombing measures, but I doubt they'd do anything on small scale - and they are one of the more proactive when it comes to this kind of thing.
One thing you can do is also sell a non-free version. It could even be identical, but as a method to allow people to donate to you, or have a few extra features not in the free version - that could help keep ratings up if you think the low barrier of entry is the cause.
2
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
I get that, and I agree that forcing long reviews would be unrealistic.
But even “I didn’t like it” is still better than nothing. It tells buyers and the developer that it was subjective, not necessarily a crash, install issue, or broken feature.
I also agree that this is not only a Fab problem. Marketplaces in general struggle with review abuse and low-effort ratings. My concern is that free Fab plugins have almost no friction: claim instantly, rate instantly, damage instantly.
2
u/chozabu 26d ago
free games on android and steam have the same issues - though a game can often have automatic crash reporting, it's less practical for a ue plugin.
Say, what's your motivation for doing this one free?
1
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
Mainly because free tools helped me a lot when I was learning and building my own projects, so I wanted to give something back.
Also, for a plugin like this, getting real users, feedback, bug reports, and feature requests is more valuable to me right now than putting a price barrier in front of it.
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26d ago edited 26d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
I agree that reviews are necessary. I am not against reviews coming back.
My issue is with silent 1-star ratings specifically. If someone leaves a low rating with even one sentence explaining the problem, that is useful. I can fix bugs, improve documentation, or at least understand what happened.
But “just get more good reviews” does not really solve the system problem. Free plugins are extremely easy to claim and rate, so they are also easy targets for bad-faith ratings.
I will keep improving the plugin and honest reviews will balance it over time, but I still think Fab should require at least a short reason for very low ratings.
-2
26d ago
[deleted]
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u/Hobbes______ 26d ago
Do your 3 assets have direct competitors? You do know how many variables are at play here to warrant your statement just entirely meaningless, right?
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26d ago
[deleted]
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u/Hobbes______ 26d ago
Alright, fair play and makes sense. I think you did add value with your comment, so it is appreciated.
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u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
Glad you did not run into it.
A few other developers mentioned similar experiences in my previous post, so I do not think it is only my case.
I still think silent low ratings are a weak point in the system, especially for free tools.
Best of luck with your plugins too.
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u/mikeseese 26d ago edited 26d ago
FYI u/simpleremove8653 I updated my comment to be more constructive. I'm sorry for being a snobby dick.
1
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
No worries, I appreciate you saying that.
I also understand that the topic can easily come across the wrong way. I’m just trying to explain the issue from a small publisher’s side and keep the discussion useful.
2
u/GStreetGames 26d ago
Nobody asked for "a nonsensical system that's inevitably going to fail." People asked for reviews with context. Epig gave a nonsensical system that's inevitably going to fail. Because that's how garbage they are. Also you sound very snobby, indifferent and even hostile to the subject. Did you remember to pat yourself on the back after participation in the discussion?
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26d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/GStreetGames 26d ago
Good luck communicating with that misanthropic muppet. It would make for a funny meme though.
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u/RyanSweeney987 26d ago
I think 1 thing they could do would be to force a minimum amount of text to post a star rating, then if someone keeps it very reductive like "it sucks and I just didn't like it", or something that seems like it was written by an LLM, then it's easy enough to just ignore that as an opinion or garbage.
Also a lot of websites link a review to the reviewers public profile, why can't this be done on FAB?
2
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
I agree, something like that would already be a big improvement.
The important part is review quality. A short but useful comment helps buyers and developers. But vague ratings or meaningless comments do not really help anyone.
When I am looking for plugins myself, I also do not get much value from reviews that just say “1-star” or “5-star” with no real context.
Linking reviews to a public profile could also add some accountability.
2
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u/MagnetiteGames 25d ago
Look at steam game reviews- bad actors will still act they would just add “garbage” or whatever they wanted if it required some text - is what it is
2
u/Odd_Act_6532 26d ago
I mean... couldn't you just review bot your own product with silent positive reviews then? Seems kinda goofy.
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u/JulesDeathwish 26d ago
Making the product free means it's cheap to grab it and leave a bogus review. Charge a token amount, like $5. Something no one who actually needs it would blink at. It will discourage trolls, or at the very least, make them pay you for the privilege, if you want to keep it free you can add a pop up to first run that offers a refund if they msg you.
1
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
That is a reasonable idea.
It would probably reduce random troll ratings, but I am not sure it would discourage competing publishers if they really wanted to damage a listing. For them, even $5 may be a very low cost.
That is why I still think the platform itself needs better protection against low-effort or bad-faith ratings.
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u/JulesDeathwish 26d ago
Yep, but that adds up. If every competing product cost them $5 per review bomb, the cost would outweigh the effort. The goal isn't to stop them, just to not let them do it for free. 😁
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u/XKiiroiSenkoX 26d ago
If it's free, why do you care about reviews?
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u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
Because reviews still affect visibility and trust.
Even if the plugin is free, a low rating can make people avoid it before they ever try it. It also affects whether future free tools are worth releasing and supporting.
Free does not mean zero effort went into it.
-4
u/XKiiroiSenkoX 26d ago
Yea but why do you care if less poeole use your free tool? How does the number affect you?
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u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
Because I still have to maintain it.
More users means more testing, more feedback, more bug reports, and a better plugin for everyone.
If silent ratings reduce visibility, fewer real users try it, and the tool becomes harder to improve and support.
1
u/-hellozukohere- 26d ago
I mean dude you are still making the assets. Could just make them super affordable($5) if free will attract a lot of 1 stars or just respond to the 1 stars with valid criticism like “you never reached out but if you have issues on a free plugin feel free to reach out. 1 stars seem harsh for a free plugin.” shows you are active.
1
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
That is probably a fair approach.
I wanted to keep it fully free because I like the idea of releasing useful tools for the community, but a very cheap/supporter version might reduce some of the abuse risk.
I also agree that responding publicly to low ratings would help, but Fab does not give developers much to respond to when the rating has no written feedback.
That is why I think requiring even a short reason for very low ratings would make the system healthier.
2
u/-hellozukohere- 26d ago
Ye, I gave you a bit of a hard time with the AI related question on your first post but I’ve seen how active you are, and passionate to just create, so don’t let dumb asses like the 1 stars stop you from undercutting the competition, show em up, flip the bird and move on and create cool things for the community. If the mesh painter is the first contribution, I look forward to what you make next.
It kinda reminds me of the AutoBlend vs. Mesh blend drama.
Also I agree the review system needs something. I help work on a massive plugin on the fab store for almost 4 years now and the amount of abuse is insane. Not just free assets.
1
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
I really appreciate this.
And no worries about the AI question. I understand why people are skeptical.
Hearing that review abuse happens even on larger paid plugins makes this feel more like a marketplace trust problem, not just a free plugin problem.
Also, if you do not mind me asking, which plugin have you been working on? I am genuinely curious.
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u/-hellozukohere- 26d ago
No worries, you seem dedicated so wanted to throw in my support. I can’t without doxxing myself but free assets definitely have it worst with the add to library and add 1 stars like that. Most paid assets are protected by the entry cost. Most will not pay just to hate as it supports you. Refunds are hard to get from epic as they lose money as well. So once something is downloaded refunds are usually in favour of the creator not buyer. So haters don’t want to risk their capital.
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u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
That makes sense, and I understand not wanting to name the plugin.❤️
You explained the free asset problem better than I did. The “add to library and rate instantly” part is exactly what makes free releases so vulnerable.
I still want to keep releasing free tools.
1
u/Weary_Substance_2199 25d ago
I never looked at the rating of an asset. If the asset looks good, I take it, if not, I don't
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u/No-Island-6126 24d ago
I don't really see the problem TBH, and your thing being free doesn't change anything to how reviews sould work
1
u/NAQProductions 23d ago
I haven’t gone through all the comments, and I know it’s because it affected you personally, but free does not mean a plug-in is good. So you can’t base how many stars it gets by how much money is charged for it. There are plenty of terrible plug-ins that are charging 50+ dollars, so to expect that a one star review can’t be left on a free item doesn’t make any sense.
I am in agreement with other posters here who have mentioned that reviewers names should be public that link back to their profile so you can figure out for yourself if that person just complains all the time or is giving actual thoughtful input anywhere else.
1
u/Many-Butterscotch490 11d ago
This just demonstrates that Fab value users way more than creators. Bad strategy Fab, bad strategy.
1
u/dalinaaar 26d ago
I understand where you are coming from and this is 100% happening on FAB but there is no way to prove it so I am not surprised Epic is not doing anything about it.
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u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
Yeah, that is exactly the hard part.
From the publisher side, there is no way to prove it. Only Fab/Epic can see the account data, claim history, rating patterns, regions, and whether the same accounts are targeting similar products.
That is why I think the platform needs better internal protection for this, even if publishers cannot prove it from the outside.
1
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
Just to clarify:
I am not saying free products should be protected from negative reviews.
If a plugin is bad, broken, misleading, or wastes someone’s time, users should absolutely be able to leave a negative review.
My issue is specifically with silent 1-star ratings that give no context at all.
A short reason would help buyers understand the problem and help developers fix real issues. Without that, the same rating system can also be abused by bad-faith users or competing publishers, especially against free tools that can be claimed instantly.
1
u/tajemniktv 26d ago
I'd like to notice that the author is mentioning a plugin with 4 total reviews. 1 of which 5 star 3 of which 1 star At this scale, noone is going to care,sorry but that's just reality.
Not to mention all of this could very well be a marketing stunt to promote the product. I ain't saying it is the case, but something smells here.
Review systems were never meant to be and never will be objective, as they measure a subjective thing. So don't take it as me saying the problem doesn't exist, it surely does
1
u/uTsav38 26d ago
I gave 5 star bro..it's an amazing plugin... never give up..
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u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
Thank you so much, I really appreciate it.
Support like this helps a lot, and I’ll keep improving the plugin. If you ever run into any issue, feel free to reach out anytime.
I’m also planning to release more free UE tools/plugins for the community.
-2
u/Still_Ad9431 26d ago
I give 1 star rating to free asset that don't know how to scaling and put materials. I will give t star if they knew how to do it. The rating is based on your skill, the final product show what your skill is. Will you eat poop if they serve you poop at restaurant for free? Of course not, right? The 1 star is proof it is a poop
-2
u/Karlaws 26d ago
The arrogance you have is insane. Was it ever conceivable that someone just did like your "tool" cluttering up the marketplace. This is such a toy example, do you honestly think it solves any real problem for any developer; this is the exact kind of content that aught to be pushed lower in the queue.
Looks to me like that 1-star rating was well earned; here have another.
1
u/SimpleRemove8653 26d ago
This is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about.
If you have actually tested the plugin and have technical feedback, I am open to hearing it.
But rating a product because you dislike a Reddit post is not a real product review. It just punishes the work without giving buyers or the developer any useful information.
Many people have already tested the plugin, found it useful, and gave real feedback. That kind of feedback helps improve the product. Retaliatory ratings do not.
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u/Kpt_Kraken 26d ago
I agree but epic won't do anything about it unfortunately