@Luos_83 brought up the idea of creating a category on the forum specifically for people to highlight vfx related content that they’re selling in various market places - I think it’s a great idea, as I’d love to do what I can to support those of us pursuing our entrepreneurial endeavors, but as this is a community run forum, do any of you have strong thoughts one way or the other?
I’d love to hear from our @moderators in particular.
Thanks!
Your local neighborhood admin,
Keith
I like this idea! Although, I could see it getting filled with mediocre content. If it gets out of hand we may have to regulate and approve content to post for pay, so people know they’re getting their money’s worth when they buy something.
There’s already a few really great scripts and plugins that we could throw into here that have been bounced around beforehand that I always forget where they went xD
I’d hate to see quality content not posted because it’s paid. People have linked others’ paid content, just not their own, to my knowledge.
My suggested guideline would be posters should add value to the community by advertising paid content. If the community deems the paid products not helpful for VFX artists specifically, then moderators ought to feel justified in taking it down. Now, if we run into the issue of a deluge of various 3D, art, or tech classes and educational materials getting promoted by their beneficiaries, perhaps it’s time to consider ad space, or revenue sharing partnerships to help us be more selective.
It really comes down to keeping the community spirit thriving, and foster ever-increasing knowledge sharing. I like the idea of helping grass roots products as well as higher-end professional-grade content. Both are made by the diverse crowd that makes up our community. If the day comes that too many people start advertising their awesome educational options to the point of crowding the threads, I say that’s a great problem to have, and we can address it at that point.
There have been a few other --mostly unity-- packages being promoted by their creators but very sporadically.
While I am the latest “offender” that posted his own marketplace content, I’ll be the first to say that I am not too fond of people spamming their paid work, but that might also stem from the fact that I am an admin on many facebook groups and even some discord groups and have seen a looooot of “check out my pack” posts. So I do agree that some good rules need to be set in place.
Quality is always a hard thing, if a somewhat beginner is really proud of his first marketplace/gumroad package it might come across as harsh and uninviting if we delete the post because of its lower overall quality. though on the other hand, if you sell something you should also be able to take a punch since it helps improving yourself and the package in question/any new packages that person releases.
Otherwise I could suggest one specific thread where people can promote their work or work from others that they consider valuable but those threads often get ignored over time.
While I am not against ad-space, as a small solo-dev who focuses on marketplace packages even 50 bucks would result in me never using it. But it might help that I know where to post and how to reach people.
Its probably the same with job postings, while its really cheap --especially with the talent thats active here-- its not something i’d consider doing. then again, anybody who asks me if I know someone for a specific set of vfx skills I direct to this page and its job board.
I’m sure you’ll figure something out 
As someone with a lot of things on sale on the unreal marketplace i’d be happy to post them here and answer any questions that they might bring up - more advertising is always nice.
That said i don’t think i’d want the forum to become more about advertising than learning, but i dont think anyone is producing so much content that we’d get more than 2-3 advertising posts a month anyway.
I’m concerned this would lead to constant spamming of things too, to try and stay at the top of the category. It could get too close to the recruiter spam we’ve tried to weed out here and on the facebook page, where someone makes an account, posts, and then never comes back. I’ve seen a few people promote something they are putting up on the market place, but it’s usually in the WIPs section, and only as an afterthought in the post. I do understand we have more than a few independent artists here, and they generally put out great content and rely on the income from those packages, but if this new category isn’t done robustly it could get cluttered.
I’ve definitely seen what @Luos_83 mentioned, where someone was like “hey look what I made! I’m going to put it on the marketplace!” and the responses were definitely along the lines of ‘that is bad, don’t submit that to the market’.
And lastly, people can make some crazy fx content, but I feel like posting your marketplace stuff on here is like trying to sell ice to an Eskimo 
if we needed it for a project, we’d make it ourselves ya know?
What if it’s trying to sell tools, recources, tutoring of vfx? In your analogy, selling an axe to an Eskimo to help him cut the ice faster? 
It may need its own separate thing then, like the jobs page, or we run the risk of people constantly posting and bumping their own stuff constantly to stay on top/relevant. I’m just thinking worst case scenario here. I would personally love to have some kind of mentorship/teaching section, but that would be something else that would most likely need it’s own contained branch off
Thanks everyone for the fantastic responses and considerations. Based on the responses, I think we’ll move forward opening up a section on the forum to highlight the distribute-able work of our community members - I want to encourage these types of ventures from our community as much as possible.
On the other end of the spectrum, I agree with everyone’s concern about it being an opportunity for exploitative marketing, etc. We’ll have to try it and see if we can keep it under control, or evolve once it becomes a problem.
I’ll try and get this setup in the next few days (work is busy).
It’s live! Go forth and share your content!
great! will edit & update the catagory for my post right away!
thanks Keith!
I think it’s a good idea
and not in need of moderation
as long as you do two things.
Charge a nominal fee. That’ll keep people from just spamming crap. It’ll offset your site costs. It’ll give you a contact point and clear account to block if something goes shady or you get complaints.
Add a rating to it that can only be voted by members in good standing or contributors.
Always sort those pages by rating, not by time posted.