Livenda Labs - Beware

https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/livenda-labs-ctaa-htc-vive-beware.429509/

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...

An update again - 

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

Asset Store Ripoff

This thread is meant to enlighten the folks who can fall prey to frauds on the asset store and a clear indication of why you must research as much as possible before you buy an asset.

Also a strong suggeston to not rely on assets with facebook support and no forum thread.

I give this advice to everyone I know already, but this time I failed to practice what I preach because I was too excited about the asset.

You could say I asked for it and I agree with you.
The intention of this post is not to flame but to educate. 

Here's the forum thread which provides the free project from @High_Noon with his shader
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/guilty-gear-xrd-shader-test.448557/

Here's the asset store link
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/92792

When I downloaded the project the first thing I immediately did was to open up the shader code because I felt a certain amount of familiarity with the inspector parameter names on the shader.


For more details:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/fraud-an-asset-store-publisher-selling-copied-code-off-of-a-forums-free-project.485914/

Scam Market-place: gamegorillaz.com

This scam market-place does not pay its developers. They take your money, pirate the source-codes and assets, claim to advertise to market for you, and give you nothing.


https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/marketplace-owners-doesnt-want-to-pay-for-developers-need-help.471956/

"We are small team, who are mostly working on projects that could help for other developers to create their own projects. Before two months, we've received a letter where marketplace owners(Game Gorillaz) said that the payments will be delayed due to some kind of country problems. We said it is alright and we will wait for a respond, but after two months we still didn't got any answers from them. They said that all payments will be credited to developers accounts until 15th of March, but we haven't got any money. Now we think that they just appropriated our orders and tried to delay all our requests. We think that we're not alone and there is way more developers who didn't get they payments. So we would like to share this message and let everybody know that not every marketplace is good for developers who want to earn some extra money. Still, we tried to contact owners, but we didn't get any response. We have all orders with all customers who bought our projects. So, we would like to know is there any institutions which could help us to solve this problem, because were are thinking that there are tons of developers who are waiting their payments and can't get any response from owners."

Do not hire Qas Rum

https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/do-not-hire-collaborate-with-qas-rum.367975/


Something that constitutes a horror story happened to my team and I recently.
A little while back, we found somebody on the Unity collaboration forums named "Qas Rum." He Skyped me, interested in joining our team for a game abbreviated "SCP!". We were excited to have a new programmer on our team! Then, a few days ago, something horrific happened.
Read the conversation here.
TL;DR he is stealing the code from our project and using it for his own game. He said he wouldn't use my code, but he's going to "rewrite it the way it is exactly."

Now, I regret saying that I hoped his project failed, but I was livid at that point. He was being immature and completely, well, crappy about this whole situation.

Since he never emailed us or replied to the forum post, I only have his Skype contact info. His username is "vibee25"

If you ever meet someone with this Skype name, or the name "Qas Rum," run. They are not worth it.

1 year anniversary

This blog celebrates it's 1 year anniversary.


During this time, it has given notice to many scammers.

You can run but you can't hide.

These scammers have no integrity. After taking money, they think they can scam another victim. Now their deeds are shown publicly.

Ali Boukeroui

https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/so-there-is-this-guy-selling-the-unity-source-code.452342/

(This person is) a pirate. However it doesn't sound like he's selling the Unity source code, but rather source code of games or something made with Unity.

Beware of contractors outsourcing your projects (Arun, Jasmeet, AppMechanic, Paramjot)

So basically, there is a person name Paramjot Singh https://forums.unrealengine.com/memb...85163-Paramjot who uses multiple sources to get Game related jobs(mostly Unreal Engine 4) and outsource it a very cheaper price to other Unreal Engine 4 developers sometimes even 1/3rd the actual price. He doesn't inform the developer that he is hiring a 3rd party person to work on the task or the client that their work has been outsources and the amount he is actually taking.

Few months back I had hired him over upwork, this account https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/us...bce18f239b143/
And while going through a fb group https://www.facebook.com/groups/ue4jobs/, i found the exact details of my job being posted there, I tried to reach for the person who might have worked on the task and found out that he had hired the person only for 8$ per hour while he had charged me for 24$.

Later while browsing through the forums, i found out other posts where he was looking for jobs that had been just posted over upwork.
And he deleted all the forum posts when being approached about outsourcing the task. Although for the time the post was on forums, I was approached by multiple developers about working for him without knowing him to be a contractor.

I had asked the MOD to restore the post so others could be aware of it. But he again deleted it immediately.

Later when I asked upwork about it, they replied that action has been taken on the profile. https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/us...bce18f239b143/
I don't know the exact action but I think the profile is banned and I am not able to search him over upwork anymore.

Currently he made another id here on the forums to try to get jobs.
https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...ing-Animation)

Also he admitted on this post about outsourcing. But in reality Arun Kumar is a fake person probably his friend whose ID he has been using to get jobs and oursource them.
https://forums.unrealengine.com/show...270#post634270


Although a good thing about him posting on forums is I found out the current upwork id he has been using.
https://www.upwork.com/o/profiles/us...e1333369f1505/

I had a discussion with this person over upwork some weeks back and I didn't notice anything off until I found out some portfolio items on his and Arun's portfolio on forums were the same. I dug a little further on Facebook and found out that they both were on friend list. So I assume he is also using his another friends ID since original id Arun Kumar got locked.

I am not providing any facebook id links since it might not correct for privacy reason. And I didn't want any personal attacks on the person. But I wanted to post this to make the developers and the clients about the kind of scams going on our community.
But yeah, do check the forum links if you can before the person deletes them.

So yeah, if you worked for this person or gave him any tasks, you have been cheated really badly.

Dentola Studios

Dentola Studios is a shady indie developer peddling premade Unity store projects and trying to sell them via Steam Greenlight.


Article source:
http://mmofallout.com/greenlight-fraudsters-asset-flip-developer-dentola-studios-files-bogus-copyright-claim/

Scam Artist: Dentola Studios.
Type of Scam Artist: False EmploymentPosition of Scam Artist: Fake Employer

Resolution: No Cooperation
How to Detect:
Asset Flip
False DMCA filings
Poor or shoddy artwork
Does not pay for work done

Call of Duty plagarism

http://www.shacknews.com/article/95645/activision-invoked-dmca-law-to-remove-steam-game-that-stole-assets-from-call-of-duty


After discovering that Orion contained stolen assets from Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, Activision had the game removed from Steam (via GameSpot). The kicker: Orion director David Prassel seemed unaware of the theft.