Asset creators not supporting their work

This is getting annoying. They need to start getting strict on sellers supporting their work.

At least a rating system in editor to let you rate if its clearly documented, matches description, does not throw error codes, has support by creator and response time.

As well, creators should have to keep their products updated often enough to not be broken by updates, runs without errors. With a strict deadline to fix your items or its suspended, and eventually removed.

Free assets can be more lenient, but still needs to run without errors. at least a warning that its been flagged for not working with newer versions.

None of the paid City building game kits/Templates fully work with the 5.6 and 2017 versions.
The free one, lacks documentation, not commented, though its a little more recent, yet seller is awol for help on how to actually use it.

There are many other assets out there like this.

 

I might have a different experience but only because I don't trust third parties.

Basically you can't assume someone else will be alive\available\free to support an asset forever(Or even a week after you buy it), it's just insane to expect otherwise. So if you do purchase an asset, ensure you get the source files (For code and art) so that you can incorporate it into your library\workflow\package manager and support it yourself.

It's the only way I would ever buy an asset if I were to personally get one and it's the way the company I work at works. There are a few reasons for this:

• Asset store assets are usually terribly laid out for sane project structure
• Asset store code is usually not amazing quality, it's best to use it as a base for a more maintainable solution.
• Any dependencies are managed really badly because the asset store is not a package manager, best to handle it yourself (Until the package manager becomes incorporated into the asset store).

 

I get your point. Can we at least get "not supported" flags? List an asset on the store. If you still offer support for the asset, then log in at least every other day to ensure the flag is still set to "Supported".
Basically like a dead hand of sorts. You don't keep the trigger active, and ignore customers emails, then don't click the trigger. A report button for those who see "supported" but haven't heard from dev in weeks. after 3 or more unique reports the flag goes back to "not supported".
The not supported assets get dropped low in search results.
Creator dies...then its still up with a "not supported/updated" warning. As well, if somebody dies, Unity store system should be able to recognize that the dev is no longer withdrawing money. Send Email to confirm if they are still kicking.
If no reply, then respectfully remove it, or offer it for free, until next of kin finds out and takes over the funds.

Like I said, it would be great for customers, as well as saving Unity's server space. The old ones that are way back from versions 4 and early 5 that get no support or editor updates, have bad reviews are still sitting there taking up space.
The store's search still pulls them up high on the results because they have been downloaded so much.

Epic has a similar issue with Unreal's store

 

There doesn't seems to be much incentive for asset creators to support their assets, since they don't stand to earn more money by doing so.

If you're not satisfied with the asset you got you should get your money back and buy something else.
Being able to get a refund is probably the only benefit of using the asset store anyway.

 

I find the star systems helpful.
If an asset has 5 stars, then you have a good incentive to provide support. Even one let down customer can bring that down to a 4 stars if leaves a 1 star review. And you know he'll never change that review ever. So you better work really hard to solve the problem fast. And at the very least, don't make the same mistake again on future Assets.

Sure some assets will have hundreds of 5 stars, so a single 1 star won't change. But if you have that many happy customers, you can say the developer's not doing such a bad job anyway.

 

From what I read, getting a refund is like chasing and shooting a deer with a pellet gun. Keep after it long enough, you might be able to get the job done.
Has refunds gotten easier now?


About the incentive.
Thats what I'm saying. Don't support your product? Fine, store slaps that label on there, and your sales decrease.

I guess its just gotten to where people ONLY do it for the profit. Sort of a "set it and forget it" method.

I can understand if you spent weeks on an asset, only to be able to use or need it for your main game profits anymore, so you slap it up there for a fee and say "here, I made it for something else. Use it how you like, but I need some cash for it. Not gonna help or update."
Ok. That level of "as is" honesty would keep the sales decent without the refunds.

OMG thats the word I'm looking for. As is. Thats the tag they can use. Eula terms describe the as is, as well as a quick hover description. There ya go.

Devs don't want to support or update can set as is. no refunds as long as it matches description and at least works in the original uploaded editor version. Unity updates break it? no refunds for that sorry as is.

 

Now we gotta just get people to review more lol.
Ebay has that problem.
good product, 2k sales, only 400 feedback.

 

I agree. Maybe reviewing gets you points, like frequent flyer miles, and can get you discounts! :3

 

Naw see, this is how you do business.

The cupons they have been giving away to everyone that
Should have been for those who left a review and new buyers only.
So lets say they have a 5% anything coupon.
"Here's 5% off you very first purchase on asset store"
"review the item you purchased, and get 5% off your next purchase. Coupons do not stack"
That way, only the people who left a review gets the coupon, and people gonna be leaving reviews to get it.

When they decide to go mad and make the 20% off coupons, make it a special event.
You need to have every item you downloaded reviewed in order to get Our Madness Special 20% anything!

 

That sounds pretty good to me. People are usually more prone to complain that recommend. Generally, I feel that a large bunch of good reviews would indicate a solid product.

Speaking for myself, I'm not sure that rewarding giving a review with a coupon would yield trustworthy results. If the incentive is getting something and not the recommendation itself, I think the value of the review diminishes. It's like giving in-game rewards in mobile games for 5-star reviews - not the ideal path to go down.

 

I see what your saying though. Thought of that myself, hence give the reward the review, good or bad.
Give the reward, not just for clicking stars, but also saying something. Possible 30 char minimum.
It would be an interesting social experiment. Your Gonna get the coupon, may as well be honest about the review...but will they?
And of course the positives would encourage the Creators to keep up with it. Slack off and see those stars drop, and sales drop with it...uh oh, gotta fix it.

Double positive reinforcement wammy. Sets customers mind to giving reviews, sets Creators to support their stuff.
Never know till you try.

 

I think your complaints are all pretty valid.

There's more on the publisher side too though - assuming the publisher is a decent and responsible person. For one thing the tools to publish assets are pretty bad, if you want to support multiple versions of Unity it means doing one of these things:

• pollute your code with version conditions everywhere there is an issue
• raise the minimum unity version for the asset
• stay on an older version and deal with warnings in the console
• lack of support for newer unity versions.

Lots of publishers go ahead and jump through hoops to do this right but for something so common it is - imo - way too cumbersome to support.

Aside from tools, there's also the consideration of incentive to update the asset. If it's not making money then the publisher has to wonder if they should update it to make it better or just cut his losses and let it float as is. That's a valid choice that all businesses make but I think your complaint that it's difficult to identify these types of products is a fair point. Although I'm not sure it's really significantly different than buying other products in the real world where there also aren't always any guarantees and virtually everything becomes obsolete at some point.

I do think there could - and should - be better constraints and standards for aging assets, like being set to some kind of 'inactive' state where you can buy it but are at least aware that there's not much activity on it, or some tangible patterns to identify bad products like a lot of bad reviews or extremely low/missing sales over a long period of time. Some sort of 'grey' state that the publisher should definitely try to rectify and would reflect poorly if they didn't. This could be entirely automated and require minimal man hours to support and the conditions could be throttled to make it less imposing if necessary.

I don't think it's a panic situation. Sure things are a little messy and can be improved but it's not a deal breaker issue and it's extremely unlikely we'll see any significant improvement implemented on this topic in the next year even if they started experimenting with improvements today.

 

It's a decent point, but I'd fear that the second you put an incentive at the end of a task, you'd get people to do the task for the incentive alone. I've worked with similar 'gamified' systems, where you'd get points for commenting on something which led to people just writing really short non-sensical comments on everything they could, and there wasn't even any use for those points.

 

Personally, when I buy something from the asset store, I pretend that it comes with no support, updates etc. That way I value it based on what I bought and researched myself. If it is not as advertised or doesn't work I just avoid anything else from that seller. Refunds don't bother me unless it's an absolute blatant breach of sale.

 

A "Not Supported Anymore" flag would be easy to add. Sensible and simple.

There are any number of assets devs who work tirelessly to support their products over long time-spans - these tend to be the guys who make a living from selling assets. You just need to build up a list of these devs whose products suit your games.

 

The best Not Supported Tag resides in the reviews. Instead of looking at the default Top Reviews, which can and are gamed by competitors, look at the list from most recent down.

Check the most recent reviews. People often will post when they do not get support. If there are no reviews at all or none for the last 6 months, then that is a red flag.

If you are unsure, send the developer an email and ask. I have done that before and one time it even spurred the developer to post on his forum thread!

See if they have a Unity forum thread. If so, read. You will without a doubt see all sorts of complaints if they do not support their product. Also, you can check the developer's profile and see when they were last on. What hurts is when they were on last week but did not visit their forum thread to answer questions.

Also...developers are people too. They have family problems, get sick, need to travel and many have day jobs. They also charge very low, below market prices for their items. Many sales make up for the hours they work on the asset so they can sell at a lower price. BUT, each person who requires support multiplied by all the people who bought that item, some of them very new to Unity, or cannot code at all, or have no idea what they are doing, adds a ton of support time and the assets do not bring in enough income to justify that much support time. I have a lot of developer friends and some of them go out of their way to help. Hours and hours and hours are spent on support. And often, the problem lies with the user, not the developer.

I do not buy assets that have not been supported. I do my research. I check forum threads. I ask people. I read all the reviews. I do not ask for refunds and would not unless the assets are absolutely broken. I also do not expect high quality support from a $15 asset. I expect more from a $100 asset, but I do not expect the developer to teach me to code, or to use Unity, or to use a 3d modeling program, or any of those sorts of things. Some assets are just not for beginners. Ask questions before you buy to make sure your skill level is equal to the task.

Many do. I imagine for complicated assets, the support required is overwhelming.

 

I always look at the version of Unity it was uploaded with. That's a good indicator of what versions of Unity it will work with. For models or textures I'm a bit more lenient, but for code I wouldn't buy an asset that was more than a few releases behind. So for 2017.3, I wouldn't buy any code asset uploaded with a version prior to 2017.1.

As far as from the publisher's side, I have a few assets on the store, and the process is indeed overly cumbersome. To support multiple versions you need to install all those versions. Then you need to move your project from version to version, with all the opening a project from an older version of Unity wait time, and manually upload the project. It can take an hour or more from start to finish to go through the process, for an asset that the publisher might get $20 per month in revenue (my 1 small code asset "3rd Person Camera Controller" is lucky to bring in $20 a month - I have a minor update for it I want to push out right now but I haven't yet due simply to the hassle, though its not a compatibility update).

 

That's definitely a thing, some of the problems the store has with assets are self inflicted, poor tools, feedback, interactivity, ease of use, versioning, etc.

 

Fair point. Maybe that's all we need, a disclaimer about using the asset store telling you not to expect help?

Glad you got the money not to fret about it if it's bad lol. My budget tells tells me if i spend $30 or more and its junk...Rampaaaaage!

 

Actually, that might not be a realistic expectation.

To provide continuous support the asset creator should be getting monthly revenue stream from their assets that is large enough to be comparable to full-time or part-time job, if that's one person team.

If they aren't getting this kind of income from the assets, treat their asset as "provided as is without warranty of any kind". Given that markett covered by Unity Asset Store is tiny, a lot of content will fall into this category (I remember how SabreCSG went free, because it wasn't generating enough cash for the creator).

And, yeah, having "unsupported" tag/asset type would be great.

 

Obviously not expecting pro corporate level support from cheap or free.
At least least have clear usage documentation on your cheap items.
Freebies are free for a reason...its always a surprise getting help with those.

Yes creators have lives. Hence why the as is tag. And a grace period of non support.

Engines with asset stores like Unity and unreal... Why no clear list of changed codes and their replacements on update?

Yeah, i see stuff like if they did an update:
We changed WorldToScreen to GetPointerRay.

Ok. Docs take awhile to update.
Simply replacing text doesn't work 'because implementation changed.

I can see that delaying updates.
I guess where i'm on a tight budget, i just expect a lil more quality for cash spent lol. I admit I do get jealous of those who can gamble away cash on an asset, turns out to be crap, and they just say "oh well" and go about their day.

 

The way I see it, an asset creator has an obligation to:

- Support the latest Unity version, at a minimum;
- Make sure there is a decent documentation and it is up to date;
- Make sure that the asset works as described;

Anything beyond that is icing on the cake, and in my mind not obligatory. However, it's really not that hard to provide support for an asset (at least the ones I've made). I hear a lot of comments along the lines of support being a huge burden, but at least for me, it's quite rare I have to do it, and usually quite easy to deal with. If you know your asset well, it doesn't take a long time to explain how something works. If it's a bug, well it's sort of your obligation to fix it.

As far as Unity version support goes, I think this is potentially a huge sinkhole of time for a developer, and if a customer wants to stick to an obsolete version they should not expect free support.

Also, I agree @firejerm about the 'dead trigger' flag to make sure asset developers are showing up, that's a pretty good idea.

The biggest problem I think for getting a good rating system working, is that from what I've seen ratings are either made right after a product is purchased (positive - mostly based on features) or down the line when a problem is found (negative - specific problem). Rather than sending an email, I'd prefer if Unity had a weekly in-editor popup to rate purchased assets, although that'd probably make a few people upset.

 

This is interesting to me.

I just released my first asset 12 days ago. -It's not a paid asset. It's free- and I specifically uploaded it using 5.6.4 to illustrate that it had backward compatibility, even though I developed the asset using 2017.3.
Now I'm glad I didn't back-port it to 4.6.

I've always considered the date of the last update, not the minimal version. If an asset hasn't been updated in a year... I know the dev don't care.

 

When you backport you can upload it with multiple versions, and the appropriate one will download to the user based on their Unity version. On all my assets right now they say they were uploaded with 5.4.0 and 2017.1. That's the major hassle though for the publisher. For a code asset uploaded with 5.6.4, I'd be hesitant to grab it unless I saw a comment in the description or a review that said it worked great in 2017.x. I plan to reupload all my published assets when 2018.1 releases, even though I'm expecting no changes needed, just so people are sure that it works with 2018.

 

My default expected quality is documentation + sample scene.
Maybe update when a new version comes out especially if it breaks something.

But spending 6 hours in voice chat figuring out the issue on your side.

Because it is not really possible, due to scope. I'm not sure about size of unity, but expect it to be comparable to Unreal 4. UNreal 4 source is 300 megabytes of text. An update can introduce plenty of changes, and additionally any of those changes can introduce unexpected side-effects that will break YOUR project.

Speaking of which unity usually does try auto-fix deprecated features during project upgrade.

--------

Either way I usually do not buy anything at all in the store. SO I might not be the best person to speak about it.

 

I really do not think a disclaimer is necessary.

Think about it...these are simply other developers. With the exception of a few, they are not big companies.

You can avoid problems by doing research on the forum, reading reviews, or asking people you know.

Also...if you are going to buy a $300 asset, think very carefully about that one. Paying $300 for 3d modeling software from a large company that has been around for a long time is one thing. Paying $300 for an asset on the store that....has bad reviews already is not a good idea.

Several reasons for that....developers cannot support products forever. Lives, jobs, time, family, lots of changes.
Deprecating assets....changes in Unity make some assets not work anymore and sometimes if not enough sales were made it is not worth updating...and the more expensive the asset in many cases, the less sales were probably made.
$300 is a lot to lose.

Do people actually buy stuff without research? I research things I buy on Amazon.

 

Buyer beware.

You bought the product. You didn't hire somebody to make your game for you.

 

No, but I don't think you should have to go to extreme lengths and waste a lot of time trying to find out every component of a product before you buy it.. If they sell it the minimum expectation is it should work as described, if not dependent on where you live it becomes a legal matter where you're entitled to a refund.

What would happen if you released a half baked product on Steam with a bunch of bugs? Everyone would get refunds, you'd get neg'd into the ground and that's it for you really.

The simple solution is, if you're not willing to support it take it off the asset store..! We should have the option to report said tool as "unsupported" as well if they can't be bothered.

I'll quote @Aieth here #757:

https://forum.unity.com/threads/scion-filmic-post-processing.339703/page-16

I do fully understand where asset store dev's are coming from, I looked into selling an RGI solution which would either cost a silly amount of money (which is pointless as it'd only appeal to teams with decent budgets who have their own graphics engineers). Or I could sell it for cheap but it'd probably never get the attention it deserves, so I wouldn't..

On the other hand a game dev trying to "smörgåsbord" a product together as a commercial (or potential commercial) developer does an injustice to you and your end users. You need to be able to support and optimize your product, it's not the end users fault or concern that the asset store developer gave up on their weekend project and you're stuck clueless about a concept too advanced at your current skill level..

If you're not using the asset store as anything more than a time saver there's bigger problems on the horizon anyway. Neither really should you be using the asset store as a crutch for the inadequacies of an engine, it's 2018 there are better options with long term support out there if your project requires it.

Note: I use you / you're as a generic term, doesn't mean YOU specifically.
Second note: Of course a lot of this is "common sense" I've bought vertex painting tools etc. just because it was $5.00 and seriously most of us have bigger fish to fry.

 

I think we should define what we mean by 'support'. Support can mean bugfixing and adding features, or it might mean answering emails with lengthy explanations of how to customise the asset to some particular use case, and the expectation of support whenever some integration of it into a project goes wrong.

If an asset works as described and has adequate documentation, a sample scene, and is bug-free, I don't think the developer has any obligation to 'support' the product besides making sure it works with the latest version of Unity at all times. Basically I think that in this case, as far as obligations go, even with a code package it should be possible to basically forget about it once you've made it.

Whether or not this approach is a good idea is a different story - personally, I think it's a good idea for the developer to be contactable, and to respond to questions at least about the base product itself, if not customisations of it. But depending on the asset, it might not be worthwhile - e.g. if you made some kind of procedural universe creator a la No Mans Sky, I imagine support would be a very heavy load since the asset would be not just extremely complicated, but very likely customers will want to make many low-level changes. So I look at this part as a bit of a case-by-case thing, and not an obligation.

 

I was surprised to get a response from a dev for a free kit lol. Even though it was a simple question.(there was an object instanced...but took 3 different scripts to do and was buried in uncommented code) The rest was fine.
Yeah, I suppose the word "support" does need defining.
I don't mean answering emails nor forum posts.

Clear documentation and regular updates/serious bugfixes. Maybe responding to serious bugs in posted in the asset review...maybe.

 

I bought it couple years ago before the bad reviews and lack of support. Its finally off the store, yet seller is still pawning it on his own site. Claims its still updated...but that was supposed to be the case in the asset store. Problem was, that seller created it in 5.0, opened it in 5.6, ignored errors and reupped it to the store. Those with pro skills who can find and fix the errors quick, still left 5 star reviews. There was even a video tutorial showing the errors that pop up, but ignoring them. wtf. As we can see by reviews, there are other assets done in a similar way.

My issue is like what ShadowK said. Customers of any kind SHOULDN'T have to jump through hoops to find out if its good or not. We shouldn't have to research to find out if something has bugs or not.

You know how it goes: Make something. Engine updates and breaks v.1. Fix the problem and clear error messages.
Without fully testing the thing, you may have cleared the errors, but broken functionality for something else...or Update did. Now, these Items can have good reviews. Because they were bought when Store had them front page before an update. Since not everyone leaves a review, or changes the one they left...new buyers don't know its broken.

If the Store gave Creators the option of as is, and they got strict about it, it would help.

Also Amazon and ebay specifically marks items and categories as refundable or not.
Beauty and Health is not returnable on Amazon. Adult toys are not supposed to be returnable but the things I've seen in returns....*warflashback.webm*
But they do have a store wide "item significantly not as described".
Digital products are easier to do snad as the store team can actually check the product.

But of course, you have to dig and jump through hoops to find customer complaints in forum posts that says refunds are hard to do.

 

Problem is there are a lot of half baked games on Steam with bugs. I read reviews of the all the time and some have been sitting there for 2 years or more without any support or any updates. Steam, I guess, figures that people will just stop playing the games when they read the reviews. Who pays for a Steam game without doing research, at the very least reading the reviews? Reporting as unsupported is not a bad idea, I just do not think it will solve the problem, which is motivating developers to continue supporting assets. It will instead, probably demotivate. You will lose that asset anyway.

I absolutely agree with the refunds. That is something Unity should be doing better at. However...the fake refunds are so huge that how is Unity to tell the difference? Steam allows refunds as long as the game has been played for less than a specific time. How would that work for Unity? Someone needs Gaia to make a terrain. They buy it, they spend a couple of hours making a terrain and then ask for a refund? The user already has Gaia, safely stored on their computer. At least they will suffer when it needs an update but models might never need an update.

If you buy something on a seller's store, you are taking that risk, like you are when you buy anything online. Not much you can do about that.

I do agree that being able to mark something as unsupported would help, but what exactly does that mean? Other users already mark things as unsupported in the reviews and in the forum threads. So Unity would put a big stamp on the front? I do not see reading reviews and forum threads as jumping through hoops. Seems like a smart thing to do. Why is it so hard? I am not even a smart coder and I can do it.

The best solution? Allow asset developers to charge for support, especially on highly complicated assets that have been around for years. Give them the ability to charge for updates. This would motivate more asset developers to stick around and continue to update. Maybe fewer customers, but at least they would get paid for the support they give. Realize, that to some people an update means getting what they want for their own game or more integrations, not just updating for Unity. They are asking for this for free.

I think the sales were great for getting assets updated...only items that were updated could be included in the sale.

But now, less sales, a new asset store that makes it difficult to find what you want, and hides non-featured assets, along with more and more asset users crying that $50 is too much to charge for an asset....and yet expecting more and more integrations, more and more added features, etc., is making the asset store much less friendly already to developers. We are losing guys that DO give support.

I fear that this is probably more about developers losing their motivation to update because they find that their time that is sucked up helping people who do not know how to use Unity or code, and expect far too much out of the asset developer, than it is about anything else. Maybe the new asset store too..unfortunately.

I like to help people. But a large percentage of the time, I am on Skype or Discord and our conversation ends with...but I cannot code, I cannot hire a coder..my dream is dead.

Wow, that is demotivating. Makes me not want to help people. Sadly, many of these folks do not even want to learn. They just want it to be done for them. How is that fun??

 

In my spare time over 3 decades I learned 2d/3d art, game design ( by making board games), programming in 6 languages, to get where I am today. But if you tell that to a kid, they wont believe you, damn kids these days.

 

Here is the crux of the argument.

It could go on forever, because what it really boils down to is upset customers emotional response to inconvenience. You think it is annoying to spend time studying products before you buy them, imagine being the creator and having to jump through some serious hoops to get your work published on the asset store.

Already there is a long wait to have your work reviewed, and just how do you think the already over-burdened system will respond when each content publisher has to go through some kind process to prove that they are going to continually and indefinitely support their work so that, say three years down the road, some customer doesn't have to spend a few hours learning something new in order to fix a bug?

 

Same here and realistically if someone is unwilling to make use of a feature that practically every major store provides to assist with making a purchasing decision what are the chances they'll pay any attention to a warning label that pops up directly in front of them?

 

Even if you do that stuff, does it actually guarantee that the purchases you make are good?

I've purchased a few highly regarded assets that I still didn't think were worth including in my projects for various reasons. Does that mean the reviews were wrong? No, it means that my needs / circumstances / expectations weren't in line with those of the people writing the reviews.

I do look at reviews, but it's really about finding out if there are common, valid complaints. Past that I find that the only way to usefully evaluate an asset is to buy it and take it for a test drive. One of the benefits of the low Asset Store pricing is that this isn't too unreasonable.

And honestly, considering those prices just how much support can vendors really afford to give? When the prevailing trend is to expect assets to sell for less than the cost of an hour's worth of work we need to be realistic about the amount of support those vendors can afford to give.

To be honest... I'd love to know how things would go if there was a higher quality bar backed by higher prices.

 

Ditto, there are a lot of valid points about product quality but would people really pay higher prices if the issues were addressed? I tend to think no, at some point that quality would be the bar and competition would trickle pricing backward or the majority would settle to pay less for an inferior product.

 

I would also like to know. However, I think the problem is that in a lot of cases, if you sort of go by the statistical price of a piece of software with a given complexity, asset store products are rather expensive. For the same price you can buy some software that has taken a team of people years to develop.

The difference is that the customer base for the asset store stuff is often, compared to a stand-alone software product, very very small. And even within the asset store, there's a lot of variation - someone making a package of uber image effects is going to have a much wider customer base than someone making, for example, a HUD package for jet fighters, even though support for the latter would probably be much more of a burden.

The question is, does it really make sense to value the asset store packages so much higher just because the customer base is small, and then require all sorts of things from the developer? I'm not sure that customers would still value the packages the same way. I would hazard a guess that they would simply look at the package as a very expensive bit of software and compare it to, e.g. Photoshop or Substance or something else, and wonder why they should pay so much.

That's the main reason why I feel there must be a way for code asset developers to basically make a product, throw in enough documentation and demo scenes, and basically move onto something else. Otherwise there's just no way to create an ecosystem in which everybody wins.

 

Not everyone would.

But maybe selling 10 copies of one $100 asset would be much better than 100 copies of a $10 asset. Income is the same either way, but wouldn't one prefer only 10 people demanding support than 100? Honestly, I think it is simply how much you as the developer think your time is worth.

Obviously, higher quality assets can charge more money. Vegetation Studio is doing fine. There are plenty of assets over $50 and some even higher that do well. Maybe they will not sell as many as the $20 asset would, but again, support will be more reasonable and a good chances the developers will be more serious and maybe a tad bit more experienced.

Models and simple scripting assets will probably require much less support time but they do require a lot of creation time.

Our own experience indicates that it is the very complicated assets, such as ocean shader systems, AI systems, and networking assets that really go down due to the developers not being able to handle the support. Maybe these are the types of assets Unity should absorb...or make their own for the engine.

 

There is, but the community is far more active at weeding out problem developers. A lot of products on the asset store have the odd one or two reviews and some are in complete contrast to each other, with game dev being so complex you're never really sure if it's the developer or the end user although it's generally a good sign when the dev try's to pro-actively resolve the matter.

In terms of motivation there's any number or reasons a dev may stop supporting an asset, life / job / family / boredom / change etc. whilst I think paid updates would be a positive thing it won't resolve the matter..

In terms of refunds you should have to supply logical reasoning, screenshots of actual errors (not one's people fabricated) and copy in correspondence between the developers (both via e-mail and Unity forums).. With e-mail you could just say "the dev never got back to me", if you post on the forums and you still get ignored it's for everyone to see (within a reasonable time frame at least, lets say a week)..

It will delay refunds but it will cover all parties, you should give the asset developer time to respond. Also specifying support length like @Aieth did IMO is a great idea, if you said you'll provide support for one year after the product is released (which is average for most purchased sales) everybody knows where they stand.. After that years up you can then re-evaluate whether or not you want to continue supporting the product.

Here's the tricky bit:

I've bought a few quite well known products where the performance was un-acceptable and had to pretty much re-write the thing from the ground up..

The asset probably would of worked fine in a game that had a lot more budget to play with, but accumulations of 2-4 ms can't happen in larger projects so it was essentially useless to me. Do I deserve a refund in this case?

 

I have stopped buying from the asset store altogether for the past few months. I was always on the lookout for plugins that extend unity's capabilities, but one by one, many of those I bought got deprecated. Some, I never got to use, I bought them for future planned projects when they were on sale, so money completely wasted. But then there are others that I already utilized in my projects, which might not work in a future unity version.They will probably cause massive headaches in future updates.
As long as compatibility with future versions is not guaranteed, I am very reluctant to invest in the Asset Store any further.

 

I think unity could introduce some automated system that shows if asset at least compiles with certain versions of unity. When a new version rolls out the assets that are not compatibile with it coud be marked as deprecated in a very visible way after some grace period. Also it woud really help if asset creators were requied to specify with systems it supports.

 

Yeah, buying assets are tricky. I have a number too that when I finally tried them in my projects, they were simply not optimized enough for us to use. I tossed quite a few, and many were made by well known respected asset developers.

On the other hand, we bought a new nice powerful laptop, and 8 months later, we had to send it back to get fixed because it just stopped working.

Difference is that the laptop is a physical object, while the asset is virtual. Difficult to return.

I do like the idea of the asset developer guaranteeing a year of support or whatever. What would be better is if they have the option to add an upgrade for a second year of support. Seems like that would be easy for the asset store to add.

I do not ask for refunds on things that simply did not work for me. I suppose if there is a long drawn out process to approve refunds based on proving they bought the item, etc., that might work...but remember, who would know if that asset was actually taken off their computer? Now we have the problem with distribution of stolen assets that will no longer have an invoice attached to them.

Not sure there is a perfect solution to this problem. Developers cannot pledge to support a product forever. That really is ridiculous when many developers are young people whose lives change drastically. Yet, we can never be certain if an asset we buy will work 2 years down the road. I have started only buying things I need now, even if not on sale. It works. I probably lost more money on deprecated assets I bought 2 years ago that now do not work with the current version of Unity.

Buy when you need it. Read reviews and forum posts. Ask the developer questions, by email if you must. If any flags, no response, not present in their own forum, not responding to reviews, then do not buy it. If source code is include and you can code, buy it and fix it yourself. If you cannot code, try visual scripting, go take a udemy class, hire a programmer, or find a friend who can code. My son learned C# with a Udemy class.

I get that you guys are frustrated. I feel the same way. But there are so many things in the world that take up my frustration time and something this simple and yet so complex to solve (refunds of virtual goods) just are not something I can do anything about. I would rather make my game with the solutions that work and then force my programmers to do the rest.

 

That's why features supported in Unity are lot better in the long term than relying on Asset Store.

 

True true. thats if they don't get "updated" and broken too lol.

I guess as far as the argument goes, its probably just my mindset of being on a tight budget now. (wasn't the case years ago). I guess its just where I can't afford to flat out buy something on a gamble and pray the positive reviews are correct.

Note: my complaint is not the assets where it says 5.6, the package is 5.6 and I have 2017...obviously something may break there.

I'm talking about the ones who "game" the update system by: Code is 5.3, they load it into 5.6...compiler errors. then just zip that back up and throw back in store as updated. Claims it is beginner freindly and updated to latest engine.

Also, yea, bannered disclaimers are easier to see than sorting through reviews. again reviews can get skewed by top level coders, reviewing something that was claimed "beginner freindly".

An example is a simple drag drop UI. Marked easily customizable for noobs. basic tutorial of usage..cool.
Until you get into it...the object instancing is done with 4 freakin scripts that don't make a lick of sense to my mid level knowledge...


To those saying: "lern2code, get gud, fix it yourself, blah blah"... you know some of us buy scripting assets and tools to SPEED up our project and dev time, not slow it down by adding something that throws 50 errors to search for and fix after you just spent cash on it. I mean, thats just a waste of money...but I guess those who gripe at me about my complaints have that kind of cash to gamble away.

I'm done with this thread. MODS can close it if they want to.

 

The value of an asset to me has nothing to do with how much effort the developer put in, and everything to do with how much time it saves me. Games take freakin' ages to make, and every moment I'm spending creating something I could have grabbed off a shelf is a moment I'm not working on my game's unique strengths.

With that in mind, quality is important. Yes, I'm pretty sure I'd be willing to spend more on quality stuff - stuff where I know I don't have to worry about garbage collection, that I know is optimised to run on modest hardware, that considers my workflow and scalability. Those things translate to shipping sooner, shipping more confidently or with less stress, and/or putting more effort into the unique parts of my games.

Please note that when I said earlier that there are highly rated assets that I don't end up using, the opposite is also true. There's a bunch of great assets I've used which I may well have paid significantly more for.

The catch is that while there's a mixture of both of those on the storefront I'm actually somewhat hesitant to pull the trigger on any (non-trivial) purchase.

 

You won't see me arguing with this line of reasoning, and I myself would be very happy with an asset store that has very high quality and high price (not to mention that I'd like to see games themselves go this route, but that's another story). But I'm not sure that the average customer would see it the same way, so the question is whether changing the business model of the asset store would actually result in the same revenue.

The problem is that on the asset store you can find any number of products that would only complete say 5% of a game, but due to the range of different end uses and possibilities that the developer must provide to customers, it takes them a lot of time to develop and polish it, and potentially requires (according to the average customer's definition of support) a lot of support. If one of these assets was priced at $100-200 instead of $25-50, the average customer might decide against buying it on the basis that it costs too much and doesn't do enough.

Now reasonable or not, this is fine as it's their choice to make - but what is the impact on sales for the developer? Because if people aren't buying your stuff it doesn't matter whether it's priced to cover costs or not.

So I agree with your point of view about the asset store, but the question is, what must change besides price in order to balance the number of sales/revenue with the number of customers/support? Maybe people are used to the current prices, and might see price hikes as being unreasonable, and won't buy. And maybe this notion of what price is 'right' is anchored in something outside of the asset store, maybe some dubious correlation between game prices and asset store purchases, or, more likely, not being very aware of the fact that the products that the asset store offers are by and large very niche and cater to a much, much narrower customer base compared to perhaps some of the mass-marketed software they buy in their day-to-day lives.

 

That is the purpose of the assets. Unfortunately, a lot of people think that the assets are their to replace there need to code or even understand how to use Unity. That is where a huge amount of the support comes from that overwhelms the developer.

A complete project, maybe. But most assets must be integrated and must be tweaked for your project. They are not a replacement for knowledge of the engine and the skills needed to make games.

 

Personally I don't expect too much support from relatively cheap assets. I avoid buying those without source code, so that I can make it work myself. Most assets in the asset store fall in this category, they are great deals as compared to developing the tool, template or 3d models ourselves.

However for assets costing >80usd I believe it goes to the territory of properly commercial pricing. And for those I do expect the author to at least support the claimed functionality to the most recent unity version for at least 2-3 years.

 

This whole thing comes down to the fact that the average developer can't sell on the UAS. Because of the tremendous time to support.

And yes, I have tried to submit a little helper package to the UAS (creating icons out of 3D assets) for free. I spent two weekends on it.
When they refused my submission they told me, I need a website and I have to make sure I will support my package.

Well, okay, if you don't want my stuff for free and you demand more time beside my work, I can live without my stuff on the UAS. I have no time for that. Now, obviously as every nice guy I answer questions on the forums, even for the beginner guys (I was a beginner a long time ago, I understand that I would gave a leg and an arm for someone to answer my questions when I figured out the C64 Basic and Assembly programming when I was barely 10 years old...).
But _expecting_ support for a free package is just crazy.

I may upload my package to a free version control system and share regardless, but I won't submit anything the UAS, that's for sure.

I'm a one man show, I have no time to _ensure_ that I answer questions about Unity and how it works, neither answer that no, I won't make plugin for XYZ asset on the asset store, because I have no time for that.

If UAS would allow publishers to go separate ways, it would be better:
- free or cheap asset, no support
- middle stuff, with support strictly on the functionality
- expensive, maybe subscriber scheme for extensive support

But UAS has the same problem like the entire game market has. The $60 price tag. $15, $30 even $50 is just too small amount of money to spend hours on vague problems which usually turns out that it's a user error.
You can do the support yourself, so you don't work on updates, new goodies and you have to answer more questions about not coming updates and not coming plugins for the other UAS developer's hyped asset.
Or you can hire someone to do the support for you, and then you can't sell your asset on a low price, because otherwise you can't pay the guy who does the support.

What is the solution? Of course I have no clear answer. But thinking about it from both the users' and the developers' point of view is urgent and imminent.

ps.: Oh, and on the top of that. I live in California (SF Bay Area), guess how many $20 (which is $14 before tax) asset would I have to sell monthly just to pay for my one bedroom rental...