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Is 5 bucks the new minimum on the Asset Store?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Justice0Juic3, Feb 9, 2019.

  1. Justice0Juic3

    Justice0Juic3

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    I was wondering about this because I was planning to buy assets this month. Then I noticed some of my wishlist items prices changed. I then did a check at the 3D Models section and filter on price and paid only.
    Are you telling me that I can no longer find $2.50 car models? Sorry if I'm missing out on some policy but I'm not a Asset Store publisher so that's why I'm asking.
     
  2. AndersMalmgren

    AndersMalmgren

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    Isn't texture maps quality etc a better guidance than lowest price?
     
  3. elmar1028

    elmar1028

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  4. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    This is not nice, I mean 1 cent ok I understand, but 1 dollar as minimum price should be fine.
     
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  5. Ostwind

    Ostwind

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    Those dollar or two assets probably meant store got flooded with hundreds of low quality assets or thousands of submissions per day while many could have been a single pack. Reviewing each one at some level probably costs more than 30% cut pays of especially if many of them are never even bought. Not sure if a 30 cent cut from a dollar asset even covers all transaction, support etc. expenses :p
     
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  6. Justice0Juic3

    Justice0Juic3

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    Definitely agree.
    And why don't we get informed by mail? Is Unity3D really that stupid not telling us this but still getting the useless "Hey lets get started" emails while someone is a 10+ year experienced developer? Sometimes I don't get it.
    Now let's wait until this topic gets locked usual *sigh*
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2019
  7. elmar1028

    elmar1028

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    I think that's also to encourage publishers to put more value into their assets. I personally wouldn't buy a single 3D model for $2 because it would lock me to look for models of a specific art style.

    Instead, I would look for a large model pack which was made by a single 3D artist who used same art style and modelling method.
     
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  8. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    It should be up to the seller to determine the price.

    Imagine Apple doing this, all payed apps are minimum 5 dollar, and all in app purchases are 5 dollar minimum too.

    Let's see how that goes.

    And don't forget people in countries with lower salaries may not have so much to spend.
    How is that working for diversity?
     
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  9. drcrck

    drcrck

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    good change, the amount of zero effort $0.99 trash was too high

    it should be solved with regional prices like on steam

    if unity had moderation as strict as apple has, the asset store would be 95% smaller
    also it's not fair to directly compare b2b and b2c markets
     
  10. elmar1028

    elmar1028

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    You can't compare Apple Store to Asset Store. Both serve different kind of consumers and provide different products.
     
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  11. Ostwind

    Ostwind

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    It was up to the sellers to decide the price and it did not work out. Based on some Googling the summary was pretty much the following (based on Unity info and seller posts): Not only Unity lost money but the asset sellers also lost money because low price assets were flooded to the market resulting in a reduced discoverability and unfair competition as some of these assets were flooded by the people you mentioned, low salary/developing country authors.

    Comparing to app store does not make any sense as asset store has a completely different and very limited audience. Even a professional, high quality asset can very limited amount of lifetime sales regardless if it's priced $1 or $10 due the nature of the industry.
     
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  12. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    But how will these assets that flooded the store at 1 dollar be any less of a nuisance at 5 dollar?
     
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  13. drcrck

    drcrck

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    publishers will clearly understand no one will buy their trash for this price so they won't even publish it
    maybe they'll even unlist their currently published stuff and try to sort and polish it to make some decent $5+ packs
     
  14. Justice0Juic3

    Justice0Juic3

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    In some way agree with the price compared to the quality over the asset but it triggered me because I finally earned my very first pennies from a game and the first thing I get is increased prices... ugh

    @drcrck I disagree with something you said. I'm the kind of guy that spends many pounds and gets like 10 assets instead of spending the same amount and get only 2 HQ assets. Just an opinion.
     
  15. Socrates

    Socrates

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    Take your cheap $1 asset and mark it up to $5. Put it on permanent 50% off sale so it looks like a huge value. Profit. :D
     
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  16. drcrck

    drcrck

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  17. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    So now the amount of $5 trash will be too high. How do you think this solves any problem?
     
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  18. drcrck

    drcrck

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    I already answered
     
  19. I'm glad asset flippers will have to pay more for assets. Also Asset Store's prices are artificially low. Every raise should be welcomed IMHO for the sake of all of us (make Asset Store sustainable again! and all that).
     
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  20. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    If you believe that, I've got a bridge out in San Fran I'd like to sell you. Big money making opportunity, just gotta set up a toll booth.
     
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  21. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    This. I love the thought behind it increasing the minimum value of assets sold on the store, but the actual reason for this change in policy is simply the cost of transactions is more than their cut from a one dollar asset. Transactions typically have both a percentage and a fixed amount charged. PayPal, for example, is 2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction.

    I'll welcome an increase if it leads the company to creating and maintaining a better store, but with the way the interface turned out last time they updated it I have no confidence that will happen.
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2019
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  22. I'm not interested in the debate of the greatness or wrongness of the "new" design of the Asset Store, we're over that for a while now.
    I was purely referring to paying the publishers more, because they're working for handful of beans right now and it deteriorates the quality of assets too, it's just matter of time.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 10, 2019
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  23. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    Well If the assets that were just one dollar before, like a simple low poly car model, are now 5 dollar each, not sure I'm gonna. spend the money on them.
     
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  24. Billy4184

    Billy4184

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    The lifetime revenue from a $1 asset is probably not enough to cover the time it takes for a reviewer to open the asset package.

    There are very few single art models on the store that have enough sells to even show a rating at all, especially at the lower price range. I think it's clear that people are generally looking for packs, and when they aren't, it's for something at least extraordinary enough in uniqueness and quality to be worth far more than $1.

    I think this is a great move. The asset store should not be a dumping ground for marked-down trinkets, it should be a place where asset creators solve big problems for a lot of customers simultaneously.
     
  25. Ostwind

    Ostwind

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    Which basically proves some of the earlier points in the thread :)

    Anyways with the new minimum price I think they begin to reject small, low quality submissions even more than before and require either more quality or more content per submission.
     
  26. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    I'm willing to bet they changed the minimum to $5 in the hopes that they won't have to do that instead.
     
  27. Justice0Juic3

    Justice0Juic3

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    I've seen this asset for quite a while, here's the point basically:
     
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  28. ShilohGames

    ShilohGames

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    But what happened to the $0.99 "trash"? Did it go away or did it simply increase in price? I'm guessing everybody affected by the price minimum simply adjusted their prices with no change to the assets themselves.
     
  29. Ostwind

    Ostwind

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    November 1, 2018 - We will no longer allow prices below $4.99, unless the asset is free. This will affect all new assets and updates to assets. Live assets will not be affected unless an update is submitted. All publishers who are affected are welcome to update their prices at this time.

    January 1, 2019 - We will update prices on publishers behalf at this time. Any asset that is priced less than $4.99, but is not free, will be raised to a $4.99 price point.
     
  30. drcrck

    drcrck

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    they are still there, listed for $5
    there is nothing much Unity could do about that
    I hope people won't buy it for this price and their creators will think next time before publishing anything of the same quality for $5
     
  31. hippocoder

    hippocoder

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    Various thoughts:

    1. payment pain
    Whenever a payment needs to be input, the user pain is actually around 5 dollars where below this amount, the effort of doing a payment outweighs the saving. It's a widely proven statistic from many stores / blogs online. It's a sweet spot where people don't actually care more for the asset than they do for the effort of inputting details to buy. So if your goal was to get more customers, $5 or free will do the same as $1.

    2. race to the bottom benefits the top
    Generally a race to the bottom hurts everyone except the top. Developers have to make cheaper, lower quality games because it makes no sense if it will only get a handful of dollar sales, and then the gamer is pressed toward AAA because AAA can also do it free, but have the quality. AAA has the reach to make microtransactions actually work, so this is trivial for them, but very hard for the indie.

    It's not actually that different for asset store. Check out Jason Booth's effort with Microsplat or Adam Goodrich's efforts with Gaia, Asset authors also have the option of paid upgrades.

    3. less is more, more or less
    $1 asset is likely to have no support, no care, no nothing. You can absolutely find these online for free at that quality. Heck, Unity themselves regularly dish out assets for free that would cost you hundreds in a store. So individuals below the poverty line - no, no and no. There's better or equal for free that you get for what used to be $1.

    If it's about looking after sellers with low income - sorry folks, it's not a charity. A store has to serve the buyer or there is no seller. Buyer comes first. Try making a bundle or something. Worst-case put some more effort in. I've been well, well below the poverty line and I don't buy any excuses. I know first hand that if you can access a computer, if you can get as far as building a store presence then you CAN get as far as the 5 dollar asset - which means you need 4 less customers to break even.
     
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  32. Billy4184

    Billy4184

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    Not to mention that there's no actual benefit in pricing your goods and services online relative to your own standard of living - the big benefit of selling online is that it doesn't matter whether you live in a thatch hut in a swamp, or in the middle of New York City, to the buyer it's all the same.

    I think most of the time, substantially lower prices are simply a way of saying 'don't blame me' for substandard quality.
     
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  33. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    I think this is probably a good thing?

    If something isn't worth $5, is it worth the effort of integrating into your game? I've paid a heck of a lot more than that for quite a few assets which I didn't end up using for one reason or another. Take transaction fees and QA costs into account... I think that this seems pretty reasonable.
     
  34. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    I don't think any of the $1 assets were worth integrating into a game either and $5 is still well within "impulse purchase" range. If anything, the $5 price tag makes them look more "legitimate."
     
  35. Kiwasi

    Kiwasi

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    Apple does enforce a minimum price on their store. As does Steam.

    The minimum price is different due to different markets, but its still there.
     
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  36. Lars-Steenhoff

    Lars-Steenhoff

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    yea its about one dollar, not 5. that was the point. anyway free assets are still allowed, hope they will stay. because all the arguments for going from 1 to 5 dollar also count for free assets.
     
  37. SmartMediaNL

    SmartMediaNL

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    Why just not set the minimum price to the shopping basket ? If you select an asset of $1 you need to select one or a few more others to reach the $5,- checkout limit.
     
  38. Murgilod

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    Because that's incredibly annoying on the end user.
     
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  39. SmartMediaNL

    SmartMediaNL

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    I guess overpaying for an asset is less annoying ;-)
     
  40. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    As opposed to paying more than $5 because you have to keep adding things to your cart and the numbers never add up perfectly?
     
  41. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    If you feel that it's overpriced don't buy it. It's not like the sub-$5 assets are generally worth buying either. The vast majority of the content worth buying starts at $20. Just as an example check out the following fantasy asset pack that would fit a Diablo-style game. For $20 you get hundreds of mobile ready assets. Check out Synty Studios for more examples.

    https://assetstore.unity.com/packag...-fantasy-game-fantasy-environment-assets-7101
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2019
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