Is this really how you guys run the asset store now?

So, yesterday, i tried to upload something to the asset store. This was something i have been waiting since the 3.5b update to release because i didn't want to upload it with 3.4 and it took you guys a while to update the asset store tools (which i don't have a problem with). BUT, today i receive an email telling me that it was rejected (again no problem yet, its happened to me before). BUT THEN... i read the email. That was the most unhelpful email any single person has ever sent me. It felt like I was reading a ****ing spam message. I remember about 6 months ago if I uploaded something, if it was rejected i at least got a personalized email from Caitlyn explaining what was wrong with it. So I fixed the problems and resubmitted and it was accepted. But in this piece of **** email from "Asset Store Admin" I received today the only thing it said was:

"We appreciate the time and effort you have taken to share your content with us. However, we have chosen not to publish it due to technical and aesthetic quality issues."

Ok... I understand you guys are getting more submissions than you were 6 months ago and dont have as much time to write back to the person for every package that gets submitted but what does "technical and aesthetic quality issues" mean? Keep in mind as far as I'm concerned there is nothing wrong with the thing I submitted, I tested it a lot. But I don't know what you guys think is wrong with it because you didn't explain it. In the notes to the person who receives it section, I said "I'm not sure if I uploaded it correctly, please tell me if I didn't" (because I was having problems with the uploader). So I'm guessing you guys didn't read the notes. So here's what im guessing happened (im probably wrong but because you guys didn't say what was wrong with the package, here's the impression i got):

Someone received the package, then when they opened it, they saw a poorly modeled A10 jet (its not my best work, but that isn't what the package is about, the package was about the scripts attached to the jet and helicopter). So someone saw that, said **** this, clicked a button that says reject, and another button that says "technical and aesthetic quality issues", and then it made an email from a template that looks like this:

Greetings,

Thank you so much for your submission to the Unity Asset Store.

We appreciate the time and effort you have taken to share your content with us. However, we have chosen not to publish it due to [insert reason here].

Kind regards,
The Asset Store Team

Again maybe I'm wrong, but that's the impression I'm getting from you guys.
I'm not going to try to force you guys to accept this package, but if you could tell people what is wrong the package, maybe people would be able to fix it, get it accepted, and then make money from it (remember everything you reject is lost money for you too, you take 30% of the profits, which again, I don't have a problem with that).

And if I'm way out of line somewhere in this, please let me know.

 

If you need feedback, why not post videos and information here about your project, and invite comments/critique? If there's one thing that people on this board have a lot of, it's definitely opinions.

 

I guess you didn't read his post.....

 

I'd be upset as well. Even a monkey can create an online form letter with a few checkboxes for specifics issues - and include a textbox for each entry so the reviewer can include comments.

 

Do you want feedback from the forum posters or Unity employees?

 

I agree that in an ideal world Unity would not send out such emails, they would add a little detail. I like the asset store and I have bought plenty from it, but on various occasions I have gotten the idea that perhaps it has been a lot more work for Unity than they anticipated when they first came up with the idea.

If I had tried to submit something and had received that reply, I would not be very pleased. But I would try really hard to reflect on what it probably meant, and to make the assumption that my own work was probably just not good enough on several levels, in a way that made Unity not see a simple bit of info they could give me to improve it and make it worthwhile. Or I would just assume that Unity are trying to ration their asset store resources, and that if I really thought the asset was worthy of publishing I should try and contact them again to see if I could get a more comprehensive answer. I would try not to complain publicly, although I might fail if I was angry.

Obviously I have no idea what the reality is in this case, as I haven't seen your asset and I don't work for Unity. I'm afraid I did have a look to see some of your other recent posts and found that your own manners annoyed me even more than the Unity email. Not thanking people who took time to solve your problems, just following up with more demanding questions or annoying bumping of threads. And some of the questions you were asking did not give me confidence in the quality of your wares. I am sorry as it is a bit rude of me to bring this up, but this stuff influenced my thinking when responding to this thread, I couldn't ignore it given the issues we are talking about here.

 

Hi asdf,

I'm so sorry, this is entirely my fault. We've been very hectic ramping up for the Game Developer's Conference this week, here in San Francisco, and I'm afraid I didn't give your reply enough information. Absolutely my fault and I do apologize deeply.

We do indeed care very much about the creative and talented individuals who both use the Asset Store, as well as those who create content for the Asset Store, and normally do endeavor to provide more information. Regretfully, due to the extreme activity leading up to the GDC and the sudden increase of time and attention resources required, I fell short of providing you the courtesy of more information, and I apologize for that.

If you'd like, we can chat directly via caitlyn@unity3d.com, and I can provide you more information, feedback and suggestions for ideas and improvements which may get your asset on the Unity Asset Store.

Sincerely,

Caitlyn

 

I like that response, as someone that is likely to try to submit some stuff of my own at some point in the coming months, I find such a response reassuring. Mistakes will always happen, and what I look for to keep my confidence in Unity high is that mistakes are rectified in the end, in a public way if necessary.

So yay! And sorry to asdf1234 for saying things that were a tad harsh. Lets turn it all into a positive by hoping that we've a lll learnt something about communicating with others in a polite way, which can be especially hard if we are feeling pressure from the clock. I sometimes wish the world moved at a far more leisurely pace, or that we could sometimes duplicate ourselves in order to always give people the time they deserve.

 

Thank you for saying that Caitlyn im sorry if i sounded really mean in that first comment, i was just a little mad (and all this week my school has these annoying standardized tests so i was pretty tired from that). But I think i will update that A10 first now that im thinking about it. But i really do appreciate you saying that.

 

well, yeah I did. He's upset because his stuff was rejected without any good feedback on why. My response suggested getting feedback from the community might be helpful. Fortunately, he has worked this out with Caitlin. However, I still believe feedback from your intended customers might be a good plan.

 

Well after reading the 1st post I felt to share my experience with assetstore so far.

First of all I disagree with "unhelpful feedback from unity" due to my positive personal experience so far.

I have released 2 packages which were "test" packages to see support, sales, payment conditions of this virtual merchandise platform.

1st release had problems on my side (ad image formats etc) I was informed with SUFFICIENT information and corrected the necessary files / description the submission went with no problem afterwards.

I had problems with 2nd release due to asssetstore tool bug, but SUFFICIENT information was sent in mail as feedback and the issue was resolved by unity swiftly in a matter of short time.

Regards

BlueMax

 

That is good that the "not enough info rejection review" is not the norm. However I don't think that anyone on Earth would choose option A over option B below.

A) Rushed review of Asset Store package, rejected and giving no reason.
B) Slightly slower review that gets rejected and provides a reason.

No matter if the review needed to take an extra 2 weeks or whatever, if it was a USEFUL review, it is worth the wait. Whereas option A leaves the developer in Limbo and is not any better than receiving no answer at all. If anyone thinks about this for 30 seconds and disagrees with me, I would not believe them.

Sorry if I'm very black and white about this, but the same thing just happened to me. Although I didn't even get a "due to technical and aesthetic quality issues" clause. I got no reason provided at all.

Awaiting resolution.

 

I Agree with Bluemax, when i submitted my first package there were lot of fixes needs to be done. After 5 submissions my package has been slected at 6th time to store. Asset store team patiently gave me clear feedback on every level.

I didn't face this kind of issues like "without reason"

 

I emailed Caitlyn and got some reasons now. All is well.

 

It's a touchy subject because lets face it, pushing a turd onto the asset store would not be beneficial to users or unity. On another level, they probably do get quite a few turds pushed under their noses, so if there is a problem with an asset, the first thing you do is email caitlyn with a polite enquiring manner. Being rude or angry just makes you look like an amateur who feels like he's entitled to A star treatment. Nobody is.

 

Well we shouldn't have to email Caitlyn. And some people wouldn't even know that they need to do it. It is an unnecessary step. I didn't know I needed to do it until I saw this thread. Agreed, we want no turds in the store. I chose my words carefully in this thread and in the email to her. People can be upset and still speak without sounding like a jerk.

We are not arguing for A star treatment here, we are wanting the SAME treatment for all Asset Store authors. If some people get reasons for rejection in their initial email, why should anyone not get them? At the very least, the standard rejection email should add a sentence at the bottom saying "To inquire about specific reasons you were rejected, contact Caitlyn@unity", and have the email address right there. Easy fix.

 

Well people make mistakes or happy little accidents so a polite follow up email shouldn't be too much for an individual. Especially caitlyn proved to be sooooo helpful and patient with her handling of the asset store stuff in the past, so shooting a personal email about something like that takes 1 minute.
While these guys have ton of contents to review.
Thats no different than a potential employer not replying or some game review site not giving one enough credit.
This is a service afterall and if one wants clearer reasons its no problem to ask for these. As the thread showed once more, unity staff is eager to sort out these more personal sort of problems.
But all is good as we learnt now

 

True. My suggestion of the additional sentence at the bottom of the standard rejection email would be good to have in case of these happy accidents. Because replying directly the the rejection email gets no response (not for me anyway). But emailing Caitlyn does. I would hate for a truly outstanding asset to get a rejection with no detail and the developer doesn't figure out to email Caitlyn to fix a small but important mistake.

So it seems that something small but important should change on their end.

 

I'm a bit confused as to why my asset got rejected, too. I use Unity free and the best material I could find has a diffuse and normal slot, but only a general color slider for the specularity and specular sharpness. So I packed my maps (specular, normal and diffuse), the asset and the material and uploaded it. The asset was rejected, because of the material setup. Am I supposed to buy a 3-way shader, or did I just overlook it and there is a material in Unity free that lets me plugin Diffuse, Normal A N D Specular Maps? Anyhow the maps are there and someone with a better shader material can use the specular map as well.

Another reason for rejection is because the legs of a tall water tower clip into the body. This causes no flickering or any other problem, so I don't understand the reasoning. If I were to model this spot naturally it would easily add a few hundred polygons to the tower. And it is high up in the air and underneath the tower, so you cannot see it, unless you hover close by.
I am already preparing more assets for the upload, so I am confused if I need another material and also by what standards the models are judged and by whom. I am also selling this watertower for 5$, so I feel like it is a fair deal. Check it out on my blog and tell me what is wrong with it:

http://pooleproductions.wordpress.com/

Any heads up on how to upload future submissions would be apreciated!

 

@SinKing,

Welcome to the forum!

You should start a new thread as this is all about your own submission.
Without seeing the actual project it is almost impossible to understand the reason. Did you make sure to follow the basic submission guidelines?

http://unity3d.com/asset-store/sell-assets/submission-guidelines

 

Hi Dantus,

thanks for replying! I'm sorry - I'm new to Unity and the forums - I'll make my own thread in the future.

I've read the requirements and they are all fulfilled, except I only linked up a NORMAL and DIFFUSE map to my material, because I couldn't find any material that supports SPECULAR MAPS in Unity free. If you could name the appropriate material or point me to where I can find it, I'd be happy to make the change.

It felt however, like the bigger problem was aesthetical, which I cannot quite understand. The reason named was "supports are clipping into the top of the watertower". I have done extensive research before modeling this object and in reality the supports also clip into the top of those towers. Here are two of the image I used for research:




The material I can fix, once I know where to find a shader material in Unity free that supports specular maps. Yet, I don't know what is the issue with the model itself. What is the problem with the supports clipping into the tower?

 

For the shader have a look at the usual bumped specular shader:
http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Components/shader-NormalBumpedSpecular.html
The specular map is in the alpha channel of your diffuse texture (gloss map == specular map).

I can't help you with the model, because I don't have it.

 

The whole Assetstore needs a major redesign.

What is it with all the assets without support anymore, not compatible to latest u3d versions?

• Kick assets with no support.
• Kick assets with known major bugs.
• Kick assets with compatible issues to latest version.
• Implement a timeframe, after that author must update / upload and proof compatibly to latest u3d version, otherwise kick

I know you want make money but not this way. Especially by the massive crap for high prices in the store and no way to test the assets (except the few professionals who provide demo versions!)

 

I agree^

 

Just out of curiosity, which kind of high price assets do you mean? I know one or two and it is pretty obvious that they are not anymore working due to the last reviews.
But you are certainly right. The people who wrote those reviews paid for something that is not anymore maintained and should really be removed from the store.

 

The asset store has some technical issues, but also some fundamental problems with accepted assets and their maintenance which is out of their control.

1. There is no penalty...
   
   ...for an Asset Developer to stop maintaining his product if he wants to for whatever reason and its a serious issue because Unity changes so rapidly it often breaks extensions that are published on the asset store. I think this is a professional problem with both Unity and the Developers.
   
   I think it's worth at least talking about something such as: force the asset to be categorized before publishing as either Maintained or As Is. This would express the intent of the Developer officially and label the asset on the store. If the assets are not updated on a monthly basis then the category automatically changes to As Is. There could be some other segregation of these two types or something.
   
   
2. Give community members the option...
   
   ... To flag assets that are not maintained with current Unity versions. Reviews are insufficient for this as popular assets have historical ratings that outweigh recent poor ratings and allowing people do buy crap that doesn't work with the current version properly is something that Unity should be endeavoring to avoid because it frustrates Asset Store customers and breaks their trust. The Asset Store can't take a side seat and expect it to run itself.
   
   
3. Asset Publishers need early access to new versions...
   
   ... because, well, hell, if you don't see why then you're probably eating your own brains. Publishers find out that their product is broken on day one just like the consumers, apparently, and that isn't good practice for a system that is driven by community assets. If I'm wrong here and publishers do get early access then nevermind, its just them having crap testing teams.
   
   
4. If your asset is on the store then it should not be available elsewhere...
   
   ...without a special agreement with UT. The publisher gets the benefit of Asset Store customers (who are looking for reliable assets) but is not obligated to be reliable and can drop support for the asset store version any time he wants. They are/can be treated as separate products and that is not fair to the customer who believes that they are buying X product with all of the conveniences of the Asset Store + Unity. People use it for convenience and do not expect to have to use any other means to download current product versions, they expect to open the store, download the update and import it - thats what the store is.
   
   
5. There should be a check for if the Asset requires Unity Pro...
   
   ...and you should not even be able to buy it with a Free license if it is Pro-Only flagged. A Pro-Partial flag might even be nice, some assets are misleading by showing Pro-only features and not specify that hey it works in Free, but Pro is required for the stuff you actually want to buy it for.

There are more fundamental problems with it and likely UT has gone over them, made choices one way or another for whatever reason but it doesn't mean the store is in good shape. The store is in marginal shape, if it had a rating I would give it a 5/10 almost entirely because of degrading asset quality and Unity not including preventive measures.

Am I wrong? Maybe so, I'm not an Asset Publisher so this is pretty much just from my consumer viewpoint.

 

@zerobounds, those are really good points! Also from a publisher's point of view.

 

Old thread but AssetStore turns out quite frustrating.

I just realize now as I have been starting to rely on it for some fast development but it happens too often that the time spent trying to fix the plugin, get it to work and wait for support is just not worth it.

There should be some kind of reviewing process like Apple does for AppStore.
There should be standards as well, so any given asset should have a demo scene that Unity people would try, a documentation written in a specific way and proper support within 24h. Else, out.

I have been struggling to get a Native camera plugin that actually works out of the box or work without any trouble.

Bit frustrating that you hope to save time spending €15 but in the end, not working.

Obviously the comment are giving clues, but sometimes, they are from 1 year ago and you just hope...to no avail.

Since Unity gets money out of it, it should not just be about running the website, there should be some quality insurance.

Just saying.

 

This thread is ancient. Why not use a more recent thread about similar issues?

https://forum.unity.com/threads/asset-creators-not-supporting-their-work.518160/#post-3398470