No Paypal anymore in the asset store?

I wasn't aware of Paypal's evil policies, but I never really used Paypal for other things than pocket change. Although lets keep in mind: many people's pocket change is often someone's business! right?

If Asset Store doesn't want to deal with Paypal themselves, that's fine. But what if they give us the option to deal with paypal? We want to keep paypal users, lets not neglect them just because we don't dare to deal with paypal's problems.

What if when a customer wants to choos paypal, they send the money to our personal paypal account? leaving the Paypal's risk to us! And 30% of it could go to the asset store! And we decide to allow personal paypal payments, or not. Can this happen?

What's your opinion on that?

 

just cause some very few have problems does not mean much.
you know know how much of the information was provided when they wrote their rant and how much wasn't.

I used it since its early days, not a single problem and I pushed through 6 figure USD amounts by now.


Also there is no alternative. MoneyBookers which would be the only reasonable alternative, can only receive money from moneybookers accounts, so you can't use it for selling etc for example


I'm not aware of other similar systems with global funds transfer that can also be used as payment processor and that can be used from and to nearly every relevant country on earth. banks are definitely no option and the real evil is still western union with their massive fees and requirement to be there within a given time and proof yourself in person to get the money, even if the sender is on the phone in parallel.



And the bloodsucker stuff is trash, that assumes that you would deal with the US Paypal, which you don't if you are not located in the USA or UK (thats why they have the mastercard possibility).
The rest runs under the non us paypal actually so the US greed sucker paypal attitude does not touch you

 

I haven't bought anything yet, but if I did I'd just email the artist directly. Unless it's exclusive to Unity's Asset Store, they can sell (usually for a cheaper price) than the Asset Store.

Until they improve the Asset Store (at least by making it accessible outside of Unity Engine-- I hate that!) then I'll be boycotting it if I can.

Otherwise, I'll be using Paypal.

No PayPal? No sales.
Fortunately for them, my credit card IS paypal, lol.

 

It is quite scary what paypal can do (at least to us US citizens) which would normally be illegal with a bank.

Still, I'd find it foolish to allow PayPal to hold any large amount of money for very long. Even if I owned World of Warcraft and got money only through PayPal, I'd be taking daily withdrawals from the account to make sure PayPal can never touch my money for long.

Well, unless PayPal treated me right after quite awhile. Then I'd slowly ease up on it until I find out whether or not I can trust the company.

However, fears aside, I love PayPal. I use it exclusively, and own a business credit card with them, as well as a business debit card. They are by far the best deal, and superior to a bank (1% back for all signed usage of my card)

 

For some of us, PayPal is our only Credit Card, and the only preferred way to spend money.
I either use my PayPal account or my PayPal Credit Card.

I'm sure they still accept the paypal credit card

 

All are very simple. If you have US dollars in your account or any other currency Pay Pal don't give you possibility to withdraw it as is. They always convert it into your own country currency.

Lets see how they do it. lets say I want to transfer $5000 from Pay Pal to my Bank or Mastercard account.
Today $1 = 3.578 New Israels Shekels

Pay pal transferred it $1 = 3.45 NIS

After simple calculation they took more 500 NIS for this operation. Or more then $140. this is after all they already took from me.
If I was USA citizen I never payed this tax.
They not just evil they are racist evil.

 

perhaps the country has income taxes that are auto applied.
In that case they didn't take anything but the gov or the bank on behalf of the gov.

Hard to say what really went on, its always a bit shady that legalese nightmare.

Thats what I would assume is the case cause they don't take taxes here in switzerland (I don't even pay transfer fees beyond 150 chf) cause there is no direct income tax, we have to fill and pay at the end of the year / in the new year.


@2Dsprite: I pull it every few thousand USD and leave 300-500 USD on it for business investments. I don't pull it due to misstrusting paypal though, more cause I get interest for having it sitting on my savings bank account but not with paypal (there they get the interest). No day night difference what I get interest wise but at the end of the year its still a long weekend trip, the unite ticket, trip to gamescom and alike I lost

I've also an Oanda account to which I started pushing the money for lower fee currency conversions (paypal takes 0.02 CHF per USD exchanged into CHF which is at the time more than 2%) and at times to make use from the massive fluctuations that USD / EUR vs CHF have (deltas in the range of 10-15% within a few days the past month)

 

Hm... Or kinda insurance, or they are just trivial imperialistic monopolists. We have no choice but to pay them all they want. And there is no way to change it, because laws was written by that people for goodness of that people.

 

It's hard to say without knowing the laws of your country, but if you don't know the laws of your own country, we don't have any good reason to know them. However, I have never had a problem like that, I have been doing business through Paypal for a long time and I have never had my account frozen nor I have been charged any "hidden fee" like you are describing... and you will see I'm not an USA citizen

Of course I have to pay the "seller fee" when I'm paid for my work, but that isn't a "hidden fee".

//--------------------------//

About having dollars in your Paypal account and being converted automatically to your country currency, it depends on the currency that you are using in your bank account... if you open an account with dollars instead of your country currency, Paypal won't make any automatic currency exchange.

And of course you would have to pay the same tax if you were an USA citizen who is paid in euros (or another currency) and want to convert it into dollars: currency exchange fees are a two-ways road.

 

Just a heads up - I bought a model off the asset store yesterday and paid with Paypal. I'm guessing Unity turned it back on, so all of this may be a moot point (besides the general Paypal qualms)

 

dogzerx: Currently there is nothing stopping you from linking users to your own site (dunno about a direct link to an eStore), then on your site you can link to your store.

I run a dual system with assets on the asset store, but on eSellerate as well. On the asset store I have links demos and more information on my website, and there on my website, I have a click thru to my store.

 

I bought and asset the other day.

Worked great.

Thanks Union.

 

We use Avengate to sell direct, though we are in talks with them to decide if we will continue because we must be able to offer free updates and currently they don't have that (customers can add on something for a few bucks but we don't want people to pay anything. We even offered to pay FOR our customers. Still waiting to hear back). They only charge $2.50/transaction.

I hate PayPal, ever since they closed my account because I tried to switch credit cards and there was a glitch. My account was permanently sealed. Credit cards offer fraud protection anyway, even a lot of debit cards do.

 

Is this going to be restored? I prefer using paypal to shop online.

 

Too bad we are releasing our 2D sprite tool set "ex2D" at this time...
I'm going to study a embed eComerce solution for our website.
Does anybody know that can popular solutions (e-junkie, eSellerate, Share-it, etc) handle software update well?
Will buyers receive a mail reminder that their purchased software got updated?

Thanks!

 

nantas: Your question is a good one. I'm using eSellerate, and they expect applications with built-in upgrade detection. Selling simply code takes some tricky work-arounds.

I should probably start an eCommerce comparison thread...

 

I would be interested in such comparison, make sure to leave a link in this thread (or send me a private message) when you create such thread...

 

Thanks for the info!

So how do you keep your buyers updated with eSellerate? I would like to see a eCommerce comparison thread as well haha!

 

eCommerce comparison discussion:

This is just a stub at this point.

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/101840

I'll get to adding my experience with eSellerate asap.

 

No PayPal means I am out as well. No more asset store purchases from me and I bought quite a bit from there. Terrible business decision.

 

shareit will inform users given they opted to be updated upon buy (standard) and offer a download link along it as well

 

Bad business decision.

 

Nantas:

Keeping my buyers up to date us easy. I just upload a new package to the site and either over-write the old one, or (what I do) add a new one with a different name (mm-1.0.0, mm-1.0.1, etc.), and relink the package as the download target.

Informing them is not. On eSellerate, they have a "robust api" for your app to check for updates and prompt a new download. For code, it's not so easy. It's very hard to generate a list of all the clients who bought a particular package. You can get snouts of all clients and all packages, but no references to sort them. Tech support can get you a list on request, but it's a pain. Currently I rely on a notice on my forum and the unity forum to inform clients of a new update.

KrankyBoy: If you're out if the AS, np, but check thru the AS to find the developer's link to their site and see if they sell it locally.

 

Why don't they just have more then one option to buy stuff.

 

So is paypal working again or what?

 

nope CC only

 

dremora: i just ty to buy something form asset store and paypal option is enabled.. did they put it again?

 

Me too, seems to be enabled!!!

Some of the largest companies in the world use Paypal....what's the dealio.

 

It was logic step. When they saw that sales are low. They turned it again...

 

Does not work for me as you can see on the screenshot done 2 mins ago

 

No PayPal Option for me

 

I think the PP sighting may have been in error, Elvis. I have not seen PP available here in the UK since the first report of its loss.

 

It wasn't in error. I just tried AGAIN.

 

I just checked, PP is an option for paying again. They made a very! smart decision to bring it back.

 

Must be regional. London, UK:

 

Unity was just doing updates on the website. Whenever they do website AssetStore gets limited functionality. We need to let this post die now so that more important posts can have some time in the sun... So if you go to the AssetStore and something is not working correctly. Wait a couple hours or try again the next day.

 

Namoricoo: If that were true, what is the relevance of this post:

This was five days ago.

Personally, I have little issue with paypal or not. It's convenient for me as I can cycle and recycle what I earn on the asset store right back to it without too much hassle, but I have a company CC to buy things with.

But it does seem like the move is away from PP.

 

Just make it an option. People who want the "niceness" can select CC and people who don't can use paypal. I always think it's a bad idea to make it harder for people to give you money.

 

Exactly... if people like the PayPal option then just provide it too. Unless the true reason is commission cost .

 

So i just want to say thank you unity that you just let me use paypal again 5 minutes ago.

 

Hi there.

I just made a post on our blog that talks about what we're doing from a development perspective with the asset store. It also explains what's been going on with the credit card / paypal issue. http://blogs.unity3d.com/2011/08/31/asset-store-road-map/

I'd like to apologize to all of you for not giving you advance notice. That was stupid.

 

Gotta love it how you A/B tested the new and old payment systems simultaneously side-by-side. Bold and sexy. Explains many of the posts in this thread being confused if the Paypal is on or off.

 

Its a normal split test that is used often to test wich website sells more

 

I know it's normal in some scenarios, but removing payment systems from 50% of the customers sounds a bit more adventurous.

 

And now they know wich one sells more (or make less deficit without paypal .
Sorry keely do not want to offend you.

 

Takes way more than that Just ask my Mrs.

 

Taking out PayPal is still a venturous business model for an online store if you ask the the customers here.

Well we will see if this is more profitable to Unity Technologies.

 

Thank you for addressing the communities concerns and confusions directly! We appreciate it!

 

That is a horribly flawed test. Even if 1% used PayPal, that is still a missed sale. 50% of customers lost potential impulse-buys they may never get back.

While this was going on we had more direct sales than usual though. Thanks for that, we only pay ~6% for direct sales

Please remember that an eCommerce store is more like a bank website than an artist 3D environment. You need to have a lot more respect for end-user expectations and warn people in advance of any potential changes or outages. Messing with trust is dangerous when money is involved.

We added a large "PayPal Accepted" logo to our website. Community feedback is a wonderful thing.

A random feeling I had while reading the blog post: it changes the way Unity as a brand feels when you start integrating a store too closely with the software. It has the potential to make Unity feel cheap and petty. The Asset Store is great now. It feels like a convenient resource. I wonder if integrating it fully in to the user experience would ruin the software experience.

I love the ideas, like previewing assets, but maybe it should only be integrated while shopping explicitly, and when not shopping, go away. Like a mode when you can't save your project until you complete the test, like the state you get during runtime, where you can mess with your scene but when you hit stop it all goes back.

I guess I am saying to be careful about "geeking out" on a cool idea while losing sight of the big picture.

 

It's not flawed. With the new interface you lost some people that wouldn't/couldn't pay with a credit card. You gained some people that would have given up because of us popping up an external browser window.

The new solution - WITHOUT PAYPAL - outperformed the old one (slightly)

I know what you mean (I'm one of the founders and have been head of editor design for the past 10 years, after all). Originally I didn't want to have selling of assets AT ALL, because it would 'taint' Unity. In my initial design docs (from 3-4 years ago), this was referred to only as "Asset Share". In the end I got talked into adding payments, and thank god!.

But yeah, I don't want to throw a lot of random assets on people's screens in the hope that some of them get stuck It has to be useful - if people don't want this, it's just one click to turn off.

I think having state in an app is evil (a lot of new users are VERY confused about the play state as well). The other problem is that the asset store window is very large, and ends up obscuring a lot of screen real estate (the majority of our users use laptops). This is just fine when you're browsing top-down through, say, Unity Extensions. When you're searching for a texture that matches the rest of your level, you want a much more compact UI. You're editing your scene, and you should stay there.

I hear you