Feedback Rant: Why doesn't Unity procedurally check asset store assets?

I recently bought quite a number of assets, which I haven't done in a while. The deals were just too good to pass up. And as was previously the case, lots of errors or issues. And as usual, I have to send an email off to the developers for assistance.

Now we all know that Unity can procedurally import every single asset against every single version of Unity that the asset store states it supports. Each demo scene can be procedurally run as well. We also know that Unity can flag the asset as having issues with specific versions of Unity and provide the seller with a list of errors/issues.

He's the thing:

• Why are developers still expected to deal with this as individuals?
  
• Why doesn't the seller have a dashboard that shows them all these errors and issues so they can be proactive and fix it without having to be told?
  
• Why can't the seller leave notes (not just free-format in the description) for specific versions of Unity so developers are aware of these issues in advance and what the seller is doing to address the errors/issues, if at all?
  
• Why aren't assets being locked to prevent them from being purchased when the seller doesn't address their errors/issues within a specific time frame? Based on reviews I've read after the fact, certain sellers aren't responsive to requests for assistance.

I constantly see ads about how great and wonderful Unity is - and for the most part, it's true. But this part is still not so great and not so wonderful.

 

Wait till you see the other parts

 

I've seen the other parts.

I've been using Unity successfully for projects at work for about 5 years now, and even longer for personal projects. We need to develop everything from scratch at the office, so we're not reliant on third party assets, but I'm much more flexible when it comes to my personal projects.

 

Thank you! At 33:00 in the video below.

 

Some of this I place the blame on the Unity Asset Store team. They have made the Asset Store far worse than it used to be as far as which Unity versions are supported by individual assets.

So, chances are that any given asset you download works perfectly fine with the specific Unity version it was uploaded with originally. The Asset Store used to show you which versions it was uploaded for. That seemed to have been replaced with a nebulas "Supported Unity versions 20xx.x.x or higher" line.

When you publish an asset, the store lets you upload it with more than 1 version of Unity. This is useful if changes need to be made to support different versions. When you download the asset you get the version of the asset uploaded using a Unity version at or below your Unity current version. The Asset Store used to show you all this information, but it doesn't seem to anymore.

I always found that information very useful though. If you're using a Unity version significantly higher than the highest version the asset was uploaded with, you may want to investigate if anyone has had any problems with it in your version before buying. If you're using a Unity version just slightly below one of the versions the asset was uploaded using, well maybe I need to update my version of Unity to get it working optimally.

For example, if the asset was uploaded using versions 5.5.0, 2017.1.0, and 2019.1.5, the Asset Store will now say "Supported Unity versions 5.5.0 or higher". But say my project is currently on 2019.1.4. When I download I will get the 2017.1.0 version. It is quite possible something may have broken in the asset between 2017.1.0 and 2019.1.4, and probably why a 2019.1.5 upload was made. If I know that ahead of time, maybe I update to 2019.1.5 - it being a rather trivial Unity version change, it is probably a better use of my time then trying to fix the 2017.1.0 version of the asset to work correctly in 2019.1.4.

/rant