Selling on the Unity Asset Store - Earn 70% each sale, non-exclusive!

Hi , I have a question concerning voucher codes : does it count as a transaction in the "popularity" algorithm of the asset store ? I mean , does giving away a dozen of voucher codes could help your asset to gain in popularity and in visibility ?

 

Hi, what do you think of a package of 1145 simply shapes? And what's more important, how much could you pay for it?

 

Hi - I'm prepping my editor extension, Archimatix, for submission to the asset store and I noticed in the submission guidelines that:

"Submissions that include .jpgs files will be rejected. Texture files need to be in a lossless compression format such as PNG, TGA, or PSD."

While my sample textures are all png or psd, my editor-only GUI icons and thumbnails are jpgs. Will that work?

 

If they had a script that auto rejects every asset with a jpg in it, imho that would be ridiculous, because it could be part of readme material explaining the use of the asset. If it gets manually checked I would be extremely surprised if they reject it based on that. I'd just submit and see what happens, but if it gives you peace of mind, how long would it take you to just convert those jpgs into pngs? (even though that would be following the letter of the law and ignoring the spirit entirely )

 

Thankks, @Martin_H. The thumbnails are generated automatically as you save parametric objects to the Archimatix library. I had trouble writing to png format. Also, jpgs are smaller and I would hate to fill up users space if they end up saving or downloading lots of library items. I will take your advice and include a note about it to the readme and cross my fingers!

 

Hi !

I wanted to know, as a publisher, is it possible to know if people have added your asset to their wish list ? And who ?

 

Sadly, no

 

Shame. Thanks for the quick reply !

 

My first asset just got approved (yay!) and I want to share it on Facebook.However, when I paste the link into the FB text box, the link pop up thing that it generates says 404 not found




Is this normal for a link fresh off of the approval process? (It has been 2 days). Is there anything I can/ should do about this?

The link works just fine, but with the thumbnail showing up as not found, I don't want to share yet.

UPDATE

I sent an email to asset store support and they confirmed that this is a bug. They said it should be fixed in a few hours

 

Hello,
Soon I want to share some textures I made. The pack will include 15 textures like furniture, walls or carpet.
Is a price of 1$ OK? Will the money be 'changed' into €, if someone purchases it? (I am living in the EU)
Thanks for any answer.

 

Must you have a website before you can submit a product?

 

Nope. Only a valid business/support email.
Sorry, as clarified by Eric below, there's a mandatory field related to your website when you fill in your publisher information.

 

oh cool thx.

 

You do need a website.



--Eric

 

Thanks for the clarification, Eric. Thought that field was just optional!
Cheers

 

I think they don't require your own custom site but allow things that show an active creative online presence, but don't take my words for it, hopefully someone more knowledgeable can chime in

 

Yea i read you need a website in one of the posting articles. So i can either just sell my stuff elsewhere or create a website to sell here. Hmm seems like elsewhere is a lot less effort needed.
Why the need for a website all the ones i have visited from the store just say this product available on unity store seems redundant.

I could try create a website with something like wix but then can i use a wix subdomain or do i need to shell out for a custom domain just so i can have a redundant return to asset store instruction?

 

Just make a twitter account and link that. Afaik that's enough. It's only about having some official point of contact for support questions. Official websites are the most trust-instilling options, throwaway mail addresses on freemail services are the least professional choice. A twitter account (that's actually being used and has real followers) is somewhere inbetween I'd say.

 

Well i never been a twit before (thats what twitter users are called?) but i guess i could try that route won't have any twits following me though at least not initially. Otherwise a subdomain website with something like wix would be acceptable?

 

Auctioning-- definitely a great idea. We've been talking about this so that you can sell exclusive-rights to a purchaser, so that they are the only ones who can use it. Very good if you want to buy, for example, a musical soundtrack or character, and want to be certain that only your game can have it (and nobody else!). Not sure if/when that will happen, but hopefully we will

Hi Eric this is a quote from a post back in 2011? Whatever happened to this idea?.As someone who is wanting to sell characters on a exclusive basis the store still does not seem to offer a viable way to do so.

From a couple posts i have read even a AAA quality character at a rockbottom price would not sell much due to the fact most people want unique game characters

 

Yes. You MUST have a stndalone website. I`ve tried to make a facebook link (don`t remember thread but readed in forum that it works earlier) and got decline from publishing with reason WEB SITE MUST EXIST

 

Am I wrong if I think that selling asset on unity asset store is exclusive for now?
Sorry for bad english but as I got it from ELUA 2017 if I do sell asset on unity asset store I can`t sell it anywhere else.

 

You can use any sub-domain. I`ve tried to make a facebook link and god deny for publishing the created a web site via winx like service and it got approved.

 

The EULA doesn't say anything like that.

--Eric

 

Hey guys,
any reason why does it take so long to review assets?
I have a simple mesh of good quality and I've submitted it 9th of May,
it's June already and I haven't heard back from the Asset Store team.
Honestly I think this is a little bit ridiculous... I understand that review scripts and other plug-ins will take time
But looking at a barrel with 6 textures shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes. Also that is not my first published asset.
Why this is happening?
Thank you

 

Hi @JustinCollins,

after reading through your last post the following question came to my mind and yet I didn't found an answer for it: After an asset got its OK by the vetting team, is it released immediately or does the asset publisher have a switch to set the asset online? Doing it automatically would confront the publisher and its possible customers with an unpredictable release date (would make it very hard to promote the release).

 

@caitlyn
70% is actually pretty darn good for a non-exclusive agreement, I'm impressed the unity asset store is able to maintain high margins at that rate and it seems to have a good reputation when I talk with game designers across different platforms. The review time isn't terribly slow either, although it is increasing.

One thing that could definitely use work though based on my experience and what I see as complaints from some others is an in-depth video on how to submit and manage files. The best of the best media designers in the world don't spread themselves thin by also learning various programming languages (which means they won't be unity experts), they spend hours every day only focusing on honing their artistic craft, so a user-friendly interface is important for the asset store growth. Gamedevmarket's item submission process for instance is insurmountably simpler than this whole unity package thing, and as a result it continues to make sales and garner a great reputation without even having an active community to promote it while lacking basic social media connections and basic item information along with comparably over-priced products.

Another thing that seems discouraging is the lack of promotion for new products. The most successful asset stores I sell on usually put a large emphasis on promoting newly approved products and feature completely random authors or at least up and coming authors, and it keeps their store's reputation for being innovative while showing off the diversity of high quality items and gives buyers a sense that every purchase is unique.
When I come here though, I see that everything is only about the select few lucky enough to get a lot of sales at the start, which in turn will lead to the over-use of those items rather than incentivising those same authors to continue creating more high quality items while turning off new authors which lowers the growth rate and diversity of the asset store. A good product is a good product, but one product can't possibly do everything that everyone wants, and that's why it's a bad precedent to only promote specific products that have already been bought many times.

Furthermore, I can understand from Unity's perspective that they offer a high payout rate of 70% to attract talented authors, but from my own experience I can say really it's the interface that is more likely to turn people off over the payout rates. I would be happy with a 50% payout rate with an easy submission process. iStock for instance is notorious for offering some of the poorest if not THE poorest author payout rates after forcing authors to go through a very difficult account review process, yet people keep submitting items to iStock over and over, and that's because its layout is pleasing and not too condensed, its reputation is widespread with diverse products to welcome any kind of graphic designer or customer, and submitting a new product is easy once you've been approved as an author. So if Unity did have a more user-friendly platform, it could get away with lower author payout rates which in turn would give it more money for hiring reviewers or marketing.
You might think this would rub authors the wrong way who would say "hey what gives, I've been a loyal author on this asset store for months/years and now you're taking more money away from me?" But the simple solution to that is to have bracketed payout rates. Newer authors, however may great they may be, generally have a greater risk of failure associated with them than established authors. So, what the unity store could do is offer a higher payout rate to authors based on either the number of sales they have or the amount of time they've been with the platform, and that way the authors who have been loyal to Unity would continue to see the same payout rates (or near the same) while accounting for the risk of newer authors and giving them an incentive or goal to work towards.

 

Although I understand your point of view - it is well established in the asset store - the best content comes from the artists/designers who have a working knowledge of Unity - I would even say a more than intermediate knowledge of Unity - in the specific area they are creating content in, i.e. characters, lighting, layering tools for 2D characters etc.
Without this knowledge of how the engine works - no matter how awesomely best the designer is at creating the art - the art will not be readily usable by the Unity community. All content provided by asset developers should be - and is mostly ready to use out of the box. Without a working knowledge of Unity - the best designer is only providing half the needed content to get the best content to be usable in the engine by developers.

I've submitted one asset to the store several years ago - just to test the system. I implore any/all asset creators who want to sell on the asset store - to test the system out before submitting a package that has taken 2-6 months to develop. Once a developer goes through the asset submission process - they become familiar with the process and realize it is not a overly complex requirement/process.

To reiterate on the first point - Unity does welcome any kind of graphic designer - but it is VERY important that designer become knowledgeable in Unity with the area they are developing assets for, before attempting to sell through the asset store.
Characters is a perfect example. There are a lot of high quality character artists that could sell through the asset store, but without taking the time to correctly set up the high quality characters to work with mecanim - especially if offering characters without animation content - setting up to conform to mecanim humanoid rig - that high quality character is pretty much useless to all but those who are competent in rigging/animating. And mostly riggers/animators are not purchasing character assets in the asset store.
Getting comfortable with Unity in the specific realm of expertise a designer is a professional in, goes a long way in making the highest quality content for the Unity community.

 

I would say it's not well known, and it's equally possible that they became interested in Unity after already making sales and seeing the potential in game design to become more specialized. Maybe someone needs to learn the bare minimum of what a designer expects, like arranging graphics on a sprite sheet instead of in separate files, but that's hardly comparable to learning a whole programming language. It's also possible that a company or team had specific people work together before submitting something on the asset store after specific artists and specific programmers had already used it for a game.
It's also possible to create something that's more functional based on unity experience, but Pablo Picasso wasn't a scientist just because he spent some time investigating different canvas materials and brush pigments, he still focused on art. The best artists in the industry always specialize on what they do well, and that's not mutually exclusive with learning a few tricks for making a piece of art more meaningful or altering its design a little bit. If they choose to specifically focus on game-oriented assets, it's a plus, but it doesn't discount the fact that the store should have a good how-to video regardless, there's even programmers that have never used Unity.
And generally professional programmers aren't professional artists and professional artists aren't professional programmers, most successful game design companies can tell you that, and that's because it's more rational to have specialized team members who can efficiently produce the best code or art rather than making everyone spread themselves thin to produce mediocre products.

It's easily the most unintuitive submission process of any asset store, even other specifically game-oriented asset stores aren't as complicated. If it was easier for people to submit to, more people would be interested in submitting. If it's this complicated just to submit one item, then it makes it seem like the entire process is an endlessly convoluted waste of time, because like I said, it's more rational for artists to keep becoming the best at what they do rather than spreading themselves thin to learn an entire programming language for a single asset store that may or not make them a few bucks several months from now.

 

Ha ha, no. I guess you've never submitted to Apple's App Store? Also they clearly have no problem with the number of people submitting content, and could indeed stand to hire more staff to keep up with the large volume. Anyway you've wasted far more time complaining about a problem that you've magnified far beyond what it actually is, when you could have simply spent a few minutes learning how to do it instead.

--Eric

 

Apple's app store is not an asset store, it's where consumers buy completed end-products for recreation and entertainment. I also never said they had whatever problem you're talking about with a large number of submissions. Anyway, your distasteful denial of constructive criticism and lack of coherent reasoning only highlights this platform's systematic problems, not that you had any remote right to speak on behalf of the asset store's staff in the first place.
Furthermore, all the suggestions and insightful examples I gave would only lead to me making less money and face more competition as an asset producer, which only shows that my points are unbiased and in the interest of the asset store.

 

Nobody has to learn any code to submit to the asset store - as a non-coding animator I can attest to the pretty simple process of submitting an asset to the store.

For those who want to become asset providers - just learn a little bit about the engine in the specific realm you want to create content for. Like other excellent asset providers

@Kubold @rosor @SpookyCat to name just a couple - and others too numerous to mention - these gentlemen are specialists in the areas they create assets for. Guys like this (and others) are the reason the asset store has such high quality content - and in large part the reason why the asset store is such a popular place to buy and sell content.

 

I agree that, once you've learned, then it's simple, but, that's true for literally anything. Even calculus is simple if you've already learned it. The problem is the message the asset store sends to artists when they make the very first fundamental step completely convoluted and impractically unintuitive, when they try to force people to conform to their arbitrary standards without even providing the resources to learn how to do it. It doesn't matter that it's easy once you learn it, it only matters that it can be learned without any hassle, like with a well-edited video you can conveniently follow along with. If what you're saying was the crux of the problem, then simply everyone would already know calculus and everyone would know how to play the banjo and everyone would know how to build a table and anything else that's "easy once you've learned it..." The fault is not with the people who are not magically endowed with some god-like ability to automatically know everything about what to do for some random person's arbitrary submission process, it is the store's responsibility to communicate its intentions and requirements for its platform in the best way it can, no one else's.

The artists you mentioned state themselves that they've focused on their artistic talents most of their careers. Like I said, knowing a few tricks for unity isn't mutually exclusive with making great art, but what is mutually exclusive is imposing upon random artists to dedicate all their time learning everything about some niche language when they could be spending that same time developing their art skills and creating art assets. All of the most successful game companies don't have artists doing coding and they don't have have coders doing art, they have the artists doing art and their coders doing coding.

 

"If it was easier for people to submit to, more people would be interested in submitting." That's obviously not a problem they have. Just because you've worked yourself up into a tizzy about this doesn't mean that anyone else has that issue. You were saying about having rights to speaking for others?

Your points are absolutely biased, and nowhere did I claim that I'm speaking for anyone. I've criticized various aspects of the store before plenty of times, but there's a big difference between constructive criticism and aggressive ignorance.

--Eric

 

I do not think you can speak on behalf of the asset store to say whether or not it is a problem. It is objectively true that an asset store with an easier submission process will generally have more authors submitting to them than if they had a tedious and unintuitive submission process. It is only a question of whether the asset store thinks the growth in assets they would experience will outweigh the cost of implementing a more user-friendly interference compared to the projected profit of alternative projects, which we do not have the information to determine. Only the asset store staff could make such a determination and I am mainly interested in their response to see what direction the store is heading in. it would affect the kinds of assets I choose to make, so it is of a legitimate concern to me.

You're the only one I see worked up enough to personally attack forum members.

If they were biased then they wouldn't be irrational for me to bring up and there wouldn't be text-book examples of them on successful asset stores, which I also referenced.

Then stop making assumptions based on information that you don't have, or alternatively, state your position as an employee of the asset store and reference its official memos, policies or quarterly and annual reports.

Mainly being what I constructively criticize and what you ignore.

You're welcome to have an opinion on how the asset store should allocate its resources, but you do not have a right to be toxic. Please keep a civil tone and provide coherent reasoning for your points instead of some pestilent demagoguery.

 

That view of the process is merely your opinion, not backed up by any facts. If you don't like being called out, then please avoid making these accusations in the first place and engaging in poor forum behavior (e.g. deliberately re-posting topics after being asked not to by other moderators), which has resulted in complaints from other members.

--Eric