Thank people when they give you free stuff

A few months ago I made a couple of my older assets free:

City Builder Starter Kit was originally written for Unity 4, but has had minor upgrades and is still fully functional in Unity 2019*. The development approach is not really in line with best practices circa 2019 but its still internally consistent and quite usable.

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/packs/city-builder-starter-kit-12876​

Idle Clicker Kit was written a few years back when I needed a clicker engine for a project. Its super simple but quite extensible and clean. Pretty handy for someone without a lot of coding skill.

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/systems/idle-clicker-kit-63861​

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So enough with the self-promotion .. since being made free these assets have been downloaded about 250 times per month, not huge but a lot more per month than when they were paid. Since then not one review or thank you email has been sent**. I understand a lot of people just save these things for 'future use' but its crazy to me that I get less thank you's and reviews now that the asset is free!

I used to get an email or two every month from people who PAID for the assets, who weren't asking for help, but just saying thank you and maybe sharing what they had done. Personally I always really appreciated who took the time to do this, and it generally motivated me to make things better too.

On to the point: next time you download something and get some use out of it, or maybe even if you don't, say thank you, write a review, send email, post a tweet, do something!

PS I know I'm guilty of downloading things and not offering up any gratitude myself, not so much with assets, but certainly with libraries and code from github. This is a reminder to myself too!

(... Talking of gratitude wheres @Gigiwoo these days ... )


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* To be technically correct: I had to submit one bug fix this morning, if you happen to download it change the #if UNITY_5 directive above the error to #if UNITY_5_1_OR_NEWER

** One support ticket did have a thank you

 

This isn't unexpected behaviour at all. Within reason, higher priced products are perceived as higher quality. That goes for games and most other things too. By making it free, you've basically lowered the "perceived value" of your products. Might even start seeing a higher percentage of negative reviews because barrier to download is much lower and people have no reason to "hold back" for fear of hurting your sales, since it's free anyway.

Also for a paid asset thanking the author just seems like a nice thing to do on top of paying them. With a free asset, it's almost like an admission of "debt", because so many things are being made free with the implied expectation to receive donations in return.

I understand your frustration, but I think this really isn't unusual or unexpected.

Actually the last people who paid for it might be angry at you now, because you've now caused them a "perceived loss" in height of whatever they paid for the asset before it turned free. That kind of "loss aversion" psychology is a big factor in decision making. People can be quite irrational.

Check out "thinking fast and slow" by daniel kahneman if you want to read/hear hours upon hours of examples for such things and lose the last bit of faith you had in human decision making .

 

Thanks for your insight. I've done this before so on reflection it wasn't really that surprising, but the immediate gut reaction is that shouldn't be this way. I still think its 'crazy' in the sense that we are all such irrational beasts!

 

The last time I sent an email thanking someone for something (unrelated to Unity), they politely replied asking that I don't email them unless I'm looking for business or assistance, as it just clutters their inbox with what is essentially spam, which is fair enough, I'd say.

I'll still keep to posting reviews, if applicable.

 

That said there are some people I wouldn't want a review from. Check out this asset from Unity Technologies. One of the reviews is "amazing"... only for it to have three out of five stars. Some people have an oddball way of leaving stars. I've literally read some reviews that amounted to "It's perfect" only for the person to say they don't believe in a perfect rating.

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/templates/tutorials/3d-game-kit-115747

 

Of course if someone asks you not to email them, then you don't, and thats fine. However I don't think that would be a general preference. In the times I do remember to thank someone for their code its generally been well received and sometimes led to partnerships, collaborations, and other fruitful business relationships.

 

If nobody complains and sends you hate-mail, take it as a compliment. It's an implicit "Thank you" in the way the internet works, unfortunately

That being said, I totally agree that letting someone know if you're happy with what he/she has done, would be nice from time to time.

 

Another thing is that I think free assets have a certain strange tendency to be viewed as a sort of collectively-owned 'commons', whereas paid assets are ties tightly to the creator's brand and identity.

The reason for this I think pretty much comes down to a question of investment - when a customer pays you money, in a sense they are investing in you, and then you become something to them. When there is no investment required, the transaction is simply that of taking something. Since they owe you nothing, there is no need to register that you even exist.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard is that if you want to be friends with someone, create mutual investment. Otherwise the relationship doesn't really exist, at least not on both sides. It doesn't have to be money, but it has to be some kind of valuable resource, such as time or attention.

 

Emails should always be least expected form of review. People dont want to be connected to every subscriptions and news letters. Also, people seams dislike joining some random mailing list. Is something OP tries to generate? Some people my sens this as well.

I think the conversion of free downloads, to even someone respond, is hanging around 1%? So for 100 People downloaded free, you may receive one review on average. For paid is a bit higher, but stil not amazing as such.

Like you don't go to grossery shop, to review food, or shop itself. But some people my do occasionally. I remember sometimes leaflets, or even receipts, with link to social medias, asking to like us. Problem with that, you could dislike anyhow, other than leave comment. So are skewing results.

See for example youtube videos, view rate to actually like/dislikes. Sure some people watch few times, which skew a bit results again, but you see the point.

Also, people been trained to like, comment and subscribed on social media, to generate traffic. Still, every video seams explicitly reminds to do it, or people may wont do it.

So maybe you need write in your assed description, to ask for review and leave comments.

Generally, when giving something away, shouldn't really expect anything back, or you will get upset, like today's OP post. People like to abuse as well, and take free stud for granted. So that will avoid disappointment. If someone thanks, then it is bonus.

 

Technically, although I say email, I'm counting 'support tickets' which can be raised via web, via email, or via slack.

Based on stats from these and earlier free releases it is lower than 0.1%. Paid assets are around 1% for reviews, ratings maybe 1-5% (bias towards review when something is first released).

I'm not upset: bemused is the best word to describe how I feel, maybe with a dash of incredulity.

The post was mostly a reminder to people to make the effort. Such efforts are generally appreciated but it is easy to forget.

 

I think you misunderstand how free asset shoppers work. Most people download dozens of assets and try a few out. The best mover of ripple actually using your assets for more then ten minutes will be quite limited.

I think are getting statistically normal review counts.

 

In my opinion people who will spend and who already spent money on your assets should be your main concern. Usually they are more serious developers. They should be cherished and nurtured. Those who are just "playing around" are used to downloading everything for free anyway. It's a different mentality of people, you can't expect anything from them. Some of them might become serious one day, so having something free on your store is not 100% bad idea. But main focus should be on those who buy.