Unable to download "disabled" assets?

Hey I own a copy of Ultimate Sound FX Bundle and Ultimate SFX & Music - Everything Bundle and I think they're only deprecated, because am able to download these assets and they're not marked as disabled.

 

Alot of thieves pirating games, software, ripping models, then re texturing. The one Rowlan posted, that is what that person did, he added new text, new texture which looks to be illegal I would contact Microsoft, they own Bethesda . https://help.bethesda.net/#en/home Let them know there is a possible stolen art being used.

I bet that model is ripped, and he tried to cover his tracks by changing text, and texture. Another lazy way of using someone models.. I bet the unwrap is the same...

 

Its not disabled, not related to this thread at all.. This is related to some assets being disabled. I know of that sound asset , some don't have many sales an no longer want to support it, it was deprecated... I think I have that same asset from a long time ago..

deprecated just means the developer is no longer supporting it and its pulled from the store by the developer.

Disable, means possible copy right, some times other reasons, some may be due to accounts that no longer exist.. Some are for other reasons, that are not clear. I have one that shows disabled on one page and the other Deprecated, so human error does happen to..

But that asset your talking about is for sure Deprecated, you can still use it.

 

Update to my own disabled asset, it was been removed, the disable is no longer there.... it was human error.. As we thought... So, this can happen, so always ask the developer as I did and ask Unity support.. I no longer have any disabled assets....

So a piece of advice, don't always assume, there are copy right issues...

 

Looks like after the recent incident with Sidearm Studios regarding sound now something is happening with Cafofo:

Epic removed their asset "Magic & Spell Sounds PRO" from the Free for the Month. And this is in the questions:



Fantasy Sounds Bundle is "Not for Sale" anymore. Same as Medieval Combat Sounds.

You may want to reach out to Cafofo and ensure their assets are their own original content, since their assets are currently in both the "Quick Start Asset Pack" and the "Lunar New Year Mega Bundle" on the Unity Asset Store.

 

So I wonder if what happens is that one or more sounds from the sound pack get claimed, and then the whole pack gets taken down, and instead of removing those challenged sounds, the publisher simply pockets the cash, and Unity pockets the cash, and the Unity customer loses. That's the impression I get.

And there's no notice to the customer, either. You just find out when you try to download that you can't.

Maybe we should be getting some sort of notice that a seller in the asset store has been selling things that have been claimed, and we should watch out about buying anything further from them? No? I guess that won't happen either.

Feeling repeatedly screwed.

 

From the screen it looks like the Cafofo asset is gone from the Lunar New Year Mega Bundle. Can someone who has it check if it got deprecated or disabled?

 

In case anyone wants to compare, here's the publisher page:

2023-02-03:

Page 1: https://archive.is/Ns1lO
Page 2: https://archive.is/9YmI5

2023-02-04:

Only 1 Page anymore: https://archive.is/DVorh

 

Its still there though. any idea why?

 

Yup, sadly this is why I don't buy art, and stuff like this from stores.. One I make my own from taking the time to learn, but other reason was I see to many scam artist.... Its a disgrace..

I tell people all the time take the time to learn how to make models, textures your self.. its well worth it...

 

I got it from the Humble Bundle not to long ago I think. I know I don't buy this stuff, but its in my account ..

Deprecated..... two of this the Sci Fi Sounds and Gun, Explosions and Sounds...

I never intended to use anyways, I have a sound guy, I don't use stuff from the store regarding sound typically.

But for people who do that is totally screwed up, so its showing that Unreal, Unity assets are not safe, reliable, unless you know the person well, so again, this is why people need to do there home work on some of these people selling trash and stolen , ripped stuff ..

 

No idea, my guess is as good as everyone's. Obviously 2 asset stores and 1 publisher leave us in the dark. The collection is disabled while the individual asset that's in the collection is still available.

I reached out to Cafofo, didn't get a reply yet. But if it's true that they "freelance", they can stop saving reputation by self-deprecation, because that reputation is gone.

 

In UE, its showing its being sold still. and not disabled, unless you mean Unity?

Well with someone who steal others work, I doubt they care about morals and rep..

I know when I had my UI Design stolen from me and used in a known game, they did not care about rep, they only cared about $$.

Sadly people with no morals act that way... to begin with.. its disgraceful in my opinion. But, sadly not everyone has good morals .

Anyways thanks for the heads up on those assets, I will make sure I won't use.

Sadly in Unreal we can't delete, we need to be able, we been asking... But I made a note of it and not to use, I don't typically use that kind of stuff anyways, but I know I got it for free, from the Free for the month. from UE.

 

This is why I simply keep downloading all assets as soon as I buy them and make a backup of all assets after some of my assets got disabled in the past.

I am not releasing any games commercially as am already gainfully employed. I use Unity and assets on the store like I would Lego when I was a child so no need for me to not use assets that are disabled also for fun because I'll never be releasing any of those games anyway.

If I successfully get a refund from Unity then I delete the asset permanently from all my storage devices,. So far I've gotten refunds for all assets that got disabled from Unity but I had to write to them though.

 

So to sum up the Cafofo incident from the information I gathered so far:

* many assets were deprecated
* they don't reply to emails when you reach out
* cafofo deprecated the assets that were in the bundles, they had €NaN as price
* unity removed the assets from the bundles that cafofo was in and replaced them
* neither unity nor cafofo gave a statement
* users are left in the dark
* cafofo is still selling assets on this asset store
* there was an incident months ago; they deprecated assets because they needed to "fix" them. they said not to worry about using the assets in projects

i guess "deprecation to fix" an asset will be a hint in the future

 

Cafofo is gone now from the Asset Store. So is their twitter account.

 

They're gone from GameDevMarket as well.

 

Disabled can mean they were deprecated before Unity's deprecation system was enabled, so stop with the red herring bs about copyrighted materials. That's not the majority. I have spent real money on assets I can no longer access, and although it's my problem, it is NOT my fault. This is ridiculous, and unless there is a CLEAR violation of copyright, Unity should make these available in perpetuity. Unfortunately, I'm finding more and more of my pages of assets "disabled".

Now I'm fearful of making purchases on the store knowing that at any time, I can find myself with missing items. This is ridiculous.

 

I'm confuse in this case what happens with the users that purchase these assets ?
I'm sure a lot of project are now using this removed assets.
I was surprised when I didn't found the assets on the store.

 

Just got this eMail. This is how a professional and responsible Asset Store should be:



fyi, that one's from Cafofo, see posts above. They had plenty of assets on the Unity Asset Store.

 

Just panic downloaded a bunch of assets. I've been finding many assets (especially sound packs) disabled in the Package Manager when setting up new projects. Not been seeing any refunds either.

Some issues here:

• No way to know when an asset gets disabled.
  
• No way to know which assets get disabled.
• No way to filter the web inventory or Package Manager to find disabled assets, so I can't even search.
• No way to contact the creator for a refund since their info gets hidden.
• Unity does not issue a refund. (Or they haven't for most of mine.)
• Unity does not notify. Possible to ship a game without knowing about a copyright strike.
• No way to pair disabled assets with receipts to figure out how much money I've been ripped off for.
• An asset can sit for months or years without copyright strike. What about "every asset moderated by unity"?

Hopefully I'm overlooking something, but first impression is Big Yikes.

 

Yes, and the bigger a Unity customer you are, the more you have been screwed.

 

The next thing after the sound escalation will be animations it seems:

https://www.pcgamer.com/indie-dev-a...s-others-against-trusting-marketplace-assets/

Epic reacts again and shows how it's done.

 

Does anyone know what happened to AI Game? I purchased plenty of assets of that publisher and can't download them. They were disabled, eg







It was mostly scripts that made the asset.

 

Unity doesn't provide any search tools to find Disabled assets.

I tried automating it, but while I can mess with Package Manager from scripts, I don't seem to be able to get a list of My Assets or any info on them from the Package Manager. (Probably a legitimate security thing to keep scripters from snooping customers' assets.)

For the time being, Unity hasn't removed listings from Package Manager if you browse through all your assets. Afaik, this is your one and only paper trail that any assets you bought were silently taken away from you, unless you slow-search the store by digging through purchase receipts and looking up specific assets one by one.


Nevertheless, I was able to make a list of Disabled assets like this:

• Use Unity 2022 for your own sanity as its version of Package Manager is properly cached and multithreaded.
• Shrink the Package Manager window so you don't get eyestrain shifting your eyes left and right. (You'll be doing this a lot.)
• Load all assets in your inventory using the controls on the bottom left. You should get a message "All x packages shown" when you've preloaded them all.
• Start some music since you'll be sitting here awhile.
• Grab the scrollbar and methodically scroll up and down across the entire asset list to preload statuses. This will make the details panel repaint be more responsive. You don't have to wait for loading spinners to resolve to continue scrolling, but an asset listing has to be on-screen at least one window repaint to trigger Package Manager to query its status.
• Scroll back to the top and click the first package. Now use your keyboard's down arrow to move through them one by one. Keep your eyes on the Download button bottom right of the Package Manager. As you move through packages you'll eventually see one with all the import/download/redownload buttons grayed out. This'll be one of the Disabled ones Unity yanked back without telling you.
• Copy and paste the package name into a spreadsheet or text editor somewhere. It's hard to drag select since there's no select cursor, but you can drag select from the top left of the package name in the details panel. You'll have to manually type the publisher name if you want it. (I couldn't get the publisher name to select or copy/paste.)
• Put assets in alphabetical order in your spreadsheet if you're using the default Sort: Name (asc) in Package Manager. This'll save your sanity later to avoid duplicates. You'll eventually need an additional technique to fill out the list.
• When you're done going through your whole My Assets list in Package Manager, now refer to your spreadsheet of Disabled assets. Go publisher by publisher and do a new search in Package Manager using their exact name. If you don't see *any* results, you made a typo. You should at least see the Disabled assets you found earlier. In my case, this search revealed whole new sets of Disabled packages that weren't shown before. Add them to your spreadsheet and you're done.

When I finished this process, here's all the assets I found Disabled:

• 3 Arcade Machines - CGPitbull
• Animal Skeleton Pack - Easy Game Studio
• Apocalypse Weapons - Hitoshi Matsui
• BIG Button Sound Pack - Semih Alar
• Bloodlust Combat Skill Icons - Sidedale
• BOY ADVENTURE: Platform 2D Engine - AI GAME
• Bugs and Insects - Rivermill Studios
• Burnout Drift Track - AutomobileAssets
• Camera Transitions - Nepasto
• Cartoon Desert Town - Easy Game Studio
• Character Shader Pack 1.0 (URP & LWRP) - Easy Game Studio
• Character Shader Pack 3.0 - Built-in - Easy Game Studio
• Cyber Spider - Mari Ana Farzana
• Cyber Weapons Pack - Grid Work Studios
• Dragon Black - Tokiyoshi Takaya
• Dragon - Fantasy Dungeon - Aniworld Design
• DRAW CAR PARKING 2D - AI GAME
• Fantasy Sounds Bundle - Cafofo
• Fat Thin Shader (URP & LWRP) - Easy Game Studio
• Griffon 01 § Monsters - Mea Aurelie
• Griffon 6 skins - Jedy92
• Guns & Explosions - Grid Work Studios
• Imperial Guard 2 - Mari Ana Farzana
• Little Wizard [Dungeon] - Luites Lisa Elaine
• Low Poly Food Bundle - Moveo
• Magic Spells Sound Effects - Cafofo
• Medieval Combat Sounds - Cafofo
• MEGA Footsteps Sound Pack - Semih Alar
• Mega World - Vladislav Tsurikov
• MobileOS - Fully Functional - Codex For Unity
• Model Control Tool - Monica L
• Orc [Dungeon Monsters] - Luites Lisa Elaine
• Paintball Pack - Grid Work Studios
• Perfect RPG MMO 3D Effect VFX Pack 2 - XXXX
• Premium Medieval Pack - Grid Work Studios
• Robot Alien - Mari Ana Farzana
• Skeleton [Dungeon Monsters] - Luites Lisa Elaine
• Skeleton Warrior § Monsters - Mea Aurelie
• Swarm Of Bats - Rivermill Studios
• Thatched houses constructor - Cattleya
• TIKI 2.5D PLATFORMER KIT - AI GAME
• Ultimate Destruction Pack - Grid Work Studios
• Ultimate Toon Shader - URP - Easy Game Studio
• Ultimate UI Sound Pack - Grid Work Studios
• Underwater FX - Rivermill Studios
• Urban Traffic - Pro 3D models
• Water FX Collection - Rivermill Studios
• Water Shader (URP & LWRP) - Easy Game Studio
• Werewolf C - Tokiyoshi Takaya
• White Dragon - Tokiyoshi Takaya
• Workshop set - Cattleya

Am a bit salty about all this since the money I've lost here, by my best estimate, exceeds $1100. (Unity doesn't give me the tools to properly document this.) I make games as a business and this (or the refunds they'll hopefully issue) has tax implications for me.

As a rule of thumb, download whatever you buy immediately, and regularly back up your downloaded packages offline.

If anyone knows a great tool that can scrape the metadata (title, description, preview screenshots) from My Assets in Package Manager, to help power an offline search tool for organizing purchased assets, please let me know!

 

@AndrewAssetStore from Unity has given an answer on this:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/wha...-us-stolen-assets.1414161/page-3#post-8895429

This honestly raises questions.
1. What other reasons are there for Unity to "remove", aka disable content?
"Depreciated" can still be downloaded if you have bought it, so it's not what we'd call "removed".
2. Will Unity refund all assets that are not downloadable anymore?

Unfortunately I too suspect that the answer to the second question is simply no. According to "Asset Inventory" I have all those disabled:
But I only have received two emails regarding refunds and I am confident I would have noticed money being sent back to my paypal this often.

 

If Unity would give a store credit for all assets that have been removed, that would be an acceptable compromise to me.

 

What do you mean Epic shows how it's done? As far as that article tells, it's the same Unity does: No guarantee from the company that all assets are "safe" and when notified, they removed them.
That they claim they somehow replace those assets in the store is pretty much in the air...
No info on whether the buying cost has even been reimbursed.

 

I completely overlooked Asset Inventory. That might be exactly what I need for offline package indexing and organization.

Disabled packages can still be installed or unpacked, if you previously downloaded them and know where the unitypackage file lives in the Package Manager system folder. The only Disabled packages you can't get are the ones you never downloaded. But either way you can't get updates, nor redownload the asset for compatibility for when you switch Unity versions.

Store credit would be an acceptable compromise if Unity (a company making $1B+ revenue / year) isn't keen on issuing cash refunds.

 

To the best of my knowledge, they haven't refunded one cent to me, but they have subtracted hundreds of dollars worth of assets from my account.

I understand that it's a huge challenge to create a store that's clear of pirated property. And "let the buyer beware," right? But many of these things that I purchased were from what I assumed to be trusted store partners because they had been with the store for years and even featured prominently in sales by Unity. Like, there was a whole Cafofo-only sale just a few months before they got everything pulled. How are we supposed to trust anything from the Unity store?

It seems to me that Unity failed to screen assets properly, and they must have sold me assets that contained pirated sounds, code, and art. They profited from these sales, as did the pirates. And furthermore, Unity doesn't say anything in warning about these companies that are getting into trouble. You could have been buying their products for years, and maybe one is pulled (but you don't know about it), and then another, and then suddenly they're all gone ... without a word, just a notice that you can no longer download what you purchased when you go to download. It's a silent fail, and we're in the position where we have to GUESS WHY.

I assume there are rights violations, but the plain fact is that Unity is simply removing purchased items from our download lists without explanation. It seems like a theft on their part.

I understand that if there are potential violations, it could be legally tricky to say so. And that might be why we don't get notifications.

But I'd like to see compensation for the unexplained removal of items I purchased. I don't think Unity can sell us things and then without a word disable our ability to download them. That seems crooked. Like, "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further." Except they're not even telling us they are altering the deal, they're just doing it.

Instead of ignoring the problem ... which is of course the standard procedure ... can't we do something to make the system work better? Maybe blue check marks of some sort to indicate that a seller is a guaranteed reliable seller? Because clearly they aren't all reliable. And clearly they aren't guaranteed.

 

One thing you can do (even if it does not really fix the issue) is download any asset you buy into some project you delete right away. Then find the corresponding asset in this directory (or make a backup of it entirely):

%AppData%\Roaming\Unity\Asset Store-5.x

It contains the packaged files which you can even import manually if you want to.

 

I have this 75 dollars asset from Cafofo called Fantasy Sound bundle, it is disabled. You are telling me Unity does not give a damn about scams like this, will I not get a refund?

 

If you manage to get your money back, please let us know.

 

I'm three months in on a support ticket to try and get refunds for the assets I bought that Unity has failed to deliver.

FYI, if you bought with PayPal, they're telling me it's impossible to issue refunds after 6 months. Three of which are spent waiting on the support ticket.

I'll let you know if I learn anything helpful.

 

Finally circling back here, I wanted to be in the right headspace so I could stay objective.


My Background

• I'm a heavy spender in the Unity Asset Store. I'd think I'm a customer Unity would value, due to the revenue I generate, though this doesn't entitle me to priority support or special treatment.
• I discovered 53 assets Unity disabled without notification. Unity refunded 13 of these. For the other 40 assets, Unity has failed to deliver the assets and refused to issue refunds.
• I'm out $700+ and I'm lucky it wasn't more. I bought most of these assets on sale.

The Support Ticket

• I submitted a support ticket requesting refunds, which was active 111 days before it was marked as Solved. I documented that my issue itself remains Unsolved, since Unity's support system won't leave unsolved tickets open indefinitely.
• The rep on my ticket told me there are policies that prevent Unity issuing refunds after 6 months. It appears this is the unwritten policy regardless of whether or not PayPal was the original payment instrument.
• After I provided detailed lists to accelerate the process, the rep managing my ticket still had to do "long and thorough research" and finish "the process of moving to a new place" which further delayed the ticket, running out the clock.
• For most of the disabled assets, Unity refused to consider compensating with cash back, store credit, a Unity Plus subscription extension, or meaningful coupons for future orders - although these mechanisms all exist.
• Unity pressed me to accept several 25% discount coupons, which would replace all sale discounts or other discounts in my cart. This was unacceptable, as I would need to spend $2800+ in several huge transactions to recoup the $700+ of lost value.

Takeaways:

• If you submit a support ticket, provide detailed lists including asset name, purchase date, and invoice number. Don't leave that to the rep because apparently they can stall indefinitely 'looking for them.'
• Unity's delays in handling the support ticket consumed the limited refund window. Take that as you will, since Unity also failed to notify that any assets were removed in the first place.
• It appears the system assigned me a first-level support rep who refused to escalate my ticket when he was unable to resolve my issue. I have no recourse if he simply refuses to escalate, even if Unity has an escalation policy.
• Because of the support ticket, Unity issued refunds for a few more disabled assets, and confirmed it had previously issued refunds for several others. (13 assets refunded in total.) It may be worthwhile to submit a ticket in case you can get some of your money back.

Here are some other notes and recommendations:

Legal Notes:

• I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not advocating any action. This is informational only.
• Read Unity Asset Store TOS 2.1, 7.3, 12.7 very carefully. Regardless of the ethics involved, Unity has some latitude to disable assets without notification.
• PayPal Purchase Protection and any protections your credit card provides do not apply. See the item above.
• There are laws protecting consumers from goods or services being sold but not delivered. For example, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), and Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). It's not impossible we could get our money back someday.
• It's my opinion that if I accept partial compensation like 25% discount coupons, that'll be my total compensation.

Tax Notes:

• Always consult your tax advisor.
• Self employed creative professionals may be able to claim a tax deduction for purchased digital assets that are later removed due to copyright claims, since the losses involve "ordinary and necessary" business expenses for those persons.
• It may be possible to claim a deduction for the loss as a "bad debt", if you can prove that you had a good faith belief that the assets were not infringing on anyone's copyright, but that they were removed for copyright claims.

Record keeping:

• Use your email client to search for old Unity receipts if you need invoice numbers or to calculate lost value.
• Keep detailed records of purchases, support tickets, and other communication.

Managing your Unity Assets:

• The "Principle of Least Regret" applies here. If you might want it later, download it now.
• Depending on what kind of assets you buy, you'll probably need a high capacity hard drive. (My Unity assets directory is nearly 2 TB, mostly from artpack and texture assets.) Following the 3-2-1 backup strategy, you'd also want a redundant local copy (second hard drive) and an offsite copy.
• Unity moves downloaded temp files to Recycle Bin. Empty that periodically to reclaim disk space.
• Consider the "Asset Inventory" asset. That'll make it easier to use third party assets, and any Asset Store assets you've previously downloaded if Unity's Package Manager grays out the Import button.

Shopping for assets:

• Minimize risk with redundancy. Shop at many stores. Back up your downloads.
• Asset overlap is okay. Take special care of those one-of-a-kind gems.
• Where you spend your money is something you control. I've pulled my punches in recent Unity sales, and Unity has already lost more revenue from me than the amount it would have have paid out in refunds. I'll continue to avoid using the Asset Store when possible. If enough people change their spending habits, Unity may see an opportunity to improve its store policies.
• Many Asset Store artists (eg Synty, Dragonsan, Gim studio) have external storefronts or are cross listed on other game asset marketplaces.
• Be aware the Unity Asset Store license is universal and flexible, and third party stores often introduce their own licensing nuances.

Asset Store observations:

• New Release Discounts are a minefield, but even well-established assets (eg Cafofo) can suddenly be pulled.
• Sound effect assets are some of the most volatile. I lost all six (!) of my medieval soundpacks and a ton of sci fi sounds. (I thought I had adequate redundancy, lol) Sound conglomerates can theoretically remove competitors on the Asset Store by filing enough bogus copyright claims. Buy your sounds from third parties like Envato, Audiojungle, EpicStockMedia, etc until Unity stabilizes its sound pack removal policies.
• Commission your own art if possible. It may be worth your time to study Ai image generation for prototyping placeholders.
• I haven't found a good alternative for Unity-specific code assets and shaders.

The most important takeaway:

• Time might be the least renewable resource on the planet. Money is extremely renewable. We're here to make games. Keep your frustrations secondary and always keep moving forward. This won't be the last time you might feel angry or exploited. You can't let that stop you.