What assets is the community wishing was on the store to purchase?

Hi peeps! Im a solo programmer and lately ive been wanting to start developing assets for the asset store and theres just an overwhelming amount of ideas to choose from. I want to create assets for THE PEOPLE. So what do you guys tend to find yourself wanting that isnt currently on the store? Or assets that you wish were better designed? Because i just might add them to the list of projects to develop for you guys. Im also keen in learning how to 3d model using blender. Any answers will be greatly appreciated!

 

There's already a thread about this https://forum.unity.com/threads/what-assets-would-you-like-to-see-on-the-unity-asset-store.82355/

 

(opinion)

Asking on the forums is kinda not a good idea. Let's say you have 3 responses, act on them and then you'll have... 3 sales from people who wanted this or that thing, half a year later.

Might be a better idea to check the asset store yourself, see what's available, and figure out what you'd want to work on yourself.

 

Even the people who request it probably won't buy it. I could request a giant, floating-fortress pirate airship made of bones and covered with gothic carvings, then when it's finally released a year later I would say "sixty bucks? eh. I guess I'll put it on my wishlist and see if it goes on sale. Although, I just read a thing about Numenera, and was thinking of changing to a scifi setting..."

 

You are much better off developing a general understanding of how a game developer approaches development, and learning to do market research.

When I started developing my space combat kit, it was just my own project. But one day when I went to see what was on the store for space games, I realized there was exactly one competitor (since deprecated) which was released in 2013 and seriously lacking content or updates. That's when I thought I have a good opportunity.

There is more competition now, but at the time, it was a very clear empty spot in a strong genre.

Once I got several hundred people in my discord, as well as loads of reviews, I knew I could find out how to improve it into what it has become now by asking them what they wanted, voting on polls etc. But at the beginning you don't have that, and I think that means there has to be an empty space big enough that you can spot it just by looking at the store.

Asking random people, like neginfinity said, is not a great idea because in the grand scheme of things, 1, 5, 10 or even 100 sales is nothing. People will usually ask for things they need right now to solve a specific problem, or things they think would just look cool, but it doesn't necessarily mean they would want to buy it, especially months later.

My suggestion would be:

1. Start off by selecting a number of game genres you like.
2. Break down the game into a set of possible features and tools.
3. Check the store for what it has, in terms of both focused assets and complete packages.
4. Sniff out where a need is not being met. Especially when a package doesn't seem great or has bad marketing materials but a lot of reviews, or lots of reviews that wish for things, and especially if either of the above AND it's not being added to or updated regularly, it's a good sign you can move in and take over the niche.

Obviously this is much easier if you are already developing a game in a genre and/or are very familiar with it.

One last thing is, your first version will not hit the mark. Get something out that's polished but minimal, and then build a community of customers and mold it toward what they want.

 

Everything I want on the Asset Store is less things like 3d models or asset packs and more things like scripting solutions to help bypass all of Unity's shortcomings. I spend far too much time developing tools and not enough developing games.

 

Oh okay sweet this is some good advice, the reason i thought it would be a good idea to ask on a forum was to begin developing small polished assets that i would put up for free that i could use to slowly develop a community and show consumers that they should expect quality work from me. Then move on to bigger and better projects. Thanks for the advice made me look at it from a different perspective.

 

Yes very true, i see alot more value in tools that help the actual scripting process than physical assets. I do plan on focusing on scripting solutions rather than physical assets. But i personally wanna learn how to 3d model and i think adding free content with these assets will help me learn heaps.

 

If you think your tool doesn't worth money, why would you publish it on the store? You still need to support it, answering questions, often developing other people's games because they are missing basic things.

If you want to publish for free, develop it and put it on GitHub or something on an AS IS basis. But rather try to make something worthwhile out of it and publish it on the store.

IMHO publishing on the store for free meanwhile you don't have other assets on it to offset the expenses is a bad idea.

 

If you wanna upload 3d models for free, I'd highly recommend something like CGTrader instead so it's not aggressively locked to a specific engine.

 

It really depends what someone wants to get out of it. Before worrying about making money I'd first put in some effort to get genuinely, commercially good at my craft. Getting feedback from customers or potential customers can be a big part of that, and the audiences of the Asset Store and GitHub are very different.