Worst Level 11 yet...

It launched the last week of March. It started out at around $175 or so a month and has been gradually increasing. That may have something to do with launching it at smaller price-point though before raising it. Last month was around $275. As far as scripts vs. 3D models I don't know, the only reference I have is my asset tends to hover at around # 100 in the scripting category but don't know how that relates to other categories. Perhaps you have a reference point based on your assets do in your category. It's never been featured by Unity.

Back on point and perhaps be more constructive, I think the discount portion of level 11 from a systematic perspective should be fine. It all boils down to what Unity values more (daily sales, special themed sales, or level 11). It might be getting watered down by the sheer number of assets Unity does feature (30 a month for the daily, probably 10 or so level 11, and periodic special sales). Perhaps the frequency is too much to not be watered down? I'm not sure I have a solution to the free section though other than perhaps just focus on 1 high quality asset a month instead of going for 4 medium/small ones. The reduction might free up the business model to provide a better deal for that one asset. It's going to be tricky though because I think the volume of downloads is probably quite high and it's even still pro only. This might be mitigated by not having it last a whole month or by still offering a small % for every download (maybe 10-20%?).

 

Thanks for the insight. And yes I agree maybe the free stuff in lvl 11 should be only one asset per month. But isn't the main reason there aren't "likable" free assets in lvl 11, the fact that the way Unity makes up for them, isn't the best for the publishers?

 

I agree, something has to happen here. While Level 11 started out pretty interesting it gets more and more disappointing each month. Maybe the terms for the asset authors are the problem here?

So here another idea:
Instead of having a combination of "free" and reduced assets, there could be just "massive" cuts like 80% on high quality assets. But this time the cut is split between author and UT.
In the 80% example the author would therefore still receive e.g. 50% of the original price while UT makes up for the remaining 30%.

This would benefit the author as the asset now gets a lot of exposure while still making considerable revenue.
It would also benefit the Level 11 user as high quality assets for really low prices beat free "crap" (just to make a point - no offense intended) hands down

 

Thats a really good idea. Or just keep "Level 11" as the actual discount.

 

While I am all for a simple flat discount, it would have to be a practical amount, something like 15-20%. Unity still needs to make revenue off it to justify its existence. At 30%, that would eliminate all revenue from pro users and cap revenue to 20$ for everyone else.

 

Sure, but apply that to what I already said (including the bit about using it to get people to buy your other stuff...).

 

Right when level 11 was about to start some publishers were asked if they wanted to be part of the free stuff. At that moment there wasn't any "sale discount " for pro users. Then unity 5 came out with this monthly sale and free stuff in the level 11 thing.
I am also a pro user and have picked up 3 free stuff that I never used... but just in case.
As a publisher the free thing never interested me for many reasons exposed in other people's posts.
right when level 11 started I really didn't understand it's purpose... I directly wrote an email to the asset store's "boss" asking to create a level of discount such as "bronze" :10% of discount for a small monthly amount, "silver": 20% for a bigger monthly payment, "gold", "platinum" etc... you see my point. A new agreement would need to be agreed by the publishers for each of his asset to be included in that program.
that with some few freebies ( one for bronze, 2 for silver, 3 for gold and 4 or up to the max for platinum) and I think people would be happy. Pro users or subscribers could be directly at silver or gold level (upgradable) and free users could just opt for the level of discount they want...
As a publisher I would enroll all of my assets in such a program, and as an asset store user I would feel more comfortable spending money with the discount I have...
just my 2 cent.
Answer I had was pretty much: thanks for your input, we might consider this later on.... bla bla bla....
To me level 11 doesn't look right as it is now and should totally be rethought. One big miss for Unity on that one... let's see what happens next...

 

As greggtwep16 says, there doesn't seem to be much incentive for most asset publishers to offer their assets into this promotion as it stands. Also, the original deal was actually the highest of $250 or the total last 3 months of sales to pro users. Which makes a massive difference, as we have no idea how many of our customers are pro users.

 

yikes!

 

That's a sad thing to think about. Pro is a one time purchase. Discounts are going to hurt either asset makers or unity. Maybe level 11 can be repurposed as something else.

 

I think that this thread is telling - essentially Level 11 must have been seen as a main reason or driving factor to go pro for people who are <100K.

I'd imagine that's a pretty narrow set of users. This means, the other benefits of going pro are somehow watered down or not hitting the mark.

 

Well, at this point, I could never give up the dark Editor skin.

 

For someone under $100k what do you see the Pro benefits as being? Does the average user working on sub-$100k porjects see the benefit of services like Cloud Build or Analytics?

 

Again I'm a non pro user with less then 100k if unity revenue. (But now more then zero, which is pretty awesome.)

At less then 100k analytics doesn't do you a lot of good. You are typically close enough to your players that simply talking to them gets you some pretty good feedback.

Cloud build would be useful. The build and deploy process even for my simple games can take an hour by the time you've hit three or four platforms. Then there is an unexpected bug and you have to start over. Cause let face it, proper QA doesn't happen when it's just you in the basement.

The value of level 11 won't cover the subscription cost. If a client is paying for an asset then I need it straight away. If not the asset has no value to me.

To be honest I don't see anything worth making me upgrade. I won't be until I accidentally strike it rich in game development.

 

I actually think Level 11 is an awesome idea. I don't understand why you guys cry, you get some top assets for free, and a list with a lot of discounted ones, only for you. You don't see there are assets who are priced in Assets Store at over 100 euro one, and you get this free.. wth is wrong with you guys?

 

Sorry, but you didn't read all the posts in here or at least didn't think about what they meant to say (or didn't want to). And it most probably wouldn't have hurt to make your post sound a little less aggressive and somewhat more constructive...

But to reiterate:

• We don't get anything for free. before Unity 5 there were huge perks, even for small developers, that were coming with the pro version. Now that both versions get the same technical features there aren't that many advantages (especially not ones that would justify 1500$) for a lot of small devs. Back when all this was announced, Unity offered refunds for the Pro license but also a few perks for those that would keep their license. One of this perks was Level 11 and they made it sound like something of value to pro users. But it just isn't if most assets aren't directed at pro users and that's even worse if you're considering that pro users are the only Level 11 users at the moment.
  People here are giving a lot of constructive feedback and that's a good thing. If Unity wants to sell more pro licenses in the future, people have to feel like it's worth it and it's important to let them know if that isn't the case and what could change it.
• I don't care if the assets offered "for free" would cost me 10, 100 or a million dollars in the asset store. As long as they're of no use to a pro user, they wouldn't have bought it anyway and thus the value you get out of it equals 0$.

 

maybe pro users could select if they want Level11 on: AssetStore, uNet or Cloudbuilds..
(they would get extra/next level plan on those services, instead of free asset packs)

 

Really?

 

We are drifting towards off topic but since it came up: what I really like as a pro user that I did not see mentioned anywhere so far is access to the betas. I get a new Unity release around 3 months before the others. I can include new features 3 months earlier. Yes I have to cope with bugs but also get heard more when I report them. Of course that's not worth 1500 bucks but just imagine you go out with your HoloLens/any other upcoming tech game 2-3 months earlier. Boom.

 

Yes, really. And I ask you to refrain from quoting single sentences of mine out of context to purposefully give them another meaning in the future. It's bad form.

What I wrote was

And I absolutely stand by that. If you've got a master's degree in mathematics and someone gives you a math book for 3rd graders that cost 30$, it's not like you've saved 30$ or got anything at all out of that (granted, at least you could sell the book and get a few dollars back). It's simply something you have absolutely no use for and wouldn't have spent a single dime on in the first place so it's not like you get anything out of it.

 

I queoted exactly what was relevant. You see, you made the wrong assumption on what Level 11 is. You pay for Unity Pro and pro subscription benefits, and Level 11 comes as a bonus. That's what you don't get it.

 

A bonus that gives you worthless assets isn't much of a bonus.

 

Level 11 is a "subscription benefit", it's not a bonus.

Spoiler

P.S. A 30% discount on any asset instead of a number of free assets every month would be a great alternative. Both Unity and AssetStore publishers would still be getting paid. Those 30% could be split 15% from Unity, 15% from publisher to make it even fairer for the asset store publishers.

 

UT had to come up with something when they released the Unity 5 Personal edition in order to keep the Pro version somewhat valuable.

It's pretty obvious the value of Unity 5 Pro has decreased massively if you compare it with the Unity 4 Pro vs Unity 4 Free version. Level 11 doesn't change that. Democratization yeah, but the Pro user pays the bill...

 

Well that's quite subjective, isn't it? That's how I see it, and it's clearly how you see it, but other people see it differently.

 

Basically, yeah.

Whats the point of making a monthly sale of a few select items? Is there some market strategy here that somehow would be more profitable than a blanket sale across the whole store? Wouldn't a flat discount incentive Pro users to buy what they actually want instead of just shoveling everybody the same stuff?

"Here's your Asset Casserole for the month, I hope its what you wanted! Too bad if not!"

It's like going to a cafeteria that has a membership club which changes whats cheaper every day. One day Meatloaf is cheap, the next day Salad is cheap, then Muffins, then Sodas. If you don't like any of that then too bad. After a while, theres no point in being in the club since what you want is never in on the club discount.

As I see it in its current state the Discounted items will probably never sell except to people that are interested in those very specific products whereas everyone will pick up the Free items regardless of their appeal simply because they are Free.

So then, if everyone had a flat discount on everything then they would certainly be more interested in buying something that they actually want since it isn't full price to them. Now you're in the club and everything you want is on sale all the time.

They could alternatively defer the discount option to the asset publisher who could specify that Level 11 users get more/less discount (ie 10% min, 30% max) but I'm unsure if the average publisher would understand the marketing options this would offer or how it would affect more popular assets. Then again this starts bleeding into the plethora of other lackluster Publisher options and is not related to this topic...

 

I really do hope the asset store people are following carefully this thread... if not I'm gonna point it out.

 

This thread has been forwarded to the Unity Asset Store's publishers google group.
answer from the unity asset Store Manager:
"We're working on this, all..."
hopefully some the ideas / suggestions mentioned will be taken into account.

 

I like the various "monthly madness" sales.

 

This. What Unity has done is make Unity Pro 100% impractical and irresponsible for small studios. Before, it was necessary to churn out a truly polished project, but now? Sure there's a few other features but as has been discussed in numerous threads, they're insignificant. Now I'm just waiting to make a bunch of money so I'm forced to by Pro, otherwise I never would. I'd have to make millions before I willingly paid for Pro, since all I'm really concerned about at the moment is the dark skin and the splash screen. And even that? Meh...

 

Like I said on the publisher group. I was selected, counted in on mid-summer Level 11 Free with my CRC12 + 2 package currently the highest rating on Vehicle category. It might not be much of use for Pro-Users but it's a good quality package and for some reason I wasn't on Level 11.
Point is that the problem is with package selection, there might be people like me that offer something good but never get chosen, same deal is with 24h deals.
And on top of that publisher support is almost to none.

Alex Barbulescu

 

Great for you, bad for us, the publishers. Unity will get its fee and then some, but the publisher just loses altogether because you just dropped the price of everything. In response, we'll just raise prices. This isn't a good solution.

 

He is saying Unity would pass on its 30% cut. The publisher would still get the 70% cut they always get.

And while I agree with everyone that just a straight ~30% discount for Pro users across the board would be great, that seems like something Unity wouldn't want to do. It could end up being much more expensive for them then the current version of Level 11.

 

There are definitely issues for the publishers as well. I'm not 100% sure how the system works now, but as I understood it, if your asset was on the "free" list, then Unity would pay you the average of your last three month's sales. Someone mentioned it was sales to Pro users, I'm not sure, but either way aside from the occasional outlier, my sales have been slowly trending up month over month which means that being on the free list could actually result in a pay cut for me, not to mention a very large added support burden.

That being said, I'd be thrilled if my asset was chosen for the reduced price sale, or any sale for that matter. I filled out the request form I think three times over the last couple of years and have never been chosen even for a regular sale. :/ I think scripting assets are a tougher sale sometimes because there's nothing fancy to show.

 

Increasing the volume of sales isn't good for a publisher? Plus I guess you could opt for it or not. Nobody is forcing anybody to do it. Users won't all suddenly enroll to level 11 anyways. Just maybe raise the amount of pro users willing to spend money. Or maybe lead free to join level 11.

 

And that is the flaw with this idea. 15-20% might sound practical for Unity, but it is not a good enough cut to justify a monthly payment of 20$. With this rate a user would have to buy assets for at least 100$ each month in order to barely make the invested money back.

@Alex_TNT: Thanks for this information. So we know there is at least one great asset left to give away for free ;-)

Not necessarily. It is only good if revenue increases as well.

 

I'm not sure I get the math; I don't know where it's specifically shown. But if they:
1) Give you the last 3 month's sales for 1 month, then that's triple what you'd normally make.
2) If it's the monthly average of the last 3 months TOTAL sales, then as long as you're still likely getting a lot of extra money since you'll be getting that plus your normal sales to non-Pro users. The only way it would be less is if your projected sales to Pro users alone in the next month are greater than your total sales to Pro and non-Pro from the previous months.
3) If it's the monthly average of the last 3 months of sales only to Pro users, then while technically, you might make a bit less if your projected sales to Pro users only is trending upwards, you're still more likely to get more sales since going on Level 11 pretty much garuantees you'll be the number 1 asset in your category and that will likely increase sales to non-Pro users during that month by more than whatever you lose in upward projected sales to Pro-only users.

 

That's an awesome answer. I wouldn't expect them to nail it the first time, and as long as they're working on making things better - which they always are - I'm cool with that.

Also, I don't think it's bad as it is. It's not of particular interest to me, but that doesn't mean it's not a cool idea or beneficial to others.

 

I completely agree that a free thing to pro users can't be bad. Also, when free users are included obviously it's optional so it can never be bad either. I think most of the comments (with a few exceptions) have been constructive and tried to highlight current weaknesses and suggest a few options to perhaps nudge it in the right direction. Wanting to improve it suggests that the idea in general has merit and is cared about.

I do understand that the main original thesis of the thread though was directed at expressing frustration for buying pro for in part level 11. That I agree with and understand where that frustration comes from but @zombiegorilla statement on not having "faith" when purchasing summed that up best. Hindsight is always 20/20 but @makeshiftwings probably should have asked for a refund when he could have and repurchased later if he felt it was worth it. Unity Customer service has always been pleasant to deal with for me, it would never hurt to explain the whole situation to them and see if they'd grant an exception even though they don't have to.

 

No, people have been saying they give you the average of the last three month's sales. The rest of what you say is pretty reasonable, though - you're right that it's not free for everyone, so it's not going to remove all of your sales income.

 

That's a very good point. I completely forgot to factor in the people who don't have access to level 11. I was just thinking in terms of:

Jan - $5
Feb - $7
Mar - $10
Average - ~$7

But, April might follow the trend and bring in $12 - $13 so it's a net loss, but I wasn't taking into account sales from non-pro users.

 

Same here. It's fun to play with free stuff, but I am not the target audience. Oddly, I don't think a majority of the pro users would be. Big studios aren't going to be using a lot of store assets, and successful shipping indies/small studios, may use some amount of assets, but they probably already have them, and certainly aren't going to be use 3-4 a month, especially considering the variety. If I didn't have it, I wouldn't be interested in it, at really any price point as I don't have a need.

I think it is a good idea in some fashion, but I don't think in general it is a good fit as a Pro feature. The target audience for this is really hobbyists. Folks doing a variety of different things and having fun with the engine. Sure, some indies, but anyone focused on one or a few games, is only going to use a limited amount assets.
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Not sure how this translates to something useful though (in terms of marketing or price point.

 

If so it's working. I'm a Pro user simply because my company is registered as a sole proprietor LLC and my asset sales when added to my day job salary goes over the $100k limit so I bought Pro for legal reasons, but I'm very much a hobbyist and very much having fun. That said, I also snag the free Level 11 assets if nothing more than to play with them and buy some of the discounted ones as well. I'll be buying Tom's Uber Standard Shader for instance before the end of the month (currently discounted on L11).

 

Ah yes, I forgot beta access. In my relitively unique situation as a hobbyist who makes more revenue from YouTube tutorials then from actual games, beta access would be the biggest benefit from going pro.

After all, my channel was launched based on my work in the 4.6 beta. Getting in early with new tutorials and concepts as they are released is important for YouTube.

 

welp the madness sale is up, now we know why level 11 was so bad this month lol look at all those great assets on discount! Someone mentioned they liked to see playmaker on level 11, it was already on there entirely free one month, got it myself

 

Just in case someone is starting today and sees this thread... PlayMaker is currently 65% off.

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/368

 

PlayMaker was free in the first Level 11.