Worst sale you ever made in unity asset store n your 1st experiences

Well hi everybody..to begin with English is not my 1st language so sorry for mistakes if any...
I am new to unity.. I wanted to make a game for mobile n to b frank unity was my last choice but now as I started using it (been like a week or so) I m really liking it...
so the point is I was planing to make a sale in store(mainly terrain assets..trees grass rocks n stuff like dat) n being a newbie I dnt know a thing about promotions, ads, pricing n taking feedback, MAINTAINING FORUMS etc..
so wanted to know what all thing I should b knowing n any experiences n worst possible things anybody did as a newbie..n BEST SALES u did..thanks in advance..

 

Don't release until you have something really great that people will use. Be sure to make a thread in the Asset Store section and maybe a thread in the Works In Progress section if you'll be working on it a while. If you provide screenshots and information before release on your thread, people can give you helpful feedback.

And don't have high expectations.

 

Firstly, don't do forums. Just have email support form on your site (it will almost never get used anyway).
Everything else you can learn with searches, it's fairly pointless spoon feeding you.

 

thank u for ur replies..n I will remember not to keep high expectation..

 

i would say for 3d models, the successful ones have a large content because people dont like to mix different style, so they would buy package that have enough content for the game. my advise would be specialise you in a theme, medieval/scifi and a style realistic/cartoon and stick to it.
when people browse your product if you have one huge poly SCIFI rifle they wont buy it even if its the most beautiful one, but if you have a bundle of 50~100 weapon even average quality its more interesting

 

What are you talking about? I vehemently disagree with that. Our support forum gets used quite a bit. It's also quite a selling point when people can see all the good support and even search it. Customers can witness good support before buying.

We get about as much email as people posting on the support. Roughly equal. Here's that forum, which is free for us. http://darktonic.freeforums.net/

I would say you don't need a forum at the beginning. But when you reach a certain popularity (and if it allows scripting in particular) that it's definitely a great addition and a life saver.

 

That's what I mean. It's just added stress, workload etc when you really should be spending time on a great product. A great product is great business. Great support comes once you get great business, after a great product.

If you pre empt everything you will just be atlas telamon and not increase sales. Mostly, it's just increasing your workload. Your customers will give you 5 stars for a 5 star product. See anything echologin does. Any forum? nope, just a unity thread and email.

Benefit of just using email and unity thread is that *everyone* can see your support. I didn't even know you had a forum, nor would I bother visiting it.

My point is your forum is useless, and you only think it's good business. You don't have any proof whatsoever it increases sales because the majority of 5 star products don't actually have a forum. You might be successful so that's made you think you know best, but you're just delivering a good product and good support.

If your product is becoming incredibly complex you probably need a forum, but I don't think it is, especially if it's just come out

 

A forum for coding assets and a forum for art assets are 2 totally different things. The OP is talking about doing art assets so he definitely doesn't need a forum at least for now.

Probably no hard proof but the fact is that good support leads to happy customers. A forum can be one way to help achieve that.

 

I don't know why you're so certain, but you're in fact wrong. I wouldn't have said so if I didn't have hard proof. I know the existence of our forum (and it being busy) led to a number of important large bulk sales because it was mentioned by the customers in email. They saw other competing products. The forum increased their confidence in the product enough to make the sale. Now if it was a mostly empty forum, admittedly this may not have been a factor. Ours is not that way.

It's irrefutable based on our experience. I don't care if most 5 star products don't have a forum. It does lend some amount of credibility.

Also, after the initial setup (2 hours), running the forum doesn't take any more time than answering the emails with questions. It really doesn't.

And yeah for an art asset, a forum is pointless.

My 2 cents.

 

I have several assets and all the more popular assets have somewhat busy forums. No they are not busy like Unity forums but you wouldn't want that anyway or you'd need to quickly sell your company or hire folks to handle it. Even Unity doesn't pay all their forum help.

I'd say make a forum and use it. Try to get your customers not to use email.

I bought an excellent asset but it had some bugs. Email was a hassle. It puts undue extra pressure on an asset creator who likely ain't making much from the assets to begin with and the solution they give for a broken product via email will have to be repeated for each customer that asks. On the forum the solution if there for everyone and the asset creator need only send a link to the solution for the asset's problem to other customers.

Plus you miss out on other customers potentially helping each other out.

Finally you and the asset developer can check the forum easily at scheduled times as if you were manning a help desk at work rather than deal with more urgent seeming emails. With that in mind your support email should not go to a personal email address but to a support only email address and it too should be treated as a job with scheduled hours.

 

This.

Before I created a forum for our assets I was getting at least double the amount of email that I am getting now. Whenever I get a more general support request I always ask nicely if they can post the question on the forum. Having a forum has enabled users to search and I think that has really cut down on the amount of email that I receive. It is also adds value to the asset because people can quickly find answers instead of having to wait for me to respond.

Of course, I wouldn't create a forum immediately after submitting my first asset. I waited until we had enough assets out there to make it worth it - on average we are now getting a few posts a day.

 

I think it depends a lot on your asset. I don't have a forum for mine, but haven't at all had the need for one. I do have a dedicated publisher site with a bit of information. I do get a fair amount of email but it's generally from people who need to know how to accomplish a specific complicated thing. In most instances it's an edge case scenario and I try to help them write a custom converter or improve their code to do what they need. In a few cases it's something that's more common in which case I post it in the release thread here and also include the bits in the next release of my asset.

So... if you feel your asset will need a lot of discussion then go with a forum. If it doesn't, you can do as I do and rely on email and the unity forums. The important thing is just to make sure you're attentive to your customers and that you try to answer promptly. I use email because It syncs with my phone every 15 minutes. My typical response time is 15 to 30 minutes unless I'm sleeping. If you can't commit to answering email promptly, then a forum may be a better option for you.

 

I agree with this. I won't buy an asset over a few bucks anymore if the developer does not have a thread in the Unity forum or their own forums linked somewhere I can easily find it. I find that some developers don't want to address issues in the Unity forums and prefer email. While I don't mind emailing them, and in some cases where the problems are complex, that is easier, I much prefer forums. There I can get help from others and I don't have to always wait as long for a response, especially as it is often something simple to fix.

I have had some bad luck with a number of assets I have purchased in the past so tend to be much more cautious than I used to be about what I buy. I want to make sure the developer has a good reputation in the community, is helpful and not rude to customers on the forums, and answers promptly, not necessarily immediately as I know people have lives and there are time zone differences. I always try to figure things out myself, read the documentation, if there is anything so when documentation is missing, especially written documentation, I am less likely to buy. On the forums, it doesn't take long to figure out who has or has not provided documentation. Without forums, I won't know until after I buy the product. I have actually purchased things with blank documentation files. lol I find that rather annoying.

Because I now do my homework, I have had excellent service from the vast majority of developers I buy from. They sell me great products and work with us to get them to work and it saves our small team time. Works very well. Thanks for the help!

 

hmm...dats a point

 

I am thinking abt 1st selling some low poly trees for free
2 groups one with forum n one w/o forum...
den I can maybe sell low poly village with people n animals for $$ by den I will atlest have some knowledge about store isnt it

 

Well low poly trees for free isn't a good use of forum but it's good for requests without disturbing your with email notification. Also you'd be prepared in the future. Furthermore, maybe Unity users expand outside of gaming in the future?

Example: Gardeners are pretty enthusiastic hobbyists and like to plan landscaping their yards in the winter. When and if it ever becomes easy for gardening enthusiasts to create a 3D yard in Unity and try various 3D plant landscaping designs and you make it possible in a tablet or computer screen for enthusiastic to create and contribute plant species you could create a profitable online gardening hobby site sustained with relevant advertising. Dave's Garden is an example of early 2000s web tech that is still going strong. You'd probably need Speed Tree license or something alone those lines to make it easy enough for amateurs to create 3D plants & such to contribute.