Unity want a part of the cake for online services

Interesting.

"This is the first time we’ve been aware of a required Online Service Strategic Partnership; it appears to be a recent policy change that Unity’s website has yet to reflect. We’ve been given two options.

Pay $150 every time Lumos is downloaded.
Pay $100,000 annually."

https://lumospowered.com/blog/66295910444/lumos-delisted-from-asset-store?utm_content=bufferca94d&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

So we will only get the big guys on the Asset Store, that can actually pay for this?

 

That seems really bad...are we missing anything here or is this the whole story?

 

Don't know. Maybe some Unity employee will shed some light on it for us.

 

That's why I provide two outlets for purchase of my asset. I've had really good luck with FastSpring and it calls back to my own website where I automatically create accounts that allow purchasers to download latest versions. When folks that purchase through the Asset Store send me their invoice numbers and email addresses I create accounts for them as well.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Asset Store is a great venue, but it's not the only one and it seems like they're cracking down and not always in the right places. I've seen posts flying around about the requirements to not use Unity in the product titles, and now this online services thing (if true). Yet there are also many posts about dead assets, fake assets and just generally unresponsive publishers and those assets many times remain on the store. It so far gives the appearance that they are only concentrating on revenue generating changes to the asset store but I could be wrong.

I've actually been exchanging emails with the founder / owner of FastSpring since I shared my story and some feedback with him. They are very interested in getting more involved with the Unity asset community and they take a much smaller cut (at 8.9%). They also direct deposit into your bank account with no fees and handle the same VAT taxes and sales taxes that Asset Store does. That being said, right now it is a little more difficult to use. It gives you more flexibility but requires you to put in a little more management time as a seller.

One thing they've asked me to do is to help plan out an API based on my feedback. They have an existing API for accepting payments but I am diagramming a full-blown integration API for them and they are going to look at integrating it. This will allow people to more fully integrate storefronts and manage products from their stores. If they can get a sufficient API in place I also plan to build out an ecommerce application (in .NET MVC 4) that interfaces with FastSpring and if I'm happy with the product I'll be offering it free to the Unity community and anyone who wants to use it to sell their assets as a fallback in case things like this happen with the Asset Store.

 

I suspect that it's only the 'big guys' that will have to deal with this. Probably over a certain income level on the store.

Of course, nobody but Unity knows the details of this, apparently. Not even these guys.

 

Well, if true then so much for "democratization" of game development eh - looks like the oligarchy is moving in! Some clarification would be nice, i've only read the Lumos blog so far so who knows what the other side of the coin looks like atm.

 

When I finish my current game, I'll start working on alternative asset store (thing Cydia vs. AppStore). Probably would take 10% of every transaction though, because I need to pay for hosting whole thing somehow.

 

A guess would be that it only involves service/network products due to their nature. Which would make sense, as Unity should have very tight control over who and what is listed/sold through their store in that respect.

 

I've been thinking along the same lines - maybe integrate maven support and use a steam style client to push notifications/manage installs.

Toss me a pm if you want to look into it together.

 

I'd do it rather as editor extension so it will be as seamless as current store and use fastspring as e-commerce backend. Basically sales would go through me, then on a monthly basis I'd send money to content creators minus 10% via some sort of automated system (didn't figure that one yet).

 

In case you didn't saw already: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/209396-Lumos-delisted-from-Asset-Store

 

Make it a portion of the sales from the Asset store... Why did David claim that people would lie, they can't if Unity was tracking the sales on the asset store?!?! They know exactly how much they are making...

 

It's a stupid move because with this kind of money, it's much cheaper to acquire new customer without the asset store than with it...
100k is even enough to make your own store and acquire as much user.

30% is already pretty high. They could simply ask it on subscription like with the appstore.

 

I think it was more they didn't want the store used for nothing to acquire a userbase and didn't really know what to do to stop it. It seems to me with those sort of numbers unity expected it to be withdrawn and that is the number they decided it would be stupid to not accept.

Unless unity handle the payment for the subscription service they need to find a way to charge the user for it. This is very different to the free assets where the user isn't seeking to make money but to share instead.

I get the problem but don't know the solution. Unity can't allow him to charge for a trial product, but they want to make money. To me it seems charge per download seems the best way, I don't know what the appropriate number is. $150 is obviously excessive, but what would be considered fair? $1, $5, $50???

 

Noting that they appear to have forgotten their paying customers in the process... you know the ones who have paid thousands of dollars for licensing and use the asset store to pay even more money to add functionality that Unity lacks?

I assume that the reason they didn't go down this route is because a subscription service is far too complicated for UT to implement?

I'd start by looking at the stakeholders and evaluating various options. Removing functionality for your core customers through sudden and exorbitant fees? Stupid. Discussing with the customers options including no fee or a subscription based service? Smart.

 

This.

 

I am not sure if by customers you mean the person selling the asset or the person buying. It is more to do with the person selling IMO.

The fact people can buy extensions to unity is a good thing not a bad thing IMO. Loads of the stuff in the store there is no way it should be core stuff (although there are obviously some which would probably be more suited as a core product).


I think unity would of been better rejecting the asset rather than asking for those fees because it was obvious it would be rejected unless unity is massively overestimating how much that user makes in subscription fees.

 

Err... the Unity License Holders? I figured I made that clear - this asset store was supposedly made to help us, so shouldn't Unity's primary goal be to ensure it does that? Remembering that everybody using this store - consumer or producer - is a customer of Unity. Some pay nothing (but contribute indirectly), some pay hundreds (e.g. student or basic licenses), some pay thousands (standard licenses), and some even pay tens and hundreds of thousands (companies, special licenses).

Sure, in principle it's a great idea. It's also a way for UT to make more money of key failures - e.g. GUI. UT IMO has a tendency to try to take good things, and then ruin them. Free Linux Compilation - but a massive power grab in EULA. Good asset store - aggressive, arbitrary and surprise pricing to destabilise Indy Startups..

I think Unity would be better off supporting its users and doing nothing at all rather than this.

Think of it this way: I have products in this space that I want to build and ship, heck half the code base is already written. However, how can I invest time and money into building great services for you developers if I know that UT can, at any time, significantly diminish or destroy my business case? They can ban or add significant license fees (in the 6 figure range) on their EULA at any release. Now they can remove and/or charge 6 figure license fees (or hugely expensive 'download' fees) to any product I have in the asset store. If Unity can't act in good faith, why would I bother investing money into furthering their platform?

 

wow is that real?

 

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/20...tore-content?p=1412526&viewfull=1#post1412526

 

We so need an alternative store. As previously stated, the store was supposedly created to help us the developers to be able to use Unity productively. To help us the customers be able to get the most from our purchase of a unity licence. This mad decision by Unity goes directly against that. I've just read another thread where unity are rejecting gun models because they feel they have enough on the store already. Once again this should not be for them to judge, I as a developer might prefer that guys gun model, it might be textured more to my tastes or have a more suitable polygon count for my needs. I really do despair at unity when they do things like this, the Eula changes and stupid self satisfying edicts on what you can and can't put on the asset store, or the mind boggling 150 bucks per download fee! Someone please for the love of Unity create a decent alternative asset store!

 

That gun story sounds really crazy lol