Suggestion for Unity: Accredited Asset Store Developer status

Problem:
Buying assets, especially code, for a critical system component (ie: outsourcing development to the asset store, if you will) and then the developer fails to support said product when you find a potential serious issue.

Having the source code does not always mean "hey, you have the source code, fix the bug yourself".
Yes, you can, but especially for complex packages like AI , multi-threading, GUI etc this can be problematic.
And while you may have fixed the bug, giving the solution to the developer to update the product helps other users as well.

Solution:
Unity needs to take the Asset Store to the next level and provide a quality filter for assets by developers that demonstrate the ability to properly support and continue development of high quality code and art assets.
I'm sure we all know developers who fit this profile.

Something like "Accredited Asset store developer" or something that can't be gamed by bs marketing reviews.

To earn this status means they have demonstrated they have a quality product but also have the capability to support it and continue to develop it. It would also be possible to lose this status if their support status degrades.

The Asset Store is great, but had grown a little unwieldy and can be a bit of a crapshoot with variable quality sometimes.
Products that are no longer supported should either be removed from sale or visibly highlighted as no longer supported as well. Unfortunately I'm sure we also know developers in this category too.

 

+1. Possibly a can of worms, but a great idea!

 

I agree too!

 

@sonicviz, of course, that would be great. But I don't see how this could be managed in a practical way. Do you have an idea how this could work?

 

Probably something like what turbosquid has, checkmate certified

I'm not sure how much liability that would bring to Unity...

 

Sure, as pointed out by Hamyshank there are precedents as well, such as Turbosquids program.

It could be a combination of Unity defining some more criteria on their side that needs to be met, such as developer has a dedicated domain, dedicated support forum, proper email address (ie: domain based) plus assets meet a definable standard in terms of packaging re: documentation etc.

Why shouldn't it be managed in a practical way?
The current system is great but it's also a bit of a crap shoot to be honest, but a great money spinner for Unity.
They should put some more of their 30% cut towards filtering and management of assets, not just the deployment tech of them and running sales.

I can think of a number of packages which would be instantly accredited under something like this, as well as a number of others which wouldn't.
But I only know that from my experience. Ratings etc only go so far.

 

There is a problem in this request: If your point is to get better quality, I am all for it; there should be a gold status for people that actually makes top notch content, like you see it on sites like turbosquid (without the madness with pricing thou; people sometimes just loose a lots of cogs from their head, and detach from reality; and then blame the starving student that does a good job for a 10th of what they ask). Approximate code makes you loose time and ruin your product; If you need to waste time fixing someone else's code, is better if you write it from scratch

But if you talk about what happens after the sale; well, that's a whole different story.

Technically; if you buy code from other sites; you get the code, with the requirements that you ask, or the features that the coder expose; and use it. You may be entitled to get updates, if the author update the code, but the support is totally detached by the product itself.
If you buy a package for AI, and you find bugs; you file bugs and wait if they are fixed...isn't an automatic event that is included in the price, unless specified in the sales terms. And for the price that you pay, often it is not even fair to ask for such services...the average pay for an average developer is about 100 per hour...you buy a full package that took many hours for not even that amount.

I often sold code to people, because they ask in general to make something non-specific; then what they do with that code is their problem...I was paid to code, not to be the IT support too Then for others; I take ownership of code made by others, and maintain it...in which case I am paid to fix bugs and continue the development of that specific product for a set amount of time, or until we reach a point where all the features are as the customer wants.. They are 2 different things; which may be sold together, but do not always go together.

Not sure that Unity Store is able to deliver such granularity on their products....they offer also a service where they basically help you with your project, with code and graphic...which sounds very similar to the kind of "professional" tier service that you are looking for.

 

>>They are 2 different things; which may be sold together, but do not always go together.

That depends. There are more than a few developers providing excellent packages under active development with support, using close customer contact for bug fixing, feature requests, and even in some cases collaborative development.

>>which sounds very similar to the kind of "professional" tier service that you are looking for

Not all all. See my previous answer. I'm just tired of some developers implying they support a product when they don't.

If the product is dead it should be clearly labelled as "no longer under development, buy at your own risk" or removed from sale.

If the product is unsupported with a "here's the code, go for it" deal it should also be clearly labelled as such, just to bring clarity to the purchase decision and post-purchase expectations. Depending on the complexity of the package this is no problem.

If the product has a support website and support email it implies support so either support it or have it clearly labelled as Non-Supported. This is critical for certain key products that are either complex or deal with complex areas.

It's pretty simple really. At the moment there is no way to distinguish these use cases except via experience.
Which makes in the end for a variable user experience which could be easily resolved by some more clarity on the Asset Store.

 

In fact I didn't say that is impossible, just that is easy to think that they are offered as one package, while the developer can just loose interest in the project and give up...which is totally legit.

How do you know if a project is dead? The guy may return years after and update it...is like to say that if an app on the app store is not updated, should be removed. As long as it works, you can't do that...I don't think that they ever remove apps from the store; unless they become incompatible or the developer close his dev account.

Agree that there should be a label system: that's why I mentioned that the support is one thing, and the development and release is another...some may just make a one shot package, while others may be interested in a more modular development...after all, when people buy a package and give great feedback, your product increase in quality at the same time.

Is not complex conceptually, but to implement something like this is not easy....nobody knows when they start to do a package, what do they want to do next Unity makes contracts with people, forcing them to support a package if they sign for it ?

 

It's obviously an issue, and you can't develop a solution until you recognize the problem.

So I'm recognizing the problem. It seems I'm not the only one.

Recognize the problem, discuss possible solutions. Don't just blow it off as "too hard";-)

Possible solutions: (just throwing ideas at the wall, not recommending any)

1. Quality Evaluation Checklist on the product description:
Documentation
Examples
Language written in
Supported or unsupported product
Under active development, maintained only, no longer developed.

2. Accredited Asset Developer status
Unity driven (maybe community input) for developers who achieve levels of excellence in asset production AND support.

3. [insert here your idea(s)] ;-)

 

I hear your points, too, darshie1976. But in the professional and commercial world, support is 50% of a product. The big software companies (Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, etc.) won't sell a product and then not support it. Maybe accreditation could differentiate developers who take this approach from others who just throw a product out there without support.

 

I am trying to recognize the problem...and being a developer for a living, I see many aspects of it.

I am not blowing off the idea; just saying that it cause more problems than the ones that it fixes IMO, unless someone takes charge and responsibility for the possible outcome if something goes bad and there is a dispute. Nobody wants to deal with such problems, Sonicviz Everything can be done, but you gotta consider pros and cons.....if you even go even, is usually not worth the hassle.

The only way to evaluate someone is to prove his product: who "approve it"? Can't really evaluate something only based on the docs or language...a good programmer is a good programmer in Java, Assembly or Visual Basic...if he/she knows stuff, the language matters little (of course we are talking of skills; is obvious that there are limitations and uses for each language...the right tool for the right job).

I am ok doing categories, but then who decide who stay and who doesn't? Someone may write negative reviews on purpose, just to screw others; is not that remote as option.
That's why Unity left total freedom on the store; allowing the population to regulate what stays and what gets forsaken in the pits of the store And at the same time they said "call us if you want pro stuff".

I like your idea, but I also think that you may have more luck hiring a person that is on the site here, and has a proven record of delivering good products; which has an external website, which knows what is doing...that would be enough to have the info needed, and buy stuff either on the asset store or on their website, don't you think?

With 3d is easier to evaluate...a crappy geometry can be seen by anyone with eyes, that knows what to look for; Bad geometry results in bad deformation when animated...can't miss it really.
Bad code can look professional, until a rare occurrence happens and screw up your application in a painful way (happened, often, to anyone, even pros); spaghetti code is a good sign of a bad programmer, but other than that, is not as easy as it may be with 3d models.]

This is my job, and I can't really say how would you evaluate me...we can try to come up with some parameters, but it is really hard to get satisfactory results. For some aspects, a programmer's job is similar to a courtesan's job...satisfaction is attained only once the job is done

What do you think about merit system acquired trough proven jobs delivered? get stars based on how many jobs completed and commercial products published.

 

Most of the time, it is; but there are variations based on the kind of product sold.

A mass produced product (say 3dsmax); is made by a team, or an individual, to be generic and be sold to as many as possible; it needs to include support, because this is what people buy: not only the software but the updates and bug fixes, because it is a generic product for a specific job.

If you make a specific product (say the massive software used by Peter Jackson to animate his agents during the big battles in LOTR), you a re talking of a guy or a company, that has a specific request for a specific software; there the money are made on the support contracts, because you sell to one guy (or if the legal conditions permits it, to a limited amount of users...some pay good money to be the only one to use that software, at lest in the beginning).

As you can imagine, the first case rely on quantity; so you can include the updates and support, since you want more people to buy it. In the second case, your job is done once you finish to write the application, and you don't have income until the next client; which force you to include the support as premium, to make more money on the customer...and being a specific job, it involves more of your time and resources, so you can't give it for free.

Here in Unity, we do not deal with companies of the likes that you mentioned...here we have indie team that do their best to make something that may help others, and make some quid in the process
Most of the time these people find a full time job and don't develop anymore for Unity or for the store; or they simply move on from their passion, once they have a full time job that takes 90% of their life.

That's why I mentioned that there is a fundamental issue in trying to have a developer on the store that is also doing good support, on top of delivering a good product per se.

I am all for it; but we are back to square 1: how do you differentiate between who sell the one shot asset "and good luck to you", vs the one that sell and support his work consistently, when you don't put a contract that force the second to hold to his/her committed job?

 

There are both tangible and intangible aspects to quality metrics.

Tangible aspects of an Asset Store package can be better evaluated with a simple rating checklist rather than the nebulous review/rating system currently used, which may or may not be gamed. I certainly take more than half the reviews with a grain of salt.

For example, as noted previously:
A Quality Evaluation Checklist should be on the product description, where each checklist category is rated, for both individual reviews and aggregated at a product level,

Quality of Documentation included
Quality of Examples included
Languages written in C#/JS/Boo
Quality of Product support
Quality of Active Development status

++ others community metrics people agree on
Code quality etc

These can be aggregated to also provide a top level summary

You are mixing the two issues by constantly referring to Unity's "call us if you want pro stuff".
It has nothing to do with this discussion at all. We are talking about Asset Store products.

There are enough examples of good developers producing quality assets on the store WITH professional levels of support that would put a lot of commercial companies to shame. They should be recognized for starters, and there should be a better mechanism for semi-pro and professional developers using the Asset Store to be able to properly evaluate product quality of assets before buying.

It is possible to do this. Just because "it always been done this way" is not a good enough reason to continue doing it the current way.

As others have pointed out there are other ways of tacking this issue.

 

I guess you must try to realize if something can be done or not. You are so sure that it will work, that you reject by principle what I am trying to tell you.

Once you see the cons, you can see the openings; you instead prefer to look at the pros, rejecting the cons, because you are sure that you can work it out...this is fundamentally a difference in approach, so I can't be of help in this .

If things are done or not, is not always because we live in a world where 5 billion of people are not able to have an idea, but simply because people want something that gives the best results with the minimum effort. Many has ideas; but less than .0001% have an idea that can work out of the box.

From my point of view; I refuse to be evaluated based on certain parameters, because they are bogus, and same apply to many pros or people with experience. This means that you end up with beginners and people with little experience? Is a possibility.

So you started this to avoid to deal with low quality products, and end with people that may be the best for attitude and dedication, but lacking experience will not be able to deliver quality products. If you can't see the process logically, you have to go trough it and experience it

Reviews and other metrics based on opinions, usually result in bogus evaluation; what saves the process is the sheer number of reviewers, which increase the chances to get homogeneous results. But if you do not have enough reviewers, the whole thing looses in reliability. How many users buy on the Assets store? As many as Ebay users or Amazon users? Not even close; so you need to consider the numbers too.

Will look forward to the results of this method that you are supporting. You can do it in a ton of ways; the results reveals themselves only when you actually put it in action thou.

 

Once you put a product in the marketplace you are evaluated whether you like it or not.
You will also never please everyone, no matter how excellent your product.
There are, however, very well established objective criteria which can be used by developers to argue against unfair subjective assessments, whatever the motivation.

For example (repeating from my post above)
There are both tangible and intangible aspects to quality metrics.

Tangible aspects of an Asset Store package can be better evaluated with a simple rating checklist rather than the nebulous review/rating system currently used, which may or may not be gamed. I certainly take more than half the reviews with a grain of salt.

For example, as noted previously:
A Quality Evaluation Checklist should be on the product description, where each checklist category is rated, for both individual reviews and aggregated at a product level,

Quality of Documentation included
Quality of Examples included
Languages written in C#/JS/Boo
Quality of Product support
Quality of Active Development status

++ others community metrics people agree on
Code quality etc

These can be aggregated to also provide a top level summary

 

I personally think that (even though it would be easy to circumvent) a good idea would be to disallow advertisement of assets either not yet published on the asset store (aka Just Submitted) and/or advertising assets being sold offsite from the asset store.
Maybe have a sub-forum for offsite non-published assets.
It wouldn't completely solve the topic the OP brings up but I think it would help out some, with a relatively small investment to implement. especially since Unity already spends a lot of resources processing / deploying / hosting assets already.

 

I have nothing against being evaluated; that's what reviews are for; but it makes a difference to me, to be evaluated and placed in a "gold tier" or "silver tier" based on few subjective parameters I am curious to know which criteria that is objective, you would use to evaluate, as you said in your comment...many companies would love to have a way to hire a person that makes 120K a year, knowing immediately if he will be worth or if he will be a pain in the neck, until they find a way to get rid of him

Even quiz and test won't be a reliable way to define how good a programmer is; knowledge can be acquired; experience and critical thinking for problem solving is something that either you acquire with experience, or you have it as gift.

Again, the criteria that you mention are useful for a product review, not for a developer review. You need examples more than categories. Today I buy something and I give my opinion; but if I use it and you see my game on the cover of a magazine, it speaks more than 1000 reviews probably.

And still you don't know if was me being a great programmer in using well that asset, or the asset itself that made my life easier (or both, like often happens).

I understand that you need something to categorize a product, but there are things that cannot be categorized; that's why I am in favor of categories for products, not for programmers

 

wait, you are saying to not allow advertisement for a product that is just launched? How do you promote your product then?

From the dawn of marketplaces, someone is the guinea pig and buy something that has 0 ratings; and write his first review...more follow and the product either is celebrated or is obliterated by negative feedback. Who you rely upon to write the first reviews? Unity team? Us users? Some sort of appointed commission that examine the submissions before they hit the store?

You would still have people selling outside the store at that point; which would result in the asset store being even more a niche place than how it is now.

 

Anyway I agree with the part that no one seems to be debating. Specifically, products that are unsupported should be pulled off the store or slapped with a big graphic over the top "THIS IS NO LONGER SUPPORTED". Anyone who disagrees with this needs their head examined. And I do wonder why the Asset Store hasn't done this already?

Out of the packages I bought, I know of two such packages.

1) Piecemaker (unless something changed)
2) Wingrove Audio for sure. Nothing in the forum or updates for 8 months.

Can we make a petition at least about this part?

 

Jerotas, that would require someone going to test all packages at every release/update of the engine; unless you want to rely on users submissions (and someone in Unity test them and verify that they are not supported anymore.

Plus what do you mean by " not supported"? Do they work? If they work there is no reason to remove them from the store...Just because they are old it doesn't mean that they are not valid. People still use XP, and it is not supported since quite a long time now

Also consider that some people, like many users that spent money for the pro, maybe never upgraded....they are happy with 3 and don't want to shed more money to go pro again with V4; they need old assets. If they work only on 3, you still have a clientele for these

If you refer to abandoned products that won't work at all, either in 3 or 4, then I totally agree.

 

Haha don't mention XP, those users will be getting viruses soon if they keep going online after MS stops making fixes this month.

Anyway, this was prompted by me seeing people post on the Wingrove Audio forum post after they had bought it, and noticing that the author hadn't posted in the thread or made a new build in 8 months. Now the code may or may not be buggy. Just for people who didn't notice the "last version date" or bother to find the thread to see if the author has fallen off the face of the earth, there should be a "NOT SUPPORTED" sticker slapped on the big.png of the asset.

I can't be persuaded why that is a bad idea, and there are definitely more than the two plugins I mentioned out there. Yeah, only take them off the store if reviews are terrible and things are broken. But we definitely need a LARGE warning for the other unsupported stuff.

Definitely users telling the Asset Store which ones are unsupported is a good idea for this. No way they can go look at every package.

 

LOLThey will receive the visit of the ghosts of the past Microsoft CEO

I would agree on a sort of flag, that show that the product hasn't been updated for a while. Not a big sticker; there is nothing to be ashamed if you don't want to respond to 100 mail a day, with any kind of people bothering you for any kind of stupid/serious question Let's face it...some just have no clue, and expect that you make it all for them, just because they pay.

I do not believe in punishing people just because they don't update things anymore; as far as they work, I am fine paying for it. Many software that are shareware or freeware are often left unattended for months, or years; but then someone else grab the torch and continue; I don't think that it is bad...it may be bad if you are used to do everything asking to someone else
I was raised without internet; so growing up, either you figure things on your own, or you ask someone that knows...which is not reachable 24/7 most of the time (how many of you remember user groups where you actually send mail with a stamp? You would get the bi-weekly newsletter, if you were lucky, with your answer on it )

If the code is buggy or not, we will know it only using....are these users that were complaining, pointing at flaws or issues with the code? or they simply don't know how to use the asset and ask instead than figure it out? Let's try to not support bad behaviors

 

"Many software that are shareware or freeware are often left unattended for months, or years; but then someone else grab the torch and continue"

Again you misdirect the thread.
We are discussing Asset Store commercial products that are charged for with an expectation of support.

The Asset Store is lacking in terms of product evalution criteria for paid assets needs to be fixed.

If a product is unsupported, say so.
Saying it is and not providing it is essentially false advertising.

This is only one issue, but the fix is simple enough. It could even be automated based on updates ( or not )
Afted a certain time unsupported pruce reverts to free, for example.
I know a few developers who have done this actually, and good on them for being ethical and honest about the product status.

 

You said

This was extrapolated and elaborated by Jerotas; with a legit and related question. So nobody is going off topic here

Aren't we talking of "Support"? Would you mind specify what do you mean by "expectation of support" then?

You started this thread to talk, or to make statements that are immutable? You proposed to use these parameters that you mentioned over and over; now let's hear something different? Otherwise I don't get where the "conversational" component fits in all of this, if you decided everything

 

Every Asset afik has a support email and/or website. Do they all work? Some do, some don't. Free or low cost is no big deal, but it is an issue for pricier and more complex packages.

 

Those would absolutely make sense. But my question is still, how do you want to manage them? Who rates e.g. the quality of the documentation or the quality of the support?

 

True, they must have an email and a website, to improve the visibility of their product (altho I saw some that had no mail or no site, but they had a post on the forum).

I didn't check them all, but I assume that some are outdated or not working anymore, but the product that they sell is still functional? If is not, then we need to remove it form the store, so nobody waste money on something that does not work.

 

Either users or someone from Unity (if there is any that has free time to do this herculean job).

If users do it; you need a lots of ratings to have reliable results.
We have the iTunes rating system as good example of how easy is to screw up an app.

 

Even the current rating system in the asset store could be better. E.g. I will never understand how any asset can only have 5 star reviews, but the actual rating is lower. There seem to be many who just give a bad rating without giving anyone additional information. Having even more possibilities to rate won't improve the quality in my opinion.

What could work in my opinion would be information like:
- Up to date documentation (yes/no)
- Examples (yes/no)

The value of that is probably not worth the effort. And if users could rate, it would again end up being pointless. I am frequently getting questions like: Isn't there documentation included in your package? Where can I find information about ...? My answer is usually, please have a look at the documentation folder. If they could vote about the documentation, there quality of the result would end up being useless.

 

Well, it is easy to have only 5 star review: 4 people buy it, use it and like it; and you get 5 star.

So far most of the systems used to rate content by users, are subject to return bogus data (someone said yelp?); probably the best approach is the one that Steam uses: thumb up or down and review explaining why; altho is hard to tell at first glance if a product is good or not.

Amazon force you to add at least few lines when you put stars on a product; but still some of the comments are ridiculous, and put there more for filling the space.

What I do not understand: what would stop people to use any of the field suggested, for giving bogus data? A field won't really change how people think about rating products; and the good people that leave informative reviews will continue to give informative reviews anyway. This is, IMO, the biggest gap that we need to fill, to have a rating system that is in fact useful and able to separate mediocre products from ones that deserve.

To me, what I consider important while browsing for products is examples and documentation/tutorials....I will pass if the product do not have a decent set of docs and tuts, so probably that should be one of the rating criteria (rate how useful are the docs, not if there are docs); examples is a good one too; altho a good tutorial video can fill in just fine for an example for me.

You can tell us all how many annoying request you get every time for your assets

 

I believe it would help a lot of people who are not giving a five star rating have to explain what is not good about the asset. I don't understand people who give bad ratings without explaining the reason, as it helps no one. It confuses potential buyers and doesn't help the publisher to improve the product. It would then be the job of the Asset Store team to get rid of the ridiculous reviews.
With that, potential customers are likely to get more information about what they didn't like about an asset. You could easily find out that the documentation is not good or the examples are broken, that the package is outdated, ... .

Having explicit ratings for documentation, support and so on would be nice, but only if there is a realistic chance that the ratings are usable. I don't see a practical way to handle that.

 

I personally don't care about the developer, as long as the product works on my unity version.

In the download manager there should be an option to see what unity version is required to run.
because right now I have unity old ( 3.5 ) and sometimes when I upgrade a plugin it just destroys the whole scene, have to revert to a backup.
This could be prevented by not showing updates that are not supported in the download list.

 

I've told the same thing to the Asset Store. Not only does it not help the developer if someone leaves a 1 star review with no text, but the customer will feel ripped off and the asset creator has no idea what the problem is! They said if they had to do it all over they wouldn't allow it this way. The problem though is that you'd only get 10% as many ratings if people have to leave text.

 

woops, double post sorry.

 

You would promote your product in the proper place called "Works In Progress"

This forum should only be assets sold in the asset store, not offsite. Again there would be a subforum for non-asset store assets.

 

It could be discussed which amount of stars require you to write a review. From my point of view it would even be okay that three stars and less require you to leave a review.
Those kinds of ratings would clearly have a higher value for potential buyers as they get the information what is not good about a package. Maybe those factors are not even relevant for the potential customer. After all both ratings and reviews are there to help potential buyers making a decision. If there is not enough value in them, they are meaningless. In my opinion it would be a huge benefit to have fewer, but more informative ratings/reviews.
It is also not helpful for publishers. For top selling assets that's not a topic at all, because if the asset is good, it doesn't matter whether there is one or the other pointless one star rating. But for publishers that don't have tons of sales and far fewer ratings, those one star ratings clearly have a negative impact.

 

With the due respect, I don't believe in limitations; it is a free world, where we are free to do as we please (without invading other's people freedom, of course), and can't really put limits and minimal requirements when you ask for opinions.

Adding restrictions would just make people even less interested in reporting bad products and praise the good ones. Let's face it: more people you have to write a review, the easier is to understand the quality of a product.
Once you filter out the obvious bogus data, you can see the trend: many complain that is hard to use? Many complain about a specific issue? That's where the value of reviews are.

If Unity would add info about the reviewers, it would be easier to know if you can trust or not that review. For example, a person that review only few items, and mostly in a negative way, gives clearly an idea of the reviewer; knowing if the person bought the product is another thing that you want to know; because I refuse to listen to someone that does not even have my product and write a review. If you can see who wrote the review, how many he/she wrote, and if he/she purchased or not the product; makes a lot of difference, more than limiting who has to write a review or how many stars you should put on a review IMO.

Limitations and restrictions usually do not bring anything good; quite an oxymoron to ask people to give their opinion on something, and then forcefully filter them out Is the reader that has to filter out...if the reader has no time to do a bit of work, then the problem lies somewhere else, not in the reviews.

Didn't we had a magazine for Unity, some time ago? That would be a perfect place to have someone reputable in the community, to get products and test them. We can take the issue out of Unity's hands, like it happens with games, cars, books, music...specialized channels which has no interest, that gives unbiased opinions.
That could be feasible too, and probably easier than having Unity to change the system that we have now on the store.

 

Yes, that's absolutely what I say! The point is, you can not easily filter out bad ratings, because you don't understand what they mean. You don't know whether the product is broken, not anymore supported or whether the customer has no clue. So those ratings are useless! If people complain and give a bad rating, you get valuable information.

 

Reviews currently only give limited information. Some are useful in that they adequately describe the pros and cons of the product while others are less so.

By formalising the review process into a "Quality checklist" it's much easier to determine if the product is lacking in some areas that may be an issue downstream...especially when you hit a bug on a complex asset in a complex area...like multithreading for example.

 

"Quality checklist" seems another name for minimum requirements thou. Do you want make a list of what someone should write in a review, or something like a minimum that must be present to write a review?

I believe that more than "what you have to write" in a review, the value would be in "what the reviewed assed do and don't" (not sure how is multithreading something that require explanation in a review? It is a language feature, has nothing to do with an asset or even Unity....you can read about it everywhere)

 

On Amazon's feedback form, between the 1-5 stars selector and the text review, there are a small number of Yes/No checkboxes. I don't think you're required to answer them, but all the same they're quick and easy. The Unity review form could do the same, something like:

Stars: 1 2 3 4 5

• Did the product work out-of-the-box? Yes/No
• Is the documentation complete? Yes/No
• Do the example scenes demonstrate use of the product? Yes/No
• If you contacted support, were they responsive and helpful? Yes/No/NA

Your Review: [...]​

And perhaps the store could show a compilation of all reviewers' answers (e.g., 84/97 reviewers responded that the documentation is complete).

 

That looks good!

 

yes, exactly. Great summary, and good working example in production.
I'd just add it should be mandatory to fill it in. If you are willing to do a review it's a no brainer to do a semi structured review that really does provide information to help other buyers.

 

I agree; it's just a few clicks, but it can help so much. If anyone can get to http://feedback.unity3d.com, please submit this as an idea, and I'll throw in some votes. I get "Invalid redirect_uri is given" when trying to log into the site.

 

Sounds feasible, altho there is an issue: what is "complete documentation" for me, could not be for another person....I want examples and explanations about how things works; others just want something to start to use and the function explanation....there is no standard because there is no standard in development to start with. Each team do whatever they like in the end.

Also the "work out of the box" is quite random... take a product that allow you to write AI; how does it work out of the box, compared to a GUI product? That may fit for a prefab, but if you buy API or plugins, it is quite hard to define how easy is to use. Whoever grew up with computer magazine, using their libraries on CD, remember that in some cases, it was absolutely obscure to even get how to use a library, even if the instructions were well written

I think is a good step in an organized way to give reviews; we just need to make everything much simpler and mainstream.

 

They must have been updating the web server to plug heart bleed yesterday, because today I was able to log in and create the idea:

http://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/enhanced-asset-store-review-form

If you'd like to see it implemented, please give it some votes!

I realize things like "complete documentation" are subjective. They'll mean something different to every person. But everything in a review is subjective. These questions can at least give a little more insight into why a reviewer gives a product a certain number of stars, and we can glean some "wisdom of the crowds" from the cumulative results.

 

I voted for it, because I really think it would benefit customers!

 

Done. Please make sure you tweet with #Unity3D hashtag and otherwise promote the vote form, there are links below it

 

I would like to vote but I do not agree with the way that you lay down the feature; so I will pass. I am honest, and I believe that trying to categorize something that really can't be categorized is just another way to add clutter to a review. I agree on the rest thou.
I would also include a field that show if this person purchased the assets or not; because no one really consider a review from a person that does not even have purchased the asset.

It is a good step forward anyway; if this request will be approved and implemented; I will be more than happy to work towards changes beneficial also for other users and sellers. Let's see what happens. Best of luck Toni!

You anticipated SoicViz; I was expecting him writing down the idea, as OP; but what matters is that someone did something.