Daikon Forge no longer being sold in the Asset Store

I agree. For a six month period last year it was pot luck whether or not I could download an asset I had bought because of a driver problem with my network card. Yes it took that long to fix it for a variety of reasons. So a lot of assets were not downloaded but I thought they would always be there. Then what is now Amplify Color disappeared. I contacted the guys because I knew I had bought this asset, they're a really good company and sent me the asset then it went back on the asset store anyway. But it does make me wonder whether I am missing some assets I paid for. Checking up is not that easy as I have 1700 assets and no inclination to match the receipt to the asset on my store list. If I ever get the time I no doubt will but not for the foreseeable future.

 

Think like a programmer, write a bot that checks for you! Many others would certainly find that helpful too.

 

That's not actually not true, as in many jurisdictions it is the software providers responsibility to maintain the usability and availability of its products even after the support cycle.

 

Well, I'm not talking legally, I'm just talking personal... If you abrogate your responsibility to other parties then don't be surprised if/when that other party drops the ball. The whole "It's in the cloud" mentality can and does come back to bite people. If you wanted something enough to fork over real money for it, then you must want it enough to actually download a copy of it.

Besides, these things are not going to be around forever. Steam may not be around in 10 years. The Asset Store may not be around in 10 years. If you want it, then get it!

It's just prudence.

 

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you would. I just meant that a lot of people are probably waiting until Unity 5 comes out before making any big purchases because the major version changes always cause lots of issues for a while.

 

No problem. I agree, I can see why a bunch of people would do that. I intend to get things fixed in advance though so there's like no incompatible time (with beta access).

 

So in case you missed my earlier posts you are suggesting that I manually check daily for asset updates in my +50 assets library with the slow as hell asset store interface and download all possible updates even if I don't need at the very moment? in the year 2014 and in this kind of service?

Where is the 30% cut going in when I pay for my assets? Maybe I should just start avoiding asset store when ever I can and buy directly from authors like I have for some assets. They are cheaper, I get newsletters or other info mails about asset updates and future changes (which are impossible in Asset Store), hell some of them even send the update as mail attachment so it's automatically backed up even if I don't have time to focus on it at that moment. Even if they don't send it I would have to download it by clicking a link and back it up... almost like with asset store, cause you never know.

It's time for Unity to wake up and to do some improvements

 

Yes! I dread using the asset store from within Unity, because it's slow and has disappearing graphics. I end up buying a lot that I intend to download when I have time to look at it properly. Less now that I have "everything" and Unity 5 is looming, but still occasional purchases.

As a datapoint: I use a combination of the RSS feed (when I can be arsed to slog through it) and the forums to find new assets. Coolness x author activity x price x usefulness is the usual formula

 

@Ostwind: Asset Store->Download Manager->UpdateAll

 

Sure, if the button isn't a white blob merged into the other buttons on a white background

Also, if the asset you REALLY want to use now is pushed behind the gigabyte-sized art assets you don't currently need, that could be a bit of a wait.

 

Well, I guess it sounds kind of extreme when you put it that way, but the logic behind my statement still stands. If you really want something then yeah you should be checking that stuff I guess.

Yeah I can agree with that. Asset Store is 3 years in... playtime is over. We need real-world store features for both sellers and buyers.

orb I don't understand anything that you're saying as long as you have that freakishly awesome avatar...

 

Unfortunately that will start all downloads at the same time and with multiple downloads it can sometimes result Unity hanging after a bunch of kharma.unity3d.com or download already in progress errors

 

At least from an antipiracy point of view, they do nothing. Plugins developers are totally unprotected about this trouble. They should implement at least a basic mechanism to associate Unity Serial ID with the plugin and provide an API.

 

That's really not enough, though. I've had asset updates in the past which have broken things, and in my experience some asset vendors aren't particularly concerned with keeping a stable API between versions, so I don't just want the latest version of each thing at any given time.

I love Unity and I love the Asset Store, but I do think that the Asset Store overall is one of the areas where Unity really needs to make some improvements. The store itself is absurdly buggy (my Editor often becomes unusable just by virtue of having the Asset Store window open, as others have mentioned the UI is often broken, and what on Earth is even going on with the back button?), the policy seems to be that we're responsible for updating and version control of assets but there's not even so much as an "Open Folder" button there (let alone some simple tools to actually do that for us - storing multiple versions instead of overwriting and a way to make a backup archive Steam-style would rock), and the issue this thread is about shouldn't have come as a surprise at all - it's been asked about multiple times in the past.

Overall they're small issues in the grand scheme of things. The Asset Store has still been orders of magnitude more positive for me and my work than it has been negative, so I'll still be using it regularly and so on and so forth, I just think that the customer service for this particular aspect of the Unity experience has many "low-hanging fruit" opportunities for improvement.

 

I'm now running Bittorrent Sync on a VPS + my local machine, just in case another asset developer suddenly decides to go AWOL or suffers a nervous breakdown.

 

You can't limit people from importing assets not purchased on the asset store. With that in mind, how would they determine which external resources/assets are actually asset store items that require registering a serial vs. those assets bought on other stock asset sites?

Sucks, but it's the age we live in. Anything done to prevent piracy only hurts legitimate customers, wastes developers time, and still doesn't stop piracy.

 

If you delete files from any BTSync client that has write access to a key, the files disappear from all locations on the next sync. Better run a regular backup solution

 

Yep, and that's nothing to worry since nothing gets removed from the Asset Store folder (on OS X it's is in a folder that doesn't automatically appear in File Explorer aka Finder). I already have an existing backup through Time Machine, but it doesn't go hurt to have cloud backups as well.

 

1. I think it's realistic in this day and age for people to just forget about managing what they've bought electronically and re-download when they want. This is the case for any professional place, and the expectation of electronic software delivery in 2014. Had it been the 1990s I'd keep copies. Now, that is something archaic, primitive and frankly poor. Yes, all our downloads need to be available when we want, whenever we want. That's part of that 30% unity takes.

Anything else isn't good enough.

2. I'd expect to be able to download whatever I purchased even if the author withdraws it or changes terms. This is because the terms are binding at the point of sale, and the terms are supplied by Unity. In the case of custom terms, then, well, don't sell it on the asset store.

Professional standards are all I require, and this is a minimum requirement.

 

We've been given the ability to use Google Analytics for our assets and for me at least, the Unity forums ranks as 3rd when it comes to URLs that visitors come from (u3d.as short links is 1st, and unity3d.com is 2nd).

However, I'm not sure yet how to configure tracking visitors who've actually purchased.

 

Based on your comments, I know you have not bought a lot of items from Assetstore. As other said, it's slow to update stuff, and when you have a lot , it is increasingly time wasting.

 

I can we please change the auto-import at download? If I'm trying to update my assets, it extremely a big waste of time to keep waiting to hit cancel on the import window. Maybe I am missing something?

 

What exactly are you having Google Analytics from? Are you saying that you can tell how people got to your Asset Store page? If so, please share the details, we want that too.

 

Go to the info page on the publisher administration page. Scroll down to the bottom. You'll see a section for Google Analytics which allows you to input the tracking ID and location prefix. Personally I only inputted the tracking ID and it worked.

 

Where's the publisher admin page? Is that on the web or from the "Asset Store submission" plugin inside Unity?

 

The one on the web - https://publisher.assetstore.unity3d.com/info.html

 

You can update / add your Google Analytics Tracking ID via the Info section in Publisher Administration (scroll to the bottom). I already have tracking ID's for my other websites, but I just created a new web property under my account and called it Unity Asset Store, then set https://assetstore.unity3d.com as the property address and clicked Get Tracking ID which will give you the code to add to your page (and the UA-###### tracking number is in that code).

 

I don't know what a tracking ID is. Do I generate that from our page on our website? Can I make one for the Unity forums (or does that already exist)? Can you only put one in? What exactly does this all do?

 

You have to create a Google Analytics account.
http://www.google.com/analytics

 

Add the code to what page? The Unity Asset Store page? I'm not sure how we'd do that...confused. Oh, and where the heck did you guys find out about this feature being added to the Asset Store? I never knew. Is there a document I should read about it?

 

We also are using that for tracking stats. is it possible to track whenever your package is sold? because I see several templates but they don't seem to work at all.

 

Sales haven't dropped, though. It's not just my sales that are up; sales on the store have been continuously growing overall, from what asset store staff have said. I'm sure some sellers have experienced some decline, which is inevitable given the large number of sellers on the store...some will be up, some down. But more up than down. If you currently have a dip, wait a bit and it could reverse. My sales declined very slightly over April/May/June, then bounced back in July.

--Eric

 

Not in the Editor Extensions category Eric. Sales are most definitely down for the bottom 99%+ of everything in that category. As I said our rank hasn't really changed (or price) but profits have been down like 60% for 2.5 months solid compared to "what was normal" before that. And we're still top 10 there excluding madness sale items.

For the other categories (where I believe your plugins are), things may be different.

Actually - my logic is suspect lol. Things that weren't selling a lot before might well have picked up. But things that sell a good amount but not crazy so, haven't passed our relatively poor recent sales to rank over us. So it's not 99% - I have no idea what the number is.

 

For me sales have been very constant for past 6 months. Actually since Daikon went offline, my sales have unexpectedly increased alot. I think it may because of the large attention this is getting / people searching for "Daikon" in the store just to see that it is indeed gone, and instead the first product you see when you search that is my product. I think because of this I went from around #8 top grossing to #4 top grossing for scripting / GUI section.

 

By "rank", are you referring to sorting by most popular? I don't know what that actually means or what time frame is involved. I would guess sales are part of it somehow but the criteria have never been defined that I know of. So I wouldn't assume that it means the editor extensions category is down overall. The assets of mine in that category most definitely are not down, and they're in the bottom 99% (oh noes ).

--Eric

 

Yes, I'm referring to most popular. I'm not actually sure how it's pieced together either, but I know than we sell a bunch it does climb up positions. I would think that it should purely be based on # of purchases, and don't think the time frame is overly important. But who really knows haha.

 

The time frame is pretty important actually...it's very different if it means most popular since the beginning, or just last week.

--Eric

 

Sure, but I know the time frame isn't "from the beginning" based on watching it for so long. Whether it's the past week or the past 2 days doesn't make much difference to me (it's something like that). The other rankings on the right side of that (top paid) are much longer term: 1 month to be exact.

 

Just a follow-up on my comments before about the insanity of trying to keep up with Asset Store package downloads: On the 8th, I updated twenty-five packages. Today is the 11th and there were three more to be updated, two of which were ones I had updated on the 8th and already had new versions out.

I am glad I don't have a heavy cap on my bandwidth. It would make keeping up with the assets completely impossible.

 

What's funny is Ngui is still the top grossing item in the store.

 

I do find that particularly hilarious as well. But yeah we don't know if that plugin will cease to be popular when Unity 4.6 comes out. I'm sure lots of people will still use it, but how many will keep buying?

 

Are you guys selling 8+ units a day at $25 a pop?

http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/7/5575972/the-billion-dollar-game-dev-trading-post

 

A couple of answers to questions that have been asked in this thread that I can't find to quote right now.

Q: Is this download available for a limited time?
A: It will be indefinitely available (for those who bought it)

Q: Is this available for other Assets, if not, will you be implementing this feature?
A: We will implement it for other Assets in the future, but at the moment it's a one-off hack.

 

It's certainly possible. I average between 3 and 3.5 units per day and even a little bit can help. For instance, March saw sales of 4.2 units per day which increased monthly NET revenue by a chunk. In December my asset was on sale and averaged 8.2 Units per day. I've also moved a few units through Fast Spring.

There are a lot of people who purchase from the Asset Store; a surprising number actually, there are quite a few studios who purchase because buying assets saves them time and money in most cases.

 

I used to sell 3 units a day. Nowadays it's 1 a day of Master Audio, and 1.5 of our other plugin Core GameKit.

 

Yep. I've seen up and down months, but the average has always been in the ballpark. To stay relevant though, in addition to maintaining my existing asset I need to come up with something new and fresh (and of course useful).

 

I hear you on that. We still have literally dozens of exclusive features compared to our competitors, and we add things all the time.

 

I'm glad to see it got attention, and I hope it gets elevated out of the land of hacks.

As some feedback, I think it'd be a good idea to make the one-off nature of this clear somewhere. I assume that most DFGUI users aren't active forummers or otherwise didn't see the thread, and it's quite possible that they never checked/noticed during the downtime. So unless it's made clear this could just reinforce exactly the expectations that hippo (among others) has expressed. Also, people (myself included!) who didn't know it was a one-off have already told people in other threads that this is possible now.

 

After reading the statement from DFGUI, it's not surprising that it wasn't financially viable at the moment. Personally, I think they made a bad move announcing DFGUI 2.0 before having it finished, and a combination of that + people waiting to try out the new 4.6 GUI probably contributed to their lack of sales.

Slightly surprised that they'd just pull it from the Asset Store without warning though, I would've thought just leaving it up and providing a notice that it wasn't officially supported anymore would be a better option. The Asset Store provider agreement doesn't actually say that you must provide support, it just strongly recommends it.