Buy an asset from the asset store and seeing it removed after a short time… have you ever faced with a similar problem?
It happened to me twice in the last 5 months! :shock:
And I lost more than € 95,00 …is not a large amount, but it is the principle that counts!
I don’t understand why assets can be removed from the store without any warning to those who bought.
If I had known I would have at least one backup.
So I find myself with the new PC and without these asset because I haven’t yet downloaded.
I tried to ask for help to the asset store staff and they politely told me that I had to do a backup before they deleting the files.
I do not agree that the store is disinterested in this scenario because some of the money were earned just by asset store.
I had a similar problem. I bought Brain Builder, which is like Playmaker and UScript, and after speaking with the developer who told me it will never be compatible with Unity 4, I posted the answer as a review and without even notifying me it was removed from the asset store and I was left lumbered.
Unity tends to wash their hands a lot when it comes to Asset Store issues. I find it very unsettling.
The right way to do this is to force time windows for removals, notify owners about the removal, or (like Apple does) perpetually maintain the assets for download by those that bought them already.
I just installed unity 4 on my girlfriend’s computer so I can download assets because I’m on 3.4 and almost nothing is available to download, and was disappointed when some of the models I remember from a year ago are gone.
There was an RPG town/building pack for free, and I never downloaded it due to it requiring version 3.5, then when I went to download last week it’s no longer there.
I think they should offer a refund or give some credit in the asset store. at least at active den they gave me a refund (after I complained – although they wouldnt do it by default – if I hadnt complained, in fact some of the assets are now in the asset store and no longer in activeden but they never gave me a refund for it). Its the squeaky wheel getting the oil, pay out to those complaining because most people wont bother with it – rather than having a policy of simply paying out.
Unity has the responsibility to remove assets from the store that violate copyright or are unsupported in current versions. They don’t need to keep a backup for you in this case. Do you feel you don’t need to back up your own drive?
Be careful with that. Thought I could do the same thing but when I tried to import parts from 4 to 3.5, I ran into problems. Best bet is to import them one part at a time and set up an empty project just to test compatibility.
BTW, you probably already know that you can run 3.5 and 4 at the same time, just rename the directory in Program Files. Quite handy for this. And some people might not realize that.
That’s a very different case. If I go right now to Walmart and buy a table, said table breaks within a few hours (heck a week) I can return it and they deal with the manufacturer.
Heck, if I don’t like the table, I can go back to the store and return it just because I changed my mind, and Walmart will take it.
Same applies to most successful retailers, even the App Store (you got to go through a support ticket for refunds.)
When it comes to digital distribution, the App Store will never allow even the biggest guys like EA from robbing me access to stuff I bought.
People buy from a store hoping that for most cases, if something is wrong you will deal with the store, not have to hunt down the original manufacturer. If I am expected to hunt down the manufacturer, I may as well buy the asset directly from them and make sure they get 100% of the profits. That’s what I have come to do with Prime31 plugins. No reason to give Unity a cut of the guy’s sales if I’m the one expected to manage it and Prime31 the one expected to yield refunds.
I realize that for lots of people here English is not their first language, and so deserve some leeway when the are posting in English but one could be more careful
You could call it a deficit in the customer service but that depends on why those assets are getting removed in the first place. If, as others have pointed out, for example the removal is due to copyright issues, Unity’s hands are tied in the matter.
The asset store already gives refunds for non-working or broken packages. The poster is accusing unity of fraud because he didn’t back up his data, and can no longer download a deleted package. This is in no way fraud, nor even their responsibility to keep backups for him.
From my point of view, you can’t compare that. A game is usually finished after the release. When there are major problems, it is because either Steam made a bad job, or the publisher/developer.
As someone who has some packages in the Asset Store, I guarantee you, the work is not over after it is published. With about every Unity update, the code needs to be modified. That’s not happening because the initial coding was bad, but because there are so many changes going on in Unity. You may try to work with the old Lerpz tutorial. It simply doesn’t work anymore, because there were too many changes in Unity.
What I basically mean, Steam and the Asset Store are different worlds that are not comparable in general.
In the past, t hat has not been my experience. I have been directed to the asset maker. There have not been many chances to test this again, as that experience was enough for me to not trust the asset store for anything that cant be visually evaluated (now I only buy textures or models, and only if the seller is not hosting his own shop on the side.)
As for the OP: the word fraud is only on the subject and not directed at the asset store specifically. I’ll let him clarify but he may be saying the vendor that removed the asset is the one doing “a little fraud.”
