Now we’ve got the security fixes for each cycle from 5.3 onwards; can we have the latest editor usage stats? Would be really handy for future asset development to know where to aim.
I think it’s posted somewhere else, but thats where I refer to it.
That data can be found in the Publishers forum.
I’m not a publisher yet, but would like the info to help me tailor assets that I’m about to publish.
You don’t need exact stats. I think right now the most used version is still 5.6 since 2017.1 is fairly new. There are always some late adopters so maybe start supporting from 5.3/5.4? Supporting earlier versions isn’t really worth your time I think, and don’t even bother supporting Unity 4.x, almost nobody uses those versions anymore.
So upload your package with a version as early as possible (5.3 or 5.4 should be fine), and test with every major release since then. You should also download the beta (2017.2) so you don’t bump into any compatibility surprises once that version is released.
IMO it used to be important to have old version support but it seems like adoption of the latest version is more common than it used to be and this allows you to keep fairly current with the versions. I would recommend publishing at 2017.1 or 5.6.x at the very oldest. If people really need the asset on an older version they can still import it if they want to, it’s just not as straightforward. Listing significant API updates that might break when backporting might be something you could add to your documentation.
Thats just me, I think it’s better to stay up on versions as much as possible. The 5.x cycle was a pretty messy one at first but things have really stabilized and 2017.x seems significantly better with even better stability / upgrade safety in the future.
Have you seen the most recent graph? I would play it safe and definitely go lower than 5.6.
Well the graph was captured on June 25th where 2017 is at 13.5% prior to it’s release on July 11. 5.6 was definitely the leader at that time, and < 4.x barely has any share.
Seems like the trend leans more toward latest version than keeping on an old one. I’m curious what an updated graph looks like.
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I think 5.6 is reasonable. It’s a pain to maintain different code (even through compiler defines) for API changes across different versions of Unity, and there were a lot of API changes across the earlier 5.x versions. Your time might be better spent improving your asset for 5.6+.
But when you do settle on a minimum version, plan to support that minimum version for a long time. You may have customers using it in multi-year projects that have locked down their version of Unity. So it’s really worthwhile to think hard ahead of time about what minimum version you want to support.
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