I was thinking about the business of game content and how one can sell 3d models on marketplaces online. How big is the marketplace on Unity? Is it possible to sell a themed model pack of decent quality? Or will it just stay there? There are a lot of content that can be made for games and marketplaces. How far has Unity’s marketplace come? It looks like Unreal’s marketplace is still in development and takes a long time for models to be “approved” into their system. I think there are a lot of small potential businesses that can be made of selling game content, especially 3d model packs. So how far has Unity’s marketplace come? Is it for super high quality stuff that actually sells, or can low-poly decent quality stuff also sell? What do you think?
The marketplace itself is massive. But what you should really be asking is “what is the market for my content?”. There are infinitely many styles, mechanics and fidelity options from game to game and you never really know how big your market will be. Art is definitely a tougher nut to crack (at least for graphics) because you don’t know how many people will need or want what you’re selling. Sometimes lower quality and high volume packs do better because people want assets for prototyping. Sometimes high fidelity packs are amazing and have good price points but aren’t very customizable (or easily so) so they may not sell as well.
Poke around the forums. There are plenty of places where people share numbers.
The general consensus seems to be that it won’t generate enough money to live on by itself, but its certainly worth the effort to participate in the market.
The Unity Asset Store has grown quite a lot in the years it’s been online and servicing Unity creators. Make something that you think will save people time, and help them create. As @Dustin-Horne mentions, there are many different approaches to selling assets whether it’s mass producing prototype assets, singular high fidelity packs or somewhere in-between. Find something you will enjoy making, or you think the market want to do and go for it.
As for numbers, in one of our recent blogs, we mentioned that the asset store gets “nearly a million Unity creators visit the store each month”. Also, we shared that the Asset Store provides a catalogue of “over thirty-six thousand assets and tools”.