Hi.
I have tried to add Patreon link to my Assets but Unity declined them by:
So, why?
Thanks.
Not exactly sure, if you mean Asset Store products, but if so, just my personal two cents: Unity is providing a platform for you to sell products. They keep a portion of the revenue, but they also let you give back to the community free assets. It makes sense, that they don’t allow you to market your product on their platform, use their services, but then make your own revenue on a different platform like Patreon, thereby bypassing Unity’s revenue collection. The same goes for all other stores: you’re not allowed to use Ebay, Amazon or the Apple Store to market your products, but then bypass their fees by making money elsewhere.
To me, this sounds totally reasonable, but I could be misunderstanding your case. 
The Patreon is not a market, Patreon is a place to let community to donate your works, for example you free works, so i wanted to add Patreon link to my products but Unity Asset Store team disallowed, so i don’t know why?
Thanks.
@Xarbrough_1 just explained why. You can’t use Unity’s marketing resources to redirect customers to another site where people are giving you money for your assets.
Yes exactly. You’re not allowed to post a free asset on the Asset Store and then make money from it without giving Unity a portion of it, and I personally think, you shouldn’t be allowed. Unity is investing money in their store and they have running costs to maintain it, and so on. If the community wants to reward you for creating an asset, they should also pay a portion of that to the platform provider for making that asset available.
It is unrelated, while you can provide a Link to your Patreon from anywhere else such as YouTube, GitHub or any other sources, it is just a link to allow some of the customers to see our Patreon page.
Thanks.
I fear arguing with @Dave-Carlile and @Xarbrough_1 won’t change things to your liking.
They mentioned a solid point that makes perfect sense (in my opinion at least).
Sure you’re not selling things directly on patreon, but then again that’s just arguing about semantics.
The idea they wanted to explain - put into more simple words - is that you’re simply not allowed to advertise other income sources on the platform Unity provides.
Github and youtube have a different business model, but they could just start disallowing patreon links at any point as well.
If you don’t agree with the reasoning, maybe it would be better to contact Unity directly and tell them.
YouTube hasn’t had strict policies about this issue in the past, but they are forming them now. You may be allowed to post links, but not in all cases and they want you to join the content creator partner program to monitor and validate what you post. This means, that in many cases creators are being demonetized or even banned if they violate the existing policies, e.g. if you make a 10 second video telling people to to visit your personal website, watch your video there and donate via Patreon. Simply not allowed, because Youtube wants to make money from the content you create and host there.
I don’t know how GitHubs business model works, but I’m pretty sure there’s a reason, it just doesn’t concern them.
Other sources would be interesting to cite, as I can only think of the big players like Ebay, Amazon, Apple Store and Goggle Play which all disallow moving their money-generating-audience away from their platform.
I’m sorry, if I sound harsh, I don’t want to condemn you, but I think you might be having the wrong picture about how this sort of thing works. You might of course have different opinions about these systems, but that’s how they work right now.
The asset store is paid for by Unity getting a portion of every sale. Providing assets for free on the store while at the same time using the asset store to solicit donations that circumvent Unity’s funding mechanism is something I’m not at all surprised they do not allow. If I was running Unity, I wouldn’t allow it either. You should be perfectly ok simply including your personal/company website link and using your own website to then solicit donations rather than doing so directly in the asset store.
If they are truly unrelated, then you should have no problem posting your asset for free on your own website and soliciting donations there, outside of the unity asset store. You’re not trying to do that though because what you really want is to utilize Unity’s asset store market, and its users that Unity has put a lot of trouble in to building up, without paying anything for it (which on its own they allow for free assets). While at the same time using their platform to promote donations to yourself and not giving any part of that funding to Unity.
You’re like the guy who calls into a talk show and at the end of the conversation throws out there to the audience to please go to so and so address to send you money right before the host cuts you off, instead of paying for a real advertisement on the program.
So if the OP is giving away assets that can only be used with Unity through Unity’s store that is arguably adding value to / benefiting Unity already.
The OP is seemingly highlighting a missing feature: that there is no tipping / voluntary payment option for free assets.
I frankly feel it’s ridiculous to suggest the OP is trying to deprive Unity Technologies of revenue that they are due from the assets they make available for free from the Unity Asset Store.
If free assets do not benefit Unity, than perhaps the solution is not to allow them on the store?
I don’t remember what Unity’s cut is. Let’s pretend it’s 30%.
Scenario A: I put a free asset on the asset store. Someone downloads it for free. 30% of $0 is $0. Everyone is happy.
Scenario B: I put an asset on the store for $10. Someone downloads it for $10. I get $7, Unity gets $3. Everyone is happy.
Scenario C: I put a free asset on the asset store and provide a link to my Patreon. Someone downloads it for free, then they go give me $10 on Patreon. I get $10, Unity gets $0.
In each scenario I’m taking advantage of Unity’s infrastructure and marketing - someone found my asset because of Unity’s efforts. In Scenario B, I’m paying for that privilege. In Scenario C, I’m taking Unity’s cut for myself, whether or not that was my intent. If you can’t see the difference then you’re being willfully ignorant.
You’re the one arguing for equivalence there
I think that’s a bad example, and propose
Scenario A: Free asset on the Asset Store. 100 downloads. At least 5 of those in part go on to buy other assets and/or subscribe to Unity Pro. Unity Technologies makes money off of other purchases (and spends $0.01 in server costs)
Scenario B: As above except now the asset costs $10, there are only 5 sales, and the asset makes Unity somewhat less in intangible other sales, but makes $15 off the asset sales directly
Scenario C: As per Scenario A except a single one of the 100 downloads is a person who makes money with their game and decides that they want to ‘donate’ $5 to the OP through Patreon. Unity gets all the benefits of A. Patreon gets 25 cents and the OP gets enough money to buy a frothy coffee at a cafe. The OP is more inspired than in the A case above and makes/updates assets such that the benifits of A for Unity are enjoyed for another year from the OP’s work
Hi,
I agree with Unity that the asset store is for selling a single product at a time. It is absurd and irrelevant to include a paetron. If you want that, put paetron on your support website.
When I see paetron on a can of beans, be sure I’ll stop buying those beans. Try not to think you’re more important than your product because in a store, you’re not.
I’m there because I want to buy a solution or product. I don’t care who made it.