Why i hate the Assets Store

News & General Discussion
1

The idea behind the Assets Store is good. But the current Assets Store implementation is bad in my opinion.

I wanted to download a asset which was mentioned in the forum. I need to use this Asset in several another projects, it`s a general asset.

First click sent me to a link page where i found another link that opens up Unity and the Assets Store. I WAS logged in into the Assets Store. Else the Assets store wouldn`t have connected and loaded. But with a click at the download button of the asset it forced me to log in again. A bug? Anyways, I logged in. And clicked at the Download button. And it started to download.

That was the moment of hate where i realized that it is not downloading, but INTEGRATING the asset in the current project. Which gives me double headache. How the heck can i extract this asset now? As told, i want to use this Asset in more than one project. The Asset created several folders all over the place while its integration, installed examples and stuff, and it is nearly impossible for me now to extract it.

And it has ruined my file structure of the current opened project where i DON`T need it. I have no clue anymore which part is original, and which part is introduced by the new asset. Which means i can trash the current build, need to redo the work i had already done at it since the last backup, and need to redownload the asset into a blank new project. Not the first time. I really hate the Assets Store …

What about giving the user the choice if he wants to DOWNLOAD the asset to another location or to INTEGRATE the asset in the current project? This would also open a way for a Web Only version of the Assets Store. I hate to wait until Unity and the Assets Store has loaded. Just to get trapped into the above problems that the download was wasted and my project is ruined.

2

I hear ya brother

You can find them all in

PC: C:\Users\accountName\AppData\Roaming\Unity\Asset Store

Mac: Dunno

Maybe you know all this

3

Didn`t know this, thanks :slight_smile:

Fact is, it is too untransparent as it is now. There is definitely the need for improvement.

4

I haven’t actually bought anything there yet but with all the free assets you can simply click the little arrow on the right of the download button. There you can acutally select whether to download and import or just download. My guess would be that this also works for paid assets.

5

Yeah sounds like it could be a little more practical.

If the asset is a prefab, you can go to unity>assets>select dependencies, and then you’ll extract the unity package, but that’s as far as I can help!

6

All you have to do is open the Asset Store window, then click on the download manager icon. Then you see a list of all the items you have available, with buttons to update them (if an update is available) or import them into your current project. It’s no different than importing a custom package, except it makes sure everything is in one place, so you don’t have to manually navigate to various directories, and you can see if anything you own needs updating. It’s a decent system, although obviously it’s not prominent enough. Also it would be nice if the download manager was available immediately, as a separate menu item perhaps, without having to go through the Asset Store front page. If I were in charge, I’d also make a little icon next to items that have updates available, to make them stand out more.

–Eric