The past year has been met with a peculiar run of bad games on Steam Early Access. These games such as Pixel Z are famous for using purchased assets off the Unity storefront and “flipping” them over to Steam. This process is now known as asset flipping and involves a developer using these assets, meant to be a foundation to build upon, and applying a small amount of change before releasing for purchase.
Unity have recently started getting involved in the discussion as these flipped games become more and more frequent, the Unity engine’s reputation is being tarnished. Despite being the engine behind great games like Hearthstone, Abe’s Odyssey: New and Tasty, Cities Skylines and Pillars of Eternity, the number of stock asset games sporting Unity like a flag is by no means giving a bad impression on the engine itself.
The post talks about these individuals who are exploiting Unity assets:
“there’s always going to be folks who exploit a good thing for personal gain without giving something back. I’m referring to the handful of Asset Store users out there who have taken Unity demo products and Asset Store starter products, slapped their name on it without contributing or creating anything original, and uploading it for sale on popular online game marketplaces.”
Despite this they added “the amount of attention this practice has received is hugely disproportionate to the many positive ways the majority of our customers use the Asset Store.” In spite of these asset flips, the Steam community are now more vigilant than ever to bring attention to a glorified asset pack and since the inclusion of Steam refunds, the idea to misrepresent assets as a fully fledged game is becoming less of an option.
Source:
Asset Store. A Force For Creative Goodness [Unity]