Asset Store Content Transparency

Asset Store Content Transparency

Published: February 15, 2024

Last Edit / Review: December 4, 2024

What's New?

We added clarifications to provide clearer guidance on the potential actions that may be taken relating to an asset. We additionally clarified the distinctions between restrictions dictated by our terms of service, and guidelines based on technical compatibility.

The difference between an edit/review and an update is that "updates" involve material changes to our Policy whereas edits are not material or simply indicate a review has occurred. For example, we may make clarifying edits by giving additional examples. When we provide an update, you will receive a notice to accept and read the changes, which are summarized here.

This page contains policies that set out what content is and isn’t allowed to be provided by a user of the Unity Asset Store (collectively, “Provided Content”). Unity moderates Provided Content in our Offerings based on these policies with the aim of creating a safe online environment for users.

The supplemental policies and principles below constitute “Additional Terms” and are incorporated into the Asset Store Terms of Service and EULA, Asset Store Provider Agreement, Unity Website & Communities, applicable Additional Terms, or such other applicable agreements between you and Unity Technologies SF (“Unity”) or its applicable Affiliates, which governs your use of the Offerings (collectively, “Asset Store Terms”). Capitalized terms used but not defined herein have the meanings given such terms in the Unity Terms of Service or the applicable Additional Terms.

Before using the Asset Store, please review the following information and ensure that you are in compliance when using our Offerings. Please note that examples provided are for illustrative purposes only and are not exhaustive.

Unacceptable Content

Unacceptable Content means any Prohibited Content or Restricted Content provided by a third party.

  • Prohibited Content is any of Your Content that is not allowed pursuant to the Asset Store Terms.
  • Restricted Content is any of Your Content that it is not allowed pursuant to the Asset Store Terms without prior authorization by Unity or without meeting additional requirements.

Prohibited Content

  • Intellectual Property and Legal Infractions
    • Illegal Content, including content that infringes, misappropriates or attempts to infringe or misappropriate any third party right such as intellectual property or proprietary rights of any person (including privacy and publicity rights) or violates or attempts to violate any applicable laws or regulations.
    • Discussions on pirated software or illegal activity.
  • Misleading and Deceptive Content
    • Fraudulent, false, misleading, deceptive, or defamatory content.
    • Unsolicited or unauthorized communications, such as promotional materials, email, junk mail, spam, chain letters or other forms of solicitation.
    • Internet “links” to content that is not associated with, connected or related to the original content.
    • Unverified AI-generated responses or AI-generated content not marked as such.
    • Content replicating existing game design, art, or aesthetics, or lacking original value beyond found content products or public tutorials.
    • Asset titles, categories, keywords, folders, and file names are a relevant representation of your product. Packages with misleading or irrelevant marketing data or unrecognizable folder and file names are rejected.
  • Offensive and Harmful Content
    • Hateful or discriminatory content, including offensive content that is based on race, gender, color, religious belief, sexual orientation, disability.
    • Profane or vulgar content.
    • Harmful, threatening, obscene, infringing, harassing, disturbing, violent or shocking content.
    • Pornographic or sexually suggestive content.
      • Base characters or avatars cannot be completely nude and cannot contain genitalia. Models must have sufficient coverage in the gluteal area. Exceptions to this are assets with medical or educational purposes.
      • Titles, keywords and descriptions do not include phrases such as “nude”, “naked”, “nsfw” or other similar words that would imply the presence of explicit content of sexual nature.
  • Malicious and Destructive Content
    • Malicious/ Deceptive Software or Operations such as viruses, worms, defects, malware, spyware, malicious code or other destructive content that could have an adverse impact on any software, data, computer systems, networks, hardware or and devices.
    • Forge any TCP/IP packet header or any part of the header information in any email or newsgroup posting, or in any way use the Site, Communities, Website Content or user content (other than your own user content) to send altered, source-identifying information.
    • Submitting empty, "dummy" or other types of packages that contain misleading content in an attempt to circumvent the vetting process.
  • Content Impersonation and Misrepresentation
    • Content that impersonates or misrepresents an affiliation with any person or entity.
  • Sensitive and Restricted Content
    • Political issues as well as gray areas including but not limited to discussions on religion, race, and sex.
    • Confidential information, such as sales information provided by the sales team.
    • The primary purpose of your submission is not the creation or registry of non-fungible tokens or other designations of monetary value. Submissions do not contain assets that are non-fungible tokens.
  • Promotional and Solicitation Content
    • Content promoting illegal or harmful activities or substances.
    • Content that promotes other marketplaces or digital stores.
      • In product marketing description text, the text must only relate to the content of the package. It must not promote any other products, services, or affiliations unless they are an extension of your product, directly compatible with your product, or required for your product to function.
    • Content which promotes or incites Prohibited Content.

Restricted Content

  • Content that implies Unity’s sponsorship or affiliation, including any form of content utilizing a Unity trademark, logo URL or product name. For clarity, you may not use "Unity" in the domain name or email address in your publisher profile or package metadata.
  • Content containing personal information, including child, sensitive, or biometric personal information as may be defined by applicable laws.
    • Please see the applicable Terms of Service for when this is authorized.
  • Content containing unlicensed names, likeness of celebrities, characters, or trademarks (registered or unregistered), or branding.
  • Content in languages other than English.
    • Titles, descriptions, keywords, documentation, code comments, and promotional material must be in English. Localized versions of all of these types of text in other languages can be included secondarily.
  • Titles
    • Titles of packages must not include the phrase “Mega Bundle”, which is reserved for official Mega Bundle promotions. “Bundle” and other words similar to “Mega” are allowed.
    • Titles of packages must not include any emojis or HTML elements.
  • Special Offers
    • Submissions must not promote any “special offers” (for example, free Asset Store content voucher for buying a package or leaving a review, try before you buy), including special codes distributed via third-party platforms, such as Discord. Asset Upgrades are acceptable.
  • Marketing Images / Videos
    • Marketing images (icon, card, and cover images), artworks/screenshots, and videos clearly and accurately portray the content of the package.
    • Marketing images (icon, card, and cover images) and videos must contain visuals rendered in the Unity Editor. If the submission is accompanied by media files taken from a different software, it must be disclosed on the media itself and/or in the description.
    • Marketing images do not have text that is considered a description of features of the package. Text in marketing images is allowed to be incorporated as an ornamental element, such as a screenshot of code. Marketing images can include high-quality imagery of the package content, or modern, minimalistic designs focused on the package title, publisher name and logo. Overlay text does not obscure the content being portrayed. You can use text in marketing images for publisher name, asset title, brand logo, and short tagline.
Example of an acceptable key image for Art categoriesExample of a simple acceptable key image for Audio categoriesExample of a simple acceptable key image for Tools and Add-ons categories

Example of a simple acceptable key image for Tools and Add-ons categories

  • Marketing images and screenshots do not include any sale or review related graphics (for example, "50% off", "Sale", "Free", “5*”, “5 stars”, “10/10”), banners, or attempts to recreate any official Asset Store sale promotional graphics.
  • Screenshots or media links are included in your submission.
  • Images that are solely AI-generated cannot be used as marketing or showcase images in their entirety, except as background and/or complementary elements.
  • Base characters or avatars that are completely nude are marketed in a neutral pose and rendered in a realistic style for medical or educational purposes

Additional Content Requirements

  • Community Guidelines:
    • Treat others with respect and courtesy.
    • Keep your comments relevant and avoid diverting the conversation.
    • Choose the appropriate category and location for your topic. Respect any supplemental guidelines specific to the location.
    • Avoid duplicate content. Don't cross-post or create multiple topics for the same information.
  • Content Quality and Presentation:
    • Content must be suitable for a professional development pipeline.
    • Do some research before posting and utilize available resources.
    • Contribute valuable comments that build upon the discussion.
    • Use clear formatting and avoid excessive emojis or distracting elements.
      • Note: Description text may not include excessive use of emojis, non-standard Unicode symbols or other combinations of symbols (such as Kaomoji) that serve no practical and/or aesthetic purpose. You may use emojis in the package description for aesthetic or structural purposes, however, this must be done in moderation.
    • Submissions and related graphics must not promote special offers.
  • Technical Guidelines:
    • Do not post unformatted code or engage in link redirect abuse.
    • Hyperlinks must be relevant, lead to active, non-malicious sites, and avoid direct downloads.
    • Description text must only relate to the content of the package.

Actions Due to Unacceptable Content

Unity may take some or all of following actions in respect to Unacceptable Content:

  • Provide information about a user
  • Remove/ disable access to/ restrict visibility of content
    • Please note, while not a content policy enforcement, the following Asset Store review types may be removed to focus on genuine feedback about the asset itself
      • Compatibility issues with new Unity versions (resolved within 30 days)
      • Support requests or feature requests (responded to within 30 days)
      • Requests for publisher responses to separate inquiries
      • Import/download issues unrelated to content
      • Refund requests without a review
      • Manipulative attempts to influence publishers (e.g., "change review for X feature")
  • When removing/ disabling access to content, we may take either of the following actions:
    • Deprecate - the Asset (Package) is no longer available on the Asset Store, but is still available for users to download that have added it to "My Assets" previously. After the issues are fixed, it can be resubmitted for vetting.
    • Disable - the Asset (Package) is no longer available on the Asset Store and is not available for users to download even if previously added to "My Assets". It means that the Asset is no longer welcome on the Asset Store.
  • Not approve the content for upload
  • Require modification of content
    • Please note: Unity reserves to edit and make such changes to content
  • Suspend/ terminate portions of the service
  • Suspend/ terminate an account
  • Suspend/ terminate/ restrict monetization of content
  • Alert local authorities if we are suspicious of a serious criminal offense

In determining whether to suspend or terminate an account, a number of factors are taken into account including:

  • If an account is responsible for providing prohibited content, particularly if such content is illegal.
  • Severity of the violation: Unity reserves the right to permanently suspend an account without warning for serious violations.
  • Repeated violations: If an account repeatedly violates Unity’s content policies.
  • Specific policies
    • Using AI content without a disclaimer carries a two-strike policy
    • Using an incompatible license may lead to suspension or termination unless resolved.

As a user of the Asset Store, you direct Unity to action content in order to comply with the Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065) (“DSA”) and any other applicable laws.

If you are subject to an action under Article 17 of the DSA and we have your electronic contact details, we will provide you with a Statement of Reasons.

Procedures & Measures for Content Moderation

Unity conducts content moderation activities as a result of a report. You can see how to report restricted content below under "Reporting Unacceptable Content".

Unity also has additional procedures and measures for content moderation as outlined below.

Unity may use human review for moderation, including:

  1. A review of content prior to displaying such content to ensure compliance with our content policies and procedures prior to distribution, and
  2. Allowing viewers of the content to report such content.

Teams who are engaged in the content moderation process are trained to review content to ensure compliance with our content policies and procedures. Assets may be reviewed prior to distribution and upon receipt of a content report to determine compliance and appropriateness.

Reporting Unacceptable Content

If you are residing in the European Union, you can report Unacceptable Content here. Once received, a member of our team will review the report and take any necessary action. There is no automation or algorithmic decision making in this process.

Additional reporting mechanisms are outlined below.

Please note, while the below are valid mechanisms for reporting content, they are not intended to satisfy a Notice and Action mechanism (Article 16) under the DSA. For Article 16 notices, please use the European Union mechanism listed above.

  • You can additionally report an Asset by clicking on the “Report this asset” button at the end of an Asset page.
  • You can additionally report a review by clicking on the “Report this review” beside a review.
  • You can additionally report a publisher by clicking on the “Report this profile” button under the publisher information section of the Publishers profile.

If you would like to report an Intellectual Property infringement under the DMCA, please see IP Policy & Takedown Requests

Appealing Content Moderation Restrictions

If you are residing in the European Union and believe we have made an incorrect decision about a content moderation restriction imposed on your content or account, you may submit an appeal here within six months of being notified of the restriction. When you submit an appeal, it will be reviewed by a member of our team. Regardless of the outcome, you will be notified of our decision as well as available possibilities for redress.

In addition to the appeal system linked above, if you have received an asset rejection, you can reply to the rejection email.

Recommender System Transparency

The Asset Store uses a recommendation feature. This section provides information on how our recommendations work.

What is considered in determining which Assets to show in response to a search?

Our search bar accounts for various considerations, such as:

  • Search Query
  • Publisher Name
  • Asset Tags
  • Asset Category
  • Keywords

All these factors are accounted for by our search bar and weighted based on their potential relevance. A strong indicator of relevance, such as whether there is an exact Asset match for the search query, would receive greater weight than a weak indicator, such as an Asset category.

How can a user modify the influence of these considerations?

There is no ability to influence these considerations.

Termination of Services

You can terminate your use of the Services by giving notice. You can find the grounds for termination as well as any notice requirements in the applicable Terms of Service.

Digital Services Act

This section sets out the provisions applicable to individuals residing in the European Union under the Digital Services Act (“DSA”).

Transparency Reports

Unity has prepared the following transparency reports to comply with our obligations under the DSA.

Redress Options

If you are an individual or entity residing in the EU, you will have a number of redress options available as outlined in this section.

The redress options do not preclude you from seeking judicial redress or any rights under the Asset Store Terms or such other applicable agreements between you and Unity or its applicable Affiliates, which governs your use of the Service

Notices submitted under Article 16

If you submitted an Article 16 notice through Unity’s Content Report Ticketing System, and have concerns regarding the decision made you may submit a complaint here.

Appealing a Decision

If we have taken an action on your content or account and you wish to appeal it, you may submit an appeal here within six (6) months from action. The appeal should include:

  • Your contact information;
  • Identification of the content and moderation action in question
  • A statement explaining the reasons why you believe the content or account was wrongfully removed/disabled
  • Any supporting evidence or legal arguments to substantiate your claims

Out of Court Dispute Settlement

If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome of our internal review, you have the option to engage in a dispute settlement process outside of the court system. This is a non-binding process that allows you to have your dispute reviewed by a neutral third party. You are entitled to select any out-of-court dispute settlement body that has been certified by your Member State.

Judicial Proceeding

If you believe that your concerns are not adequately addressed through our internal mechanisms or out-of-court settlement, you have the option to pursue legal action through the appropriate legal channels, such as filing a lawsuit or complaint in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations.

Suspension of Users under the DSA

Providing Illegal Content

If you misuse the Asset Store by frequently providing manifestly illegal content we may suspend your Account. We will notify you prior to enacting a suspension.

A suspension will last thirty (30) days, and we will issue a warning prior to enacting it. A second suspension will increase to sixty (60) days, a third suspension to 90 days, and so on.

In making the decision to suspend a user, the following is taken into consideration:

  • We consider the circumstances outlined above in Actions Due to Unacceptable Content to be sufficient for a suspension.
  • We consider one offense referred to in Articles 3 to 7 of Directive 2011/93/EU to be sufficient for account termination and we will promptly inform law enforcement or judicial authorities of the Member State or Member States concerned
  • We consider one offense referred to in Article 18 of the Digital Services Act (criminal offense involving a threat to the life or safety of a person or persons) to be sufficient for account termination and we will promptly inform law enforcement or judicial authorities of the Member State or Member States concerned
Submitting Manifestly Unfounded Notices & Complaints

If you misuse our complaint notification system by frequently submitting complaints that are manifestly unfounded, we may suspend your access to the complaint notification system. We will notify you prior to enacting a suspension.

We consider three unfounded notices or two unfounded notices alleging offenses referred to in Articles 3 to 7 of Directive 2011/93/EU to be sufficient for a suspension.

A suspension will last thirty (30) days, and we will issue a warning prior to enacting it. A second suspension will increase to sixty (60) days, a third suspension to 90 days, and so on.

Designated Point of Contact

Pursuant to Articles 11 and 12 of the DSA, DSA Compliance Lead has been designated as Unity’s point of contact for communications with Member State authorities, the European Commission, the European Board for Digital Services, and recipients of the service.

The EU Member State in which we have our main establishment is Denmark.The language(s) which can be used to communicate with Unity are English and Danish.