On the 13th of May, I released my first Unity Asset Store tool: Awesome Task Manager.
Since then, it has made a grand total of…
Two sales.
Not exactly the explosive launch montage I had playing in my head.
Now, to be clear, I’m not writing this as a dramatic “poor me” post.
I knew launching an asset would be hard. I knew visibility would be a challenge. I knew there was a good chance it would not magically take off.
But I also think it is worth being honest about what happened, what I think went wrong, and what I’m planning to do next.
So here are the main reasons I think Awesome Task Manager failed to make much of an impact.
The Asset Might Be Too Generic
The whole reason I created Awesome Task Manager was because I had a specific problem in Unity and couldn’t find a solution that worked the way I wanted.
I wanted a simple task management tool inside the editor. Something that could help me track features, bugs, polish tasks, and project notes without constantly jumping between Unity and some external app.At the time, it felt like there was a real gap there.
But in recent weeks, a few other Unity assets have been released that are quite similar to mine. Even though I still think mine is better for how I personally work, that does not really matter if the store page is buried beside several other tools that look like they solve the same problem. That hurts visibility.
And on the Asset Store, visibility is everything.If someone searches for a task manager, kanban board, notes tool, or productivity asset, they now have multiple options.
Mine is no longer the obvious “this is the one” choice. It has to fight for attention, and right now, I don’t think it is winning that fight.
The Price Was Completely Wrong
This is probably the biggest mistake. The original price I had in mind was $6.99.
That felt fair. It was low enough that someone could take a chance on it, but still enough that it had some value attached to it.
Then I got in my own head.
While waiting for Unity to publish the asset, I started listening to Chris Zukowski on a podcast. He was talking about how a lot of indie games are undervalued, and how pricing too low can actually hurt developers because they are basically losing money on each sale.
That made sense to me.
So I did some market research. At the time, most similar kanban/task board tools seemed to fall into two categories:
* Around $5, usually with fewer features than mine.
* Around $70, usually with way more features than mine.
So I landed on $17.99.
In my head, that seemed like a decent middle ground. More premium than the cheapest tools, but nowhere near the expensive ones.
There was also one other thing pushing me toward that price: Unity only lets you run a launch sale on assets priced over $15.
So I priced it high enough to qualify for a launch sale.
Looking back, I think that was a mistake.
For an unknown asset from an unknown creator, $17.99 is a lot to ask. People have no reason to trust me yet. They don’t know if the tool is good. They don’t know if I’ll keep updating it. They don’t know if it will fit their workflow.
At $5.99 or $6.99, someone might take the risk.
At $17.99, they probably just move on.
The Unity Review Queue Hurt the Launch
I know this might sound like an excuse, but I do think the Unity review queue put the asset in a rough position.
I first submitted Awesome Task Manager for review on April 4th.
It was accepted on May 12th.
That is a long wait.
The usual review time is meant to be around 10 days, so waiting over a month really threw things off. By the time the asset finally launched, I had already added several features that were not even in the reviewed version yet.
It also released at an awkward time.
There had already been sales and promotions, including a productivity-related sale, so I think a lot of people who were interested in this kind of tool may have already picked something up.
Again, I’m not saying the queue is the only reason it failed. It definitely is not.
But I do think the long wait killed a lot of the momentum I had built up in my own head. Instead of launching while I was excited and ready to push it hard, it launched after weeks of waiting, tweaking, second-guessing, and watching similar tools appear.
Not ideal.
What Is the Plan Going Forward?
The plan is not to abandon it.
Other people may not be using Awesome Task Manager yet, but I am.
I still use it every day in my own Unity projects, which means I’m still finding things to improve, fix, and add. So I’m going to keep releasing updates every week or two whenever I add features that genuinely help my workflow.
That is one good thing about building a tool for yourself: even if the sales are bad, the tool still has value.
The other big change is the price.
Unity does not let you lower the price until two months after launch, so once I’m allowed to change it, I’m planning to drop the price to $5.99.
That feels much closer to what the asset should have launched at.
At that price, I think it becomes a much easier purchase for someone who is curious about it. It becomes less of a “Do I really need this?” decision and more of a “This might be useful, I’ll give it a try” decision.
Did I Fail?
Sales-wise?
Yes.
Completely.
Two sales is not exactly a business empire.
But did I actually fail?
I don’t think so.
I learned what it is like to release a Unity asset. I learned how painful the review process can be. I learned how important pricing is. I learned that visibility is not guaranteed just because you made something useful. I learned that a good tool still needs good marketing, good positioning, and a good price.
And most importantly, I made something I still use every day.
So even if nobody else had bought it, I basically saved myself the cost of buying a task management asset.
That’s something.
Not a huge win.
Not a financial success.
Not the launch I hoped for.
But definitely not a waste.
I’m going to keep improving Awesome Task Manager, keep learning from it, and hopefully give it a better chance with future updates and a lower price.
If you’re interested, feel free to check it out below: