The Unity Asset Store and FAB currently do not support direct upgrades, subscriptions, or traditional expansion packs.
At the same time, creating new VFX, maintaining existing content, updating shaders for new Unity versions, and providing support requires ongoing development.
To balance those realities, we use a bundle system.
Bundles allow us to:
- Continuously add new VFX content.
- Keep supporting older purchases.
- Provide major content updates over time.
- Offer heavily discounted upgrade paths for existing customers.
Bundles are also sold at steep discounts by default to attract more customers. Currently, the value of the packs inside a bundle are worth about 3x or more the asking price of the bundle! They’re packed to the brim with content, they’re simpler to install as a single download, simpler to update and maintain!
In short, bundles are a good deal for everyone!
The Bundle Lifecycle
Most bundles follow a yearly cycle consisting of:
| Free Updates | A set of free updates containing new content, fixes, improvements, and maintenance. All current owners receive these automatically. |
| Paid Update | A significantly expanded version of the bundle is released. Owners of the previous version receive a steep upgrade discount (typically around 75% off). This allows customers to pay only a fraction of the retail price while receiving the newly added content. By extension, customers also get the next year of Free Updates when they choose to acquire a Paid Update. |
When you purchase a bundle, you receive:
- All content currently included in that bundle.
- All future free updates released for that version.
- Access to discounted upgrades when major paid updates are released.
- All value accumulated by previous versions of that bundle.
When we deprecate old bundles to release the new updates, we still give support to them, so while you get the deprecated tag, we always update the shaders to keep up with Unity changes unless stated otherwise.
What is included in a Bundle?
- Every bundle page contains a complete list of included products.
- Individual product pages indicate when content is available inside a bundle.
- Bundle contents are published publicly and updated whenever changes occur.
If a product is not listed in a bundle, customers should assume it is not currently part of that bundle.
Important: Bundles Are Not “Everything Forever”
One common misconception is that every future asset sharing a similar theme will automatically become part of an existing bundle.
The fact that a product contains words such as:
- Realistic
- Stylized
- ARPG
- RPG
- Toon
does not automatically mean it will be included in an existing bundle.
The contents of every bundle are explicitly listed on the bundle page.
Bundle Roadmap
The roadmap below is intended to help customers plan purchases and understand where each bundle is heading. You can click on the image to expand it, as it is a large image.
We’re also adding this roadmap to the readme infomation for all of our bundle-related packs and their store descriptions.
Bundles QA
The bundles themselves have a list (with links) for all content which is held inside that bundle. Aditionally, individual packs will link in their description if some or all of their content can be found in a bundle.
No.
Naming alone does not determine bundle membership.
Bundle contents are decided individually and are always listed publicly.
We believe it is the best customer forward solution. We keep the ability to expand our packs, improve them and give them support while also adding a lot more free or heavily discounted content for our customers. It also helps organize our storefront and give customers a one-stop shop for their game.
As Piloto has grown to over 300 asset packs, our storefront has become increasingly difficult to organize. Unfortunately, Unity does not currently provide adequate tools for categorizing large catalogs. Setting our packs into clear bundles helps with this organizational challenge.
No.
Owners of previous versions receive a heavily discounted upgrade path (typically around 75% off).
No.
You are never charged automatically.
Each major update is optional.
You can remain on your current version indefinitely.
There is no fixed expiration date.
However:
- New content is added to current versions.
- Older versions may receive critical shader compatibility fixes where feasible.
- Active feature development happens in the latest release.
We’ve considered it, but for most customers it doesn’t actually change much. Whether we release a “Volume 2” or a new bundle version, existing owners are still paying a reduced price to access the newly added content.
The bigger issue is storefront organization. With hundreds of products, keeping multiple generations of nearly identical packs active would make our store significantly harder to navigate.
Volume 2, 3, etc would also make it harder for us to give free updates. If we did this, we’d have to either add the free content to all editions, or keep free updates separated and sprinkled across many packs. This would be bad for our customers, whom would have to purchase multiple packs to get the same value they currently receive from the bundles. Let’s not forget – our bundles are also sold in a STEEP discount compared to the content it holds.
Reviews also matter tremendously for the health of our business, so keeping our customer base in a centralized bundle funnels all the reviews into that one package, which is good for our SEO ranking.
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