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After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

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Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#121

Post by symlinkk »

culi wrote: post #114
moritonal wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because no one explained. Notch made Minecraft and at one point was making £300k a minute in sales. After a few years of very intense life changing profits he eventually sold Minecraft for £4B and turned into a bit of a weirdo largely blamed on his sudden rise in wealth. If you read his blog you'd understand there was a lot of subtlety and complex relationships and emotions, but the gist is that.

Quoted post unavailable.

So “weirdo” means “not aligned with leftist politics”

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#122

Post by decremental »

jedberg wrote: post #118
decremental wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some stuff I found. > In 2017, he voiced his support for Gamergate, an alt-right and sexist movement that largely targeted women, LGBTQ, and other minority groups in the industry. At the time, he referred to feminism as a “social disease,” claiming on Twitter that feminists were “overtly sexist against men.” At one point, Persson said that anyone who opposed “heterosexual pride day” should be “shot” and also t…

> In other words he's just a normal person who holds views everyone in the world held until 5 minutes ago. You're either being disingenuous or live in a very small information bubble, because the majority of the world never held those opinions in the entire history of the planet.

The majority of the world held those opinions for the entire history of the planet. In fact, the majority of the world still does. On the topic of bubbles, maybe western liberalism isn't as ubiquitous as it feels from within.

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#123

Post by intrepidhero »

jdhn wrote: post #28

Congrats to them! Very rare to see people who follow their dreams no matter what their field become millionaires. On a side note, I feel like I should like Dwarf Fortress, but every time I look at it, it seems completely daunting.

The graphics package removed my big complaint: that trying to figure out what each particular character stood for in which context was not fun.

The complexity is daunting, but also a big part of the fun. Since I started playing the new version I find myself constantly sniped by trying to re-design the UI in my mind.

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#124

Post by datalopers »

wintogreen74 wrote: post #116
opportune wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they’re smart they hopefully have incorporated and will only need to take money out of the corporation to pay themselves to cover their expenses. So they won’t pay tax on the full amount up front and will have most of the money pretax for future business expenses

That's not how corporate income tax works though; the company pays taxes on all that sales income less expenses, and then they would likely take dividends at a preferential tax rate and pay yet some more tax. I doubt they've been carrying much of a loss over the past 20+ years to offset this.

It would take 20 years to pull it off, and tax legislation may change, but a married couple can earn next year ~$115k/yr federally tax-free ($89k long-term cap gains + $27k earned income). So that source of income would only be subject to the initial 20% corporate tax.

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#125

Post by ghaff »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #85
thomaslangston wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's using a 5 percent withdrawal rate. A 4 or even 3 percent withdrawal rate is more likely to be sustainable. Those are also rates I see suggested more commonly on retirement planning sites.

You are assuming no compounding. You have to model it as an annuity.

If you're assuming withdrawing at a safe withdrawal rate you're assuming you're not compounding. You're assuming a safe withdrawal rate from principal/dividends/interest that will, on average, leave the principal constant. Of course, if you're older and are not looking to pass down money you may be fine with drawing down principal to some degree.

So, yes, $2m should probably be modeled at about $80K income per year before taxes without touching principal but without building savings.

(May be somewhat higher with higher interest rates/inflation.)

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#126

Post by opportune »

guhidalg wrote: post #37
theptip wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$2m in the bank is enough to easily draw $100k/yr from interest, which fits the GP’s “set for life if we make wise choices” IMO. That is way above median income in wealthy countries. Assuming you don’t try to live in SF!

Even in the US, $100K/yr puts you comfortably above median income. If I had $100K/yr of GUARANTEED income, I would stop working for money and do whatever I felt like for the rest of my life.

Up until recently (healthcare reasons) the Adams were basically doing just that. I guess they won’t need to sign/sell little dwarf artworks for DF donators anymore though

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#127

Post by j-bos »

dabeeeenster wrote: post #76

So this happened to a guy that worked for me. Loved video games, super talented front end dev. Made a horror game in Unity at evenings and weekends with his best friend. Launched it on Steam. Very low sales. But he learnt a huge amount about marketing and game design based on player feedback. Designed a second game, put all the marketing learnings into it, 48 hours after launch the biggest streamer on twitch was stre…

Great on you for supporting his endeavors!

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#128

Post by mosseater »

fire wrote: post #109
dabeeeenster wrote: post #76

So this happened to a guy that worked for me. Loved video games, super talented front end dev. Made a horror game in Unity at evenings and weekends with his best friend. Launched it on Steam. Very low sales. But he learnt a huge amount about marketing and game design based on player feedback. Designed a second game, put all the marketing learnings into it, 48 hours after launch the biggest streamer on twitch was stre…

If you are still in contact with the guy, could you ask him what the marketing learning actually were? Everyone has their own take on marketing and it's honestly really difficult to get the concept with most posts about it being so fluffy. I'd honestly love some cliff notes or a bulleted list from someone who has actually succeeded, especially if they ( like me ) had no marketing experience beforehand.

I've read on the /r/gamedev subreddit of people succeeding with even just doing cold-call emails to popular twitch streamers. Someone recently posted a breakdown of how many streamers played their game after he sent out emails, and he seemed to get around 5% turnaround.

There's a guide that was posted to this subreddit a while ago too, that gives what you are looking for I think. https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/m74fcj/guide_to_ma...

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#129

Post by qup »

PointyFluff wrote: post #71
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure they'll be able to afford volcano insurance. I bet they could even find someone who's willing to insure their homes against Elf invasions.

That's a thing, in Washington.

Where does Washington get elves from?

Re: After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires

#130

Post by repiret »

opportune wrote: post #25
datalopers wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they? 300,000 units * $30 = $9M - 30% Steam tax = $6.3M in a single year take out federal taxes (just gonna call it 36% and ignore SFJ/MFJ), leaves them about $2M each. I'm sure they're some sort of a legal entity in WA state and will owe the b&o tax too. They deserve it absolutely but $2M each does not put them in a position of "fuck you" [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI

If they’re smart they hopefully have incorporated and will only need to take money out of the corporation to pay themselves to cover their expenses. So they won’t pay tax on the full amount up front and will have most of the money pretax for future business expenses

If it’s a C-corp, then the corporation will have to pay income tax on its profit. If it’s an S-corp, then the owners will have to pay income tax of the corporate profits even if they do stay in the corporate coffers.

Unless there’s another way you hand in mind?

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