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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

#261
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the answer, but have been seeking it for a long time myself. Heard the same advise you got, make a community, join communities, post on twitter/reddit. As you said it just feels like fake advise. As best I can tell, success in those efdorts is equal parts luck, wit, and having something unique yet relatable.

It's a chicken and egg problem. If you post, nobody will see it because nobody knows who you are. So you have to spend a long time "engaging" or "networking" with a community you didn't really want to join in the first place just to make enough of a name for yourself so that someday when you have something to say, a few people will listen. I'm too busy making stuff and hanging out with my real friends to go be fake w…

I think this is why most people work in companies; there are tasks that need to be done to sell a product that we don’t want to do.

I mean, Dwarf Fortress was like the ultimate “good game, tiny community” example and even they had two dudes working on it, IIRC one of whom seemed to spend quite a bit of time dealing with the community. And despite making every game designer’s favorite game, they still had to hire a publisher in the end…

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

#262

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Right!? I always thought it meant something like "enough money to tell literally anybody to go fuck themselves without fear of the economic consequences". But I did a little googling and apparently "fuck you money" is one of those things that doesn't really have a clear-cut definition. Which is weird. In theory there is some specific dollar that you earn which puts you over the line into "fuck you" money. If you're a…

It really doesn't work that way, for several reasons. First, you can't predict what will happen with the economy vis-a-vis your investments and cost-of-living. Sure there are rules of thumb, but depending your age and the current situation, assumptions like "I can perpetually do a 4% drawdown" may or may not be reliable. Second, the ability to say FU to everyone is not a black and white decision. Perhaps you value ea…

You don't sound like the "fuck you" type.

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

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a global issue now? Same in Germany.

In the name of profit and efficiency, all slack as been wrung out of our healthcare systems. Systems with no slack are brittle and prone to failure under stressors. As for stressors... gestures broadly .

Profit? Aren’t all of your provincial healthcare systems publicly run and publicly funded? I feel that there are two issues.

One is taxes. Canada already has high taxes, which does not pair well with low salaries and a high cost of living that isn’t too far from either the SF Bay Area or even NYC.

The second is your confederation’s central government is weak. Your provinces have too much power, and they’re the ones controlling the healthcare systems which seem to be managed completely differently from one province to another rifht?

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

#264

I'm happy for their success. However, I'm dismayed that it was their inability to pay for healthcare that landed them in this (albeit good) situation. It's not a situation that should be forced on citizens in a modern country, for which this particular example is a feel-good ending, but there are many more (orders of magnitude more) feel-bad endings, so to speak.

Healthcare and basic income are crucial for moving towards the next stage of civilizaiton. Like you said, I'm really glad it worked out for them but so, so many people don't get so lucky or are willing to take such a big risk. How many more dwarf fortresses could we have if we gave people the safety net to follow their dreams? Instead of worrying about basic necessities like food, shelter, and healthcare.

More people building dwarf fortresses means less people doing whatever they are right now.

While some jobs may be completely pointless, I think we would quickly find that we actually need people doing boring jobs because society would fall apart without them and then no one gets to build video games.

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

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They decided to live off 30k a year with no health insurance. What did they think would happen?

Would you rather live in a world where we don't have things like Dwarf Fortress? Their passion has been the game, as they understood it, they weren't able to make it and have health insurance (as I recall from the documentary, there were some issues getting remote jobs, and health insurance out of pocket is apparently prohibitively expensive in the USA). Why are you blaming them and not the system?

They always had the option to start selling the game. He could have put it up for sale years ago.

He produced an enormous amount of value and chose to not collect the earnings until now.

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, its a global issue since last 40 years - im reposting what i posted to the GP: > Wait times for medical care seem surreal. Its due to the governments defunding public healthcare in order to 'strangle it then save it'. You defund it, make people say 'it doesnt work', then say that "We need to privatize it." Its de facto privatization method used since Reagan/Thatcher. Same method is being used in any country that…

Using monopsonic position to keep costs as low as possible is a primary advantage of single payer healthcare. And raising healthcare payroll taxes is politically unpopular like raising any other taxes. No need to spread conspiracy theories about preparation for privatizations.

I feel that the bigger problem is that the demographic bomb has finally hit more developed countries beyond Canada. Unlike either the US or Canada, Europe just isn’t very used to immigration yet. The EU is nearly as good at assimilation compare to the US because they’re still relatively new to the game, which exacerbates the problems associated with immigration. Of course countries in Asia, like Japan and South Korea, are even worse than the EU when it comes to assimilation

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

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The capitalist European governments that are being elected are privatizing healthcare. The first step for doing that is defunding public healthcare to make people say that 'it doesnt work - its better in private hospitals'. Then you say you have to privatize the entire system. It also funnels people to private hospitals early - when you defund public healthcare and force people into long wait times, they have no opti…

Most affluent European nations have seen net negative economic growth for the past 15-20 years, and in some cases for a generation (France and Britain). Now they're commonly seeing population contraction or flattening. They already have high taxes. They're in deep shit and it has little to do with Capitalists taking over their healthcare systems. The math was always going to take them here. Only per capita economic g…

This is the best summary of what’s happening with the demographic bomb that is occurring in every developed country. It’s even starting to hit developing countries.

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

#268
post #211
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After four years working on my retro game nearly full time, and several launches, I still don't understand marketing enough to understand what to do differently. A lot of the advice out there is something like: "create a community" or "go join several communities" or "get to know other indie devs on Twitter". To me, this simply feels fake. I don't really participate in any online communities. I spend enough time in f…

>but what's the point of working so hard if nobody gets to enjoy it but me? I have been struggling with this myself. Not just about programming but other creative pursuits as well. Recently it has been photography. I take pictures while knowing whatever I'm looking at has a far better picture on its wikipedia page. I suppose we're supposed to take some sort of fulfillment in the process of creation itself? But that j…

I've thought about the same with regard to drawing (and previously with programming). While I agree that it's a tad bit disheartening to know that things better than what you are currently capable of are one search away, I like to consider the fact that prior to the internet those still existed and it was still somewhat easy to come across better photography by simply going to a library. Yet there wasn't such an easy way to get anyone outside of your own circle to acknowledge your work until you were already very good.

Thus you kind of do have to find at least enough fulfillment in the process of creation and of self-improvement to keep at the grind. Some amount of existential dread of that sort is also just part of the grind of any creative pursuit.

At the same time though, it also helps to keep some perspective and step back for some time if it becomes too consuming. I let this sort of dread get too far for programming, which had me shirking all other important things in life (family, food, sleep, work) just to keep coding. Once I stepped back from it I got a lot less stressed, managed to find other aspects of my skills I needed to work on and also managed to find a place to apply myself to which is sufficiently fulfilling.

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

#269
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After four years working on my retro game nearly full time, and several launches, I still don't understand marketing enough to understand what to do differently. A lot of the advice out there is something like: "create a community" or "go join several communities" or "get to know other indie devs on Twitter". To me, this simply feels fake. I don't really participate in any online communities. I spend enough time in f…

I don’t have any advice, but I will say the art in the screenshots didn’t grab my attention. For what it’s worth, I had a similar experience. I launched a game on itch.io for fun, and got a ton of positive feedback (including “I love this game!” And “I can’t believe this is free!”), but when I launched on Steam (also for free, but now with music people said they liked and new features), it bombed. The cherry on top w…

To be fair, hn submissions are a total crapshoot; don't take it too hard. The first upvote comes down to whether the right person looks at the new submissions queue at the right moment... And I often get the impression that very few people are looking at the queue and trying to separate good stuff from the giant piles of crap...

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

#270
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the game is "Hazmat Hijinks: Total Meltdown" on Steam. Here's some tough love: The video takes way too long to get to gameplay. Screenshots do a poor job explaining what the mechanic is. I've read the capsule image, watched some of the trailer, looked at several of the screenshots and still can't tell you what the gameplay loop is. Sort of a top down puzzle thing? With a "match the color" mechanic? The art i…

Thanks for your feedback. I agree it needs visual improvements. I chose not to spend money on an artist -- just had too much in the project already. The trailer should have been done by a 3rd party. I don't grasp what is going to appeal to someone anyway. You know what? I won't make any more. I think I'm done. I'm not interested in learning what people like or adjusting to what's popular. Why on earth would I go thro…

I am writing this reply not to dissuade you, but rather to hopefully be helpful in your understanding of what is happening here. As they say, life is a game, learn the rules, and I will attempt to explain one of the rules here. It may sound harsh - that's not my intent. I did't make up the rules, I just play the game...

Firstly;

>> Nothing I am interested in working on is ever going to be profitable. Simple as that.

This is a critical understanding. Because it helps you to determine what _value_ you get from an activity.

For most of us, let's say 99%+, we have creative hobbies. Some play music, some write, some cook, some make pottery or art, some program. The value of a hobby is that the process itself brings us personal joy. The value gained is in the process, not the result.

I've started making pottery. Some of it comes out the way I like, some doesn't. Some doesn't survive the firing process. But there is joy in working the clay, joy in decorating the result, joy in the finished piece. But it's safe to assume I will never sell the results (as in, no-one will buy them) and in some ways selling them would rob me of the "hobby". Frankly, I'd rather give them away. Given how much I pay for the studio time etc it'll never be profitable.

So if i's not profitable, why do it? Because doing it brings me joy.

So it is with programming. Either you are doing it for profit (work) or for fun (hobby). If you are doing side-projects primarily for money then for starters, don't write a game. there are a zillion games in the world, and just like music, the number of them that make actual money are vanishingly small. Going from "I need money" to "I'll write a game" is not a good strategy.

Lots of Indies write games though because writing games can be as much fun as playing them. The joy is not in the selling, but in the process. As long as you end up with a game you like to play, well, you have your reward.

In many ways, most open-source projects can be thought of as "hobbies", not in a pejorative sense but because, for most of us, they are not income. The value has to lie elsewhere, in the creation process, in the community or whatever.

>> I wish I could throw my computer into a river.

Clearly the act of programming is not bringing you joy. For you the computer is work, and you should use it doing things that people are paying you to do. That's completely ok. I use my car to go to a place I want to be, I don't "go for a drive". For me a car is just a tool, for others it's a major part of their lives. That's ok, we're all different.

So, in conclusion, if you want to make money with your computer, then there are lots of ways to do that. (hint: it's not in writing games.) If you need suggestions in this space, then by all means ask.

But most of all I encourage you to find an outlet for your creative instincts. One where you get joy from the process, not profit from the result. Programming is not providing that. Tech is not providing that. People are not providing that. You need to find that for yourself.

Good luck!

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