Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

bay12forums.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 322 posts

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#81

Post by komali2 »

somenameforme wrote: post #20
flohofwoe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also have completely flopped though, since the classic version is free and for die hard DF fans who know all hotkeys inside out there's little actual reason to switch to the Steam version. But they did a really good job making the game approachable to newcomers.

Many of the other big classic style roguelikes on Steam, like ADoM and ToME, also have free versions available. And those games also do excellently (though nowhere near as well as DF is doing). Games are still such a refreshing change from the MBA driven coercion in much of other business, and especially tech. Make a good product, and people will buy it. And appealing to a micro-niche is still enough to make one a mu…

I've been thinking about this a great deal lately, but in other areas of content creation like YouTube.

I'm so tired of the YouTube thumbnail and clickbait headlines and predicable content on YouTube. Every once in a while I'll stumble on a niche that rejects this with very clear explanatory titles, super long play times, and informative or relaxing content. "walking through a city without narration" is one genre that features this, or the whole sleepy-time sounds genre. Unarrated full game playthroughs as well.

I'm dipping my toes into video content creation and I'm curious about taking a different approach than the one designed to play on the algorithm and get huge view numbers. I remember Tim Ferris writing that niche products is what people should target. Back in 2013 he was writing that indie entrepreneurs should never sell something for less than 100$ because you can't compete on economics of scale and thin margin. I wonder if that's what a lot of YouTube is doing, and whether a niche angle could be possible.

Basically, is it possible to make content that's very niche but wouldn't do well in the YouTube algo because it lacks clickbait headline and someone making the :O face in the thumbnail, and rather than try to monetize through huge view numbers and ads, instead using YouTube as a sort of side channel towards whatever other services or products you provide? I'm not interested in monetization but for me I make motorcycle videos, perhaps a shop I run or a tourist service I provide: what could possibly be more niche than "hire me if you're interested in a full service motorcycle tour in Taiwan" lol.

Coming back to games I have similar ideas about that, a lot of us are sick of AAA and refuse to touch phone games. I'm not interested in gambling or psychological head games. I used to be an avid battlefield fan and haven't touched the last two. I probably am done with Bethesda. Now I only play indie games. So is there a market for people like us that indie developers can target? I'd happily have paid a hundred dollars or even more for a game like dwarf fortress. Given the hours of enjoyment I get, compared to the cost of a vacation or something, by some algorithms DF to me could be worth thousands!

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#82

Post by paulluuk »

program_whiz wrote: post #65

Glad to see this, because they have worked long and hard on this game. For the optimistic, divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years (they started work in 2002). They've made some money in the meantime obviously, but seeing the final profit doesn't accurately capture the overall investment. Just in case you were thinking of quitting your day job to become an overnight millionaire making indie games.

> divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years

So about $100k per year, per person (after taxes)

I know that this is nothing out in Silicon Valley, but for reference, the median income in the US is $19k (net) per year, and about $15k (net) per year in Europe (if you include eastern Europe).

I can't tell from your comment whether you feel 100k is high (hence the "optimistic") or low (hence the warning at the end).

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#83

Post by xavxav »

criley2 wrote: post #74
program_whiz wrote: post #65

Glad to see this, because they have worked long and hard on this game. For the optimistic, divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years (they started work in 2002). They've made some money in the meantime obviously, but seeing the final profit doesn't accurately capture the overall investment. Just in case you were thinking of quitting your day job to become an overnight millionaire making indie games.

This doesn't really make sense. They were a donations-run "charity" shop making a free game. They only decided to put it on Steam so they could fund a retirement as well as a future for the game. For any indie devs out there: don't give your game away for free for 18 years if you want to make money. That's really the lesson here. Had DF monetized in 2006 instead of going free, and played the industry game as others d…

> Had DF monetized in 2006 instead of going free, and played the industry game as others do, I would not be surprised to see DF at $100M in 2023.

I don't DF would have existed then, it would be hard to see it gather the same community and the creators probably wouldn't have felt as free to explore their own ideas if they felt it needed to be commercially viable.

The thing that made DF's current commercial success is it's previously un-commercial approach. It's a true labor of love and that shows in every aspect of the game.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#84

Post by kilgnad »

mlindner wrote: post #62
Archelaos wrote: post #28

> The fairytale ending is reality, but you didn’t kiss the toad. Some philological pedantery: In the canonical Brothers Grimm version of The Frog Prince, the frog does not turn into a prince when kissed but when smashed against a wall.

I'm not sure if you can call Brothers Grimm version "canonical" as from my understanding all they did was document in writing single versions of already well known folk tales that were carried through generations by oral memory. Many of which had many different versions depending on who told the story. So I'm not sure you can use the word "canonical" in this case.

Its possible it still fits the word. The bible is canonical too even though it's basically a pieces of disparate texts.

Basically if it's the first and earliest record and the one that everyone looks to as the most accurate source it's canonical.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#85

Post by alpaca128 »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #51
ilaksh wrote: post #21

A little less than half goes to taxes. Is that normal?

They made 7m in personal income in one month, how would that not be normal

People are just used to wealthy people gaming the tax system to a point it's shocking when someone actually pays them.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#86

Post by opportune »

kilgnad wrote: post #76
criley2 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't really make sense. They were a donations-run "charity" shop making a free game. They only decided to put it on Steam so they could fund a retirement as well as a future for the game. For any indie devs out there: don't give your game away for free for 18 years if you want to make money. That's really the lesson here. Had DF monetized in 2006 instead of going free, and played the industry game as others d…

Nah. DF became popular because it's free. That is a huge part of the allure.

Highly agree, if DF just came out of nowhere and launched their old versions before having enough cachet/community to get studios to help them get it polished, it would at best become a cult classic years later, but most likely just be completely ignored. Without all the slowly increasing cultural awareness and community building leading it to becoming de facto “the most complicated game that is also a simulation and art” it just looks like a really complicated, technologically anachronistic game for neckbeards. Which it still is, but it’s had time to build awareness that it’s also exceptionally interesting, and that that niche isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Also they wouldn’t have been able to keep it a single-person programming project focused almost entirely on expanding the core games features and simulation aspects if they released earlier. Way more time would have been spent on productionization and getting it good-enough rather than done, and more hands would be involved, making it less of a passion/art project of an inventor, and just a regular old commercial endeavor.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#87

Post by rkachowski »

criley2 wrote: post #74
program_whiz wrote: post #65

Glad to see this, because they have worked long and hard on this game. For the optimistic, divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years (they started work in 2002). They've made some money in the meantime obviously, but seeing the final profit doesn't accurately capture the overall investment. Just in case you were thinking of quitting your day job to become an overnight millionaire making indie games.

This doesn't really make sense. They were a donations-run "charity" shop making a free game. They only decided to put it on Steam so they could fund a retirement as well as a future for the game. For any indie devs out there: don't give your game away for free for 18 years if you want to make money. That's really the lesson here. Had DF monetized in 2006 instead of going free, and played the industry game as others d…

There are many games that monetised in 2006 and are not worth $100M.

The indie gaming scene in 2006 was almost entirely freeware with a few exceptions. Indie games as a steam category - let alone industry - was unthinkable. Monetisation was essentially building a flash game to sell to an ad network, there's really no amount of industry game playing that could have been done.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#88

Post by axus »

paulluuk wrote: post #82
program_whiz wrote: post #65

Glad to see this, because they have worked long and hard on this game. For the optimistic, divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years (they started work in 2002). They've made some money in the meantime obviously, but seeing the final profit doesn't accurately capture the overall investment. Just in case you were thinking of quitting your day job to become an overnight millionaire making indie games.

> divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years So about $100k per year, per person (after taxes) I know that this is nothing out in Silicon Valley, but for reference, the median income in the US is $19k (net) per year, and about $15k (net) per year in Europe (if you include eastern Europe). I can't tell from your comment whether you feel 100k is high (hence the "optimistic") or low (hence the warning at the end)…

They've also been receiving donations since early on. Last time I checked they were up to 100k per year, but it started much smaller. I donated $20 back in the days when they'd send back an ASCII art scene in email or crayon drawing.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#89

Post by christkv »

program_whiz wrote: post #65

Glad to see this, because they have worked long and hard on this game. For the optimistic, divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years (they started work in 2002). They've made some money in the meantime obviously, but seeing the final profit doesn't accurately capture the overall investment. Just in case you were thinking of quitting your day job to become an overnight millionaire making indie games.

If they are smart the money will be taken out as dividend and thus only pay capital gains tax.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#90

Post by db48x »

komali2 wrote: post #68
swarnie wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Swarnie probably works in the defense industry. Buying missiles pays his company who pay his salary. Of course, the government takes some of that salary back as income tax, at which point it starts to become complicated.
Post reply on HN