Please incorporate ChatGPT into this game! Imagine the storylines!
"Please add ChatGPT" is the new "please rewrite it in Rust."
Please rewrite it in rust with chatGPT !
Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
161–170 of 322 posts
Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what?
Donations. They have a patreon and have had paypal donations long before that with the occasional donation drive to pump up numbers.
Yeah they used to have a PO Box you could mail checks/etc to. I still have it in my billpay. The only gaming value that has come even close for me has been Factorio.
Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
And those early numbers are Tarn only with Zach still having a "real job" (Tarn quit his teaching job relatively early on).
Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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)…
Imagine how much they could have made by now if they had launched on steam 10 years ago
Potentially less; the game may have a large amount of "support purchases" but could end up with a relatively slow tail afterwards.
Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
So much depends on how you measure it. But median individual income in the US is quite a bit higher than 19k no matter how you measure it. Real, adjusted, individual including non working and part-time population above 15yo: $38k/yr Including only full-time workers: $57k Median household income: $71k The US has enough problems, no need to make up much smaller income numbers than the reality. https://fred.stlouisfed.o…
I found this figure: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Median_p... (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_... ). The individual median net income was $19k around 2005-2006, maybe they were just using outdated numbers? Or it could've been a typo or misreading, as the current median net income is $29k. In any case, their point still stands with the $29k figure.
> In any case, their point still stands with the $29k figure.
Comparing comp for two people who are working really hard, doesn't really work when you're comparing to a median income that includes lots of people who don't work or don't really work.
Similarly, comparing median net income (which includes taxation) with a pre-tax windfall doesn't really make sense, either.
Further, we're not adjusting for time value of money...
Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
#166I'm a bit addicted to Rimworld when it comes to this genre, but I bought DF just to support the OG's - plus I wasted 4 months on a terrible contract job and the only thing that kept me sane was playing Liberal crime squad in the background.
Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
#167Please incorporate ChatGPT into this game! Imagine the storylines!
Actually I think this might be a very useful addition to Legends mode. Right now it is pretty tedious and difficult to extract meaningful narrative from what is essentially a log dump, but if there were a LLM trained to weave those dry tomes into wild stories that would be pretty neat.
Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
#168Earlier 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…
The major lesson is "don't make indie games if you want to make money". There are 34 games released per day on steam. Most will have revenue under $1000 (and probably most will have revenue below $100). Unless you have a talented team, marketing plan, and lots of capital you can burn for a gamble; or are willing to just do it for fun for years and don't care if it succeeds -- don't quit your job to make indie games.…
To be fair, you'd have to somehow account for what percentage of those released each day are just shovelware crap. The actual "indie games" to look at would be the ones where talented people put time and effort into something. A vast majority of those will still fail, but then you have at least a true basis.
Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Set up an offshore that owns the IP and pay a licensing fee to the offshore? Licensing costs would then reduce net profits and likely also taxes, right?
Well when they want to withdraw the money eventually they’d get taxed right?
If they withdraw 100k a year for 20 years (or more if it's invested) they'll pay a lot less in taxes than 2mil once.
Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
#170Earlier 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.
DF became popular because of the stories it created - and being free helped that expand because people could try-before-buy.
As it was, the risk would have been way too high for most people to pay tenbux or whatever BEFORE playing it (many have "donated" way more than that after playing).