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

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

#211

Post by AlwaysRock »

TomK32 wrote: post #196
dmarchand90 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but they were not making that much the whole time. If you look back some years they were just scraping by.

Looking at the numbers and releases I must say: If they had streamlined their release process to put out releases more often then the revenue might have been more even and better.

Maybe. Factorio does a great job of putting out releases and sharing details about what they are working on and you would have thought they were evil incarnate after they recently said they had to raise their price by $5 to keep up with inflation.

People are fickle and hindsight isnt always so clear.

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

#212

Post by dmarchand90 »

TomK32 wrote: post #196
dmarchand90 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but they were not making that much the whole time. If you look back some years they were just scraping by.

Looking at the numbers and releases I must say: If they had streamlined their release process to put out releases more often then the revenue might have been more even and better.

Yes and no. Possibly. Personally, I think their dedication to work on it in an artistic 'passion project' style is what made the game what it is. I suspect if they had followed a more regular schedule they would have gotten a more ordinary, and forgettable, indie game.

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

#213

Post by AlwaysRock »

jliptzin wrote: post #198

I haven’t played it, and I have no doubt it is an amazing game I would enjoy. But how do people have time for all these games? There are so many compelling games out there, each demanding hundreds or thousands of hours of time to fully enjoy.

Most people dont. Thus the ever-growing backlog. This applies to movies, books, games... You enjoy what you can.

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

#214

Post by AlwaysRock »

komali2 wrote: post #69
MagicMoonlight wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It implies a near 50% tax rate, anywhere in the usa, even California, that seems really high.

Highest income tack bracket in the US is 37%. But it's different for corporations.

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

#215

Post by bombcar »

pixl97 wrote: post #188
bombcar wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Also being free let the developers work on whatever they wanted to rather than the "I paid for this and this bug happened therefore I'm going to yell about it on the internet". I work in enterprise software, the pressures from paying customers are immense. Sales loves to short circuit processes to get new features in front of the line. Large customers love to short circuit the process. Eventually your processes becom…

And even so Tarn has been pretty responsive to major bugs (and even minor ones) - but it is really nice to have the expectations set.

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

#216

Post by AlwaysRock »

ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote: post #2

The drop-off after launch is pretty wild.

I was confused initially as well but you are reading it backwards. They were getting ~15k a month before launch and that jumped to 7 mill after launch. I am very interested to see what it normalizes to. 100K a month? several hundred? 15K a month again?

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

#217

Post by thebigspacefuck »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #211
TomK32 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the numbers and releases I must say: If they had streamlined their release process to put out releases more often then the revenue might have been more even and better.

Maybe. Factorio does a great job of putting out releases and sharing details about what they are working on and you would have thought they were evil incarnate after they recently said they had to raise their price by $5 to keep up with inflation. People are fickle and hindsight isnt always so clear.

Wow, they raised their price? I thought their whole thing was $30 forever because they were never going on sale.

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

#219

Post by jtms »

eatsyourtacos wrote: post #177
moffkalast wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they had a different agreement than standard or Steam just cashed out something north of $3 million from this alone. It's true what they say: Valve used to make games, now they make money.

>Valve used to make games, now they make money You can say that, but really what they moved to is creating a platform that saved PC gaming. I can't imagine where we would be at without Steam. There would be 20 different platforms we would have to install full of bloatware garbage and everything would be horrific as all fuck. Indie games would be having a much harder time, because sure there would be other things out…

without Steam there might have been 20 different platforms, but another possibility would have been Microsoft just fully taking over the space and treating the PC like a very expensive Xbox. Even with Steam’s success this has always been a possibility. I think Steam’s massive investment in game compatibility for Linux (ie: Steam Deck) has been an amazing counterbalance to stave off the potential of MS monopoly on the PC gaming space and I am so thankful for their continued support of PC gaming culture and tech.

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

#220

Post by AlwaysRock »

Really interested to see what their revenue numbers will look like when sales normalize. It will probably take a few months but will they be at 100K a month mid year? Really interesting what the staying power of DF will be now that it is more accessible.
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