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

261–270 of 322 posts

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

#261

Post by kilgnad »

Dudeman112 wrote: post #151
kilgnad wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The whole idea of caring about "canon" is fundamentally bollocks anyway when it comes to stories

The word has meaning imo. It's used to seperate the fan fiction and maintain consistency during world building. It's quite important for the popular stories of our time, Star wars and the Marvel cinematic universe.

I know some people hate those franchises but like it or not, they are some of the biggest mythologies that came out in our time.

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

#262

Post by vkou »

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 were only making 12k per month in the last few years. For a long time, it was closer to 2-4k a month.

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

#263

Post by tverbeure »

eatsyourtacos wrote: post #171
tverbeure wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a major contradiction in here. I’m sure you’ll agree that it’d be mindblowingly dumb to not set some kind of company for a bunch of reasons? (Eg limited liability) And that you best leave accounting and tax filings to professionals so that you can spend your precious time on something you love instead? OP’s suggestion automatically flows from that…

>There’s a major contradiction in here. I don't think there is. I wholeheartedly agree with the prior sentiment. Way too much of peoples lives are spent on shit that does not really matter . As a people we have overcomplicated the shit out of everything to such a degree it's disgusting. And it's all based on greed. Optimize this structure to pay the least tax, optimize your income into this and that so it magically m…

This particular case isn’t like that all.

Do you agree with the premise that it would be incredible dumb and dangerous not to structure their business into a legal limited liability company?

Do you agree that the accounting and tax handling is best left to professionals because it can be complicated and because you trade a little bit of money for the peace of mind that you’re following the rules and more free time?

If you agree with those two points, then the act of paying out the profits as a dividend instead of a salary rolls out pretty much for free. Because it’s not some hard to set up tax avoidance construction, it’s the norm.

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

#264

Post by azernik »

sempron64 wrote: post #178
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would require greater than 50% taxation, which isn’t realistic at all in the United States. The federal income tax rates for lower income brackets reach 0%. State, sales, payroll, and other taxes aren’t going to come anywhere near 50%. The real, net, median income in the United States is significantly higher than what the OP quoted.

The top federal income tax bracket is 37% and the top California tax bracket is 12.2%. This is for income exceeding 500k. So disregarding local taxes and property taxes, in California most of this income would be taxed at 49.2%.

This is a subthread about the median income that we would compare the $7M payout to, not the $7M payout itself. It certainly falsifies the graph paulluuk linked to, and using high CA taxes on the Bay 12 payout only further undermines paulluuk's comparison.

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

#265

Post by thebigspacefuck »

oblio wrote: post #242
thebigspacefuck wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m guessing they’re multi-millionaires by now. Poor guys.

Do you know this for sure? How big is their company?

I don’t know for sure but 3.5M lifetime sales times 30 is $105M*70% is $73.5M, they have around 30 employees, maybe they pay $200K a year, so that’s $36M over 6 years, netting them $37.5M. I could be way off though.

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

#266

Post by azernik »

kilgnad wrote: post #84
mlindner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's relevant to the Bible, or Shakespeare, or the MCU, because those works' authors have authority in a way the Brothers Grimm do not have authority over folklore.

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

#267

Post by azernik »

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.

Work-life balance, and selectivity.

Personally, I don't buy games until they're old enough to be on 50% sale and the reviews are in.

If you're interested in reviews and community based around limited time, I'd highly recommend reddit.com/r/patientgamers.

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

#269

Post by azernik »

moneywoes wrote: post #141
wsc981 wrote: post #64

Earlier 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?

Yes, but as income at a more reasonable tax bracket. By default this kind of windfall is taxed the same as someone who makes that much money every year for years; all those shenanigans let you get taxed as someone making a smaller income for a longer time.

Plus, over that longer time you can list a lot of dual-use purchases as untaxed business expenses.

Post reply on HN