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Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

monogame.net

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Re: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

#161

Post by DrewADesign »

wilde wrote: post #116
sneak wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gifts do not confer obligation. Copying deprives the original party of nothing. Absolutely nothing about free software requires or even implies any responsibility to “give back”. This idea that anyone making money with free software somehow owes the original authors anything (or “should” donate a portion of their profits) is ridiculous. If the authors wanted money for their software, they would have sold it instead o…

If your friend keeps taking you out to lunch and you never return the favor, he’s probably going to stop.

This guy would probably cancel, anyway, because his friend didn't want to pay him for driving them to the restaurant.

Re: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

#162

Post by yunnpp »

benoau wrote: post #149
tempest_ wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gabe gotta buy a $500 million dollar yacht. It pays to be the middle man!

The yacht and the company that makes it. Plus like 10 other ships. His fleet probably employs more people than Steam lmao.

And the DJ, I suppose. Somebody's gonna have to keep that rave going.

Re: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

#163

Post by collingreen »

DrewADesign wrote: post #161
wilde wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your friend keeps taking you out to lunch and you never return the favor, he’s probably going to stop.

This guy would probably cancel, anyway, because his friend didn't want to pay him for driving them to the restaurant.

I'm giving the pleasure of being in my incredible presence why should I do that for free?

Re: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

#164

Post by sph »

drakythe wrote: post #78

This reminds me of Relogic (Terraria) donating 100k to Godot and FNA after the whole Unity pricing change debacle a couple (few?) years back. Really glad to see mega successful devs giving back to the tools that they use.

Also Mega Crit, devs of Slay the Spire, which are making the second one in Godot. They’re one of the largest sponsors to the project now.

Re: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

#165

Post by zulban »

gmueckl wrote: post #125
mips_avatar wrote: post #122

As someone who has been solo developing an app for months concerned ape is such an inspiration. He literally spent 5 years on stardew valley with zero income. It's such a beautiful game and reminds me what you can do when you follow what feels right.

The sad truth js that for every solo devs that becomes successful, there are an untold number of solo devs that don't find an audience and fail. The reality is pretty brutal in games.

If you only count developers who finish a quality game, polished, with completed endgame, and free of major bugs then the numbers are far lower.

Maybe it's more of a lesson in how hard it is to finish a game, than how hard it is to make a somewhat successful one.

Re: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

#166

Post by jayd16 »

juujian wrote: post #2

I don't want to assume, but I don't recollect any contributions of that magnitude from large studios (spare Valve). This indy developer (is that label fair?) is putting AAA studios to shame.

AAAs use their own engines, or increasingly Unreal Engine, though. They usually prefer to get a contract and a neck to wring as far as vendor tools go.

Re: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

#167

Post by tick_tock_tick »

mips_avatar wrote: post #122

As someone who has been solo developing an app for months concerned ape is such an inspiration. He literally spent 5 years on stardew valley with zero income. It's such a beautiful game and reminds me what you can do when you follow what feels right.

The book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels has a good chapter on the development of Stardew.

Honestly though it only reads as inspirational with the success coming at the end. 9 times out of 10 that story is actually how someone "wasted" 5 years of his life, ruined his relationship with his girlfriend that was basically supporting him the whole time, and had difficulty getting a normal job after.

Re: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

#168

Post by Ygg2 »

bevr1337 wrote: post #120
sneak wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gifts do not confer obligation. Copying deprives the original party of nothing. Absolutely nothing about free software requires or even implies any responsibility to “give back”. This idea that anyone making money with free software somehow owes the original authors anything (or “should” donate a portion of their profits) is ridiculous. If the authors wanted money for their software, they would have sold it instead o…

> Gifts do not confer obligation. Remind me, which Ferengi Rule of Acquisition is this? There's not much argument to be had. You've created a logical justification for a myopic, misanthropic world view. > My friend bought me lunch. I used that energy at my job. Do I owe them part of my paycheck? Many find reciprocation important in a relationship.

> Remind me, which Ferengi Rule of Acquisition is this?

Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Rules_of_Acquisition

Re: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

#169

Post by mikepurvis »

gmueckl wrote: post #145
mikepurvis wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot comes down to whether a game is art-first or code-first, and almost all modern games are art-first, so it makes sense to have your platform be one that artists and designers are immediately productive in, and the software people are basically writing behaviour modules and plugins for that established system. But it's good that code-first engines still exist. There are always going to be projects that ar…

This is a somewhat naive view of engines in modern game development. Full-featured engines allow every department to dive in head first in parallel. The first gameplay elements often get programmed before the first pieces of content arrive. Scenes can be blocked out and drafted immwdiately at the start of the project. Complex animations with states and blend trees can be created amd tested independently of the gamepl…

Right, yes. I think all I meant is that in earlier generations you could do modeling/sprites and concepting from the beginning, but there was a hard line in terms of how much code had to exist before the whole thing started to look or feel like much.

Thinking here especially of the Doom / Quake / HL1 era where they were basically building the level design tools in parallel with the game.

Whereas nowadays you can have movement, mobs, dialog flow, etc all with very little code, and it's placeholders like "oh we need a custom shader for this effect" or "that boss needs some custom logic".

Re: Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

#170

Post by TomatoCo »

sneak wrote: post #111
mindcrash wrote: post #101

Not without reason: Stardew Valley, which has been sold to millions of gamers, has been created using the free MonoGame engine. So ConcernedApe is giving back to the open source software which made his commercial success possible, like commercial parties should.

Gifts do not confer obligation. Copying deprives the original party of nothing. Absolutely nothing about free software requires or even implies any responsibility to “give back”. This idea that anyone making money with free software somehow owes the original authors anything (or “should” donate a portion of their profits) is ridiculous. If the authors wanted money for their software, they would have sold it instead o…

What do you think about putting the shopping cart back in its corral?
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