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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

#171

Post by sneak »

MildlySerious wrote: post #151
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…

There really is no prize for being technically correct on this one. Someone built this and is letting you have it. For free. There is no legal obligation or law of the universe here, sure, but if you're in the top 1% of benefactors of this pro bono work, you have the opportunity to do some good and make sure that others, like you, get the chance to benefit from this free work in the future. There is a pretty straight…

There is no moral obligation, either - that’s my point. They chose to give it away for free. It’s the author’s explicit decision that there is no obligation placed on recipients.

Giving a fake gift that comes with unspoken strings attached (and “keeping score” in your head) is the passive-aggressive, immoral act. If reciprocity is expected, it is definitionally not a gift.

Releasing software under a free software license is a choice to give a gift to the world. If the author wanted moral obligation strings attached, the license would say that.

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

#172

Post by sneak »

Sajarin wrote: post #133
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…

I think this comes off a bit too strong (as well as the replies to this to be fair) The example isn't quite accurate. If a friend bought you lunch, the social norm of reciprocity would incline you towards buying them lunch in the future (i.e part of your paycheck) Free open source software is a public good. While there is no obligation to give back, giving back helps that public good become more useful to other peopl…

In the lunch example, reciprocation would be releasing additional software under free software licenses, not payments.

There should be zero social pressure, as gifts do not convey obligation. It was the software author’s explicit choice when licensing and publishing the software to make clear that payment is not expected.

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

#173

Post by tick_tock_tick »

yunnpp wrote: post #94
tracker1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% off the top for most stores (Valve/Steam, Apple/iPhone, Google/Android, etc), then around 50% taxes between state, local... some fixed expenses and overhead. It's probably well under 20% in the bank after all is said and done. That said, it's still a lot of money.

God, that's awful. That 30% cut for the middle man hurts. At least the government tax can be put to good use (emphasis on can ...)

I mean the company taking the 30% cut also pays taxes on that so more then you'd guess are going to taxes.

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

#174

Post by sneak »

kwanbix wrote: post #113
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…

It is the moral thing to do.

I disagree. The moral thing to do would be to respect the stated wishes of the author of the software, who made clear when they published it that no payments of any kind are expected.

If I gave you a gift and you tried to give me money, I would be offended.

I’m not saying free software publishers wouldn’t accept donations - just that publishing free software is giving a gift to the world, and there is NO moral obligation placed on recipients. That’s the point of free software.

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

#175

Post by techgnosis »

mostlysimilar wrote: post #157
tracker1 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% off the top for most stores (Valve/Steam, Apple/iPhone, Google/Android, etc), then around 50% taxes between state, local... some fixed expenses and overhead. It's probably well under 20% in the bank after all is said and done. That said, it's still a lot of money.

> around 50% taxes between state, local. Truly? I believe he lives in Washington State. It's really HALF of his income?

Washington state does not have a state income tax, FYI.

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

#176

Post by nkrisc »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #11
bhaney wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://steam-revenue-calculator.com/app/413150/stardew-vall...

This should really put any AAA studio to shame. A single developer sold half a billion dollars on Steam alone.

Stardew Valley is a very noteworthy achievement, but it’s not the kind of success anyone should expect to simply replicate.

Go for it, but most will not achieve a similar outcome.

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

#177

Post by somenameforme »

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.

How about #59: "Free advice is seldom cheap." Because you're basically saying that there's no such thing as free, and it's simply an 'unclarified financial contract to be consolidated at a later time.' Quark would approve! If I'm paying for a friend's lunch it's because I want to, not because I expect anything from him in the future. And beyond that, I do not consider downloading something somebody has released for free as establishing a relationship.

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

#178

Post by miiiiiike »

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…

Upvoting because you’re correct. Commenting because you’re wrong.

Donate to the F/OSS projects that you used to make it big.

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

#179

Post by margalabargala »

benoau wrote: post #129
margalabargala wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The service Steam provides to game developers is substantial.

Not really, what they actually do for most games is basically what Google and Apple do: a token review, then nothing apart from some niceties for players. Then they pocket an immense profit, it came out in one of Epic's cases that Valve net $50 million/year profit per employee . The only thing for developers they still do better than Google and Apple really is a few promotions throughout the year that target specific…

Well, plus there's the whole version management and packaging and hosting and distributing giant amounts of data.

If you are an indie team that makes a 50GB game and has 50k players, distributing and update management would be a gargantuan task without Steam or something like it. 2.5 petabytes of bandwidth isn't cheap.

Yes what they do is profitable, I'm not saying that it isn't. But paying for what they do is (clearly) still more attractive to developers than rolling their own infrastructure to do the same.

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

#180

Post by gmueckl »

zulban wrote: post #165
gmueckl wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Games are hard. I wanted to focus more on the fact that there is a perceived glamour to indie development that is totally amd utterly disconneted from their reality.
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