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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.
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.
IIRC he has a supportive partner that took care of being the breadwinner during that development period though.
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TBH the profit margin on this game is probably closer to 100% than 10%, it was a solo-dev game so never much overhead, I think one guy was hired to work on it.
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.
However, this is business income, not compensation, so it's taxed on a net basis, not a gross basis (even though it may still be included on his personal income tax return). This means his taxable income is the amount left after taking into account the retailer's fees, subcontractor costs, etc.
So, for example, if he made $100 selling games, $30 would go to the store. Assuming no expenses and overhead (since we have no data to come up with those numbers), the remaining $70 would be subject to tax. Assuming he lived in NYC, he would pay up to $36.26 in combined taxes (not taking into account the SALT deduction or the progressive tax rate calculation), for a post-tax net of at least $33.74. Assuming he lived in WA as other commenters note, he would pay up to $25.9 in federal taxes, for a post-tax net of no less than $44.1. (But note: Washington has an excise tax on businesses which is based on gross income...)
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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.
You miss all the shots you never take. The Stardew developer took a shot. Notch took many shots.
If you can take the chance and want to, do it. I just recommend having a backup plan.
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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…
Including, of course, oneself. Keeping the project you depend on running is good business.
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.
Stardew is probably one of the most (if not the most) popular game ever made with MonoGame AAA studios don't really use MonoGame.
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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 ...)
Stardew likely qualifies for the reduced store cuts. Steam _lowers_ the percentage for a game when it sells high. Still somewhere between 10 and 25%, though. Generally, the Steam cut is considered “fair” for Indy devs. The benefits of steam (discoverability, massive audience) generate more sales. My Indy dev friends are not upset about the steam cut at all. This, however, is one area where eventually Epic Games shine…
This is basically almost public information: 25% cut on earnings between $10 million and $50 million.
Yet most likely very big share of sales is well below $10 let alone $15 due to sales and regional pricing.
So yeah I doubt numbers anywhere close to those adverised.
> Generally, the Steam cut is considered “fair” for Indy devs. The benefits of steam (discoverability, massive audience) generate more sales. My Indy dev friends are not upset about the steam cut at all.
Steam no longer provide any discoverability on its own unless you either bring your own community ftom outside or spend $10,000-100,000 on marketing to gain wishlists.
If you're small 2-10 people indie gamedev studio and have external funding Valve will earn more from your game than you.
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What Steam brings is a firehose of gamers with their credit cards ready to all the games they think will be successful. There's a reason why everyone launches on Steam.
That firehose isn't pointed at everyone, being the newest game on Steam has a very fleeting value and then it's on you to find customers. It used to be that Steam played a much more active role in spreading traffic around games but these days the median game is doing $1,000 - $2,000 in sales which is like 100 - 200 copies sold. It's more and more like Google and Apple where what you get out of it is just a function o…
There's nothing preventing a game dev from selling exclusively on their own site. It's not as though Steam has exclusive access to Windows customers like the App/Play Store do on their platforms. Steam earns its customers and their trust and developers follow.
How much money does he have in order to make such a big donation? Has stardew valley made that much?
“In Feb. 2024, Stardew Valley reached 30 million copies sold, and if we assume each copy sold for $15, that means that the game could have generated a revenue of $450 million. A modest 10 percent profit margin puts ConcernedApe’s earnings at $45 million, a number that is likely to increase in the future.” Source: https://dotesports.com/stardew-valley/news/how-much-money-di...
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https://steam-revenue-calculator.com/app/413150/stardew-vall...
69 million dollars in refunds!? That's 12% of the gross, seems crazy high. Is this pulling from actual Steam numbers?
I doubt its that high for Stardew Valley though. Simply because popular games are sold via network effect and people ususlly know what they buying.