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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

#261

Post by pwdisswordfishy »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #64
pwdisswordfishy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would 1 unit of this game have a "profit margin" of 10%? It's a video game. He's not selling canned goods.

Besides tax and the store's cut, the games also regularly sales and prices-changes. So you can't just extrapolate the price today with the amount of units sold and assume this to be the revenue.

> you can't just extrapolate the price today with the amount of units sold and assume this to be the revenue

Who did that?

This thread seems to be filled with people who don't understand what marginal cost is.

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

#262

Post by pwdisswordfishy »

philistine wrote: post #82
pwdisswordfishy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would 1 unit of this game have a "profit margin" of 10%? It's a video game. He's not selling canned goods.

What do you think the profit margin of canned goods is? They make cents on every can. Something like 2-3%. The video games industry is filled to the brim with gatekeepers who take their cuts. Valve takes 30%, just for their store. Publishers start at 10%. Your engine might take a cut. Estimating that Stardew Valley, the big success video game with the lowest overhead bar none, has made 10% profit might be too low. 20…

> What do you think the profit margin of canned goods is?

Um, exactly the sort of numbers that you're providing. I'm baffled by the question or what possible relevance you thought it had here.

> 10% profit might be too low. 20%? Might be high.

You think an indie game like the one in question is making less on each copy sold than Valve is making on it? That's nuts. If the creator isn't clearing 50% on each marginal unit sold, then something is seriously wrong.

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

#263

Post by collingreen »

jaggederest wrote: post #202
collingreen wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm reminded of this story in the New Yorker: https://archive.ph/wNydh

I laughed out loud, thank you for sharing this.

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

#264

Post by account42 »

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…

There are different kinds of gifts and different kinds of obligations. When you continuously rely on gifts without giving anything back even though you could afford to then you are behaving parasitically.

Or in other words: Bruh, we live in a society.

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

#265

Post by account42 »

ekianjo wrote: post #245
MildlySerious wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Someone built this and is letting you have it. For free. That's the point of a FOSS license. You give the power back to the end users. This was purposefully chosen by the Monogame project.

Sure, and a billionaire is allowed to rely on a soup kitchen for food but it's still a dick move and rightly criticized.

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

#266

Post by account42 »

mjg2 wrote: post #54
QuantumNomad_ wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic Games has a program called MegaGrants where they give a bunch of money to various projects. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants For example they gave $250k to the Godot game engine project in 2020. https://godotengine.org/article/godot-engine-was-awarded-epi...

I wouldn't call anything Epic Games does charity: it's all empire expansion for them.

I don't like Epic overall either but their free software grants are exemplary. Sure, they are not doing this without self interest but it's still miles better than the average corporation.
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