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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

#51

Post by badrequest »

QuantumNomad_ wrote: post #36
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.

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...

Looks like they did literally nothing in 2024?

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

#52

Post by renewiltord »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #30
snowram wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those games are a grain of sand in the infinite desert that is the indie game world. The vast majority of indie games on Steam are barely even noticed by anyone.

Schedule One sold more copies than a brand new Assassins Creed game at launch on Steam, Minecraft has sold more copies than most AAA games, including GTA 5.

Yeah, sometimes I look back and think: Why didn’t they just choose to build a genre defining game? Next you’ll tell me that instead of just buying Bitcoin at $1k they chose to make yet another game.

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

#53

Post by tracker1 »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #32
jasonlotito wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it incredibly rare? Yes. It's incredibly rare. And suggesting otherwise is silly. Go ahead. Compare all the indie games released and see how often they succeed. Sure, you can find successful ones, but you are ignoring those that do not succeed. There is a name for that, you know—survivorship bias.

I'm not claiming it's every indie game I'm saying its not quite as rare as you suggest, I look at new releases on Steam all the time, there's less indie games than you think being released. More than there probably should be, but its not like tens of thousands a day or week or even in a month. Its about 800 a month. That's rare if anything, not "incredibly rare"

And out of the 800 new indie games a month, how many are breakout successes and sell even 10k copies? That's what is rare, not that indie games are rare, but having a success (like winning the lottery) is relatively rare.

At 10k new indie games a year, maybe a dozen gross over a million. A larger studio can't afford those kind of odds. That said, they should be able to make more games with a better focus on gameplay and a bit less on leading tech graphics.

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

#54

Post by mjg2 »

QuantumNomad_ wrote: post #36
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.

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.

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

#55

Post by raincole »

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.

So? What Valve does isn't charity either. It's weird that you even mention this word.

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

#56

Post by big_toast »

jasongill wrote: post #17
selfawareMammal wrote: post #3

How much money does he have in order to make such a big donation? Has stardew valley made that much?

Stardew Valley is in the top 5 selling indie games of all time, with 50 million units sold. It's owned and run entirely by one person (the donor in OP's link) - he ended his relationship with a (small) games publisher a few years ago, and runs everything himself.

Additionally there is a concert series that's quite good and other merchandise.

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

#57

Post by keyringlight »

benoau wrote: post #46
geon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably he spent years working on it. His own time should be subtracted from the revenue too.

Hundreds of millions minus hundreds of thousands of dollars lol.

And the decision to risk years of his life spent on a project that might not pan out. IIRC he was largely supported by his girlfriend during development and he worked in a cinema. That's in contrast to a job at a studio where you get a salary for your time whether it succeeds or not.

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

#58

Post by zoeysmithe »

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.

Its hard in a corporate structure to just 'donate.' The culture and system is not designed for it very well. This is why selling books or support works out better for foss projects.

Its hard to see SDV as some niche 'indie' project and more and more pedantic definitions of 'indie' aren't helpful. This is a game with an estimated half BILLION in sales. He's extremely wealthy and could have given 50x more easily. Its a bit arbitrary on who or who hasnt done enough. Why no metrics like 10% of your income if you use the tool? "Volunteerism" doesn't work and stuff like this seems like mostly PR and a tip, moreso that "let me help you run this project." I mean does this make monogame better? It seems like a tool that's not really used by any commercial devs. This just seems like a "thank you for helping me get super rich," kind of thing. A tip, which is different than funding a project, fundamentally. You can tip a dying business that is destined to fold shortly, for example. That's not the same as funding it.

This sort of "we are and aren't a business" gray-zone these foss projects live in needs reform, imho. Expecting the kindness of strangers doesn't work. Look at how many foss projects get little to no donations. I don't have the fix here but these developers should probably roll up a LLC and market some kind of service these companies can just easily write invoices for instead of just expecting a random middle-manager to fight the execs to write a $100k check to some guy named Phil in Minnesota that maintains something-something-lib, which is one tiny part of a larger ecosystem that maintains their backend.

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