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Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

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Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#71

Post by kirushik »

Archelaos wrote: post #28

> The fairytale ending is reality, but you didn’t kiss the toad. Some philological pedantery: In the canonical Brothers Grimm version of The Frog Prince, the frog does not turn into a prince when kissed but when smashed against a wall.

Grimmsc version is a bit weird then, because there is a plausibly-sounding "freundian" interpretation of the most common folklore version, in which a frog turning into a prince after being kissed is a thinly veiled metaphor for fellatio.

That said, in the most common Russian folk version it's *Princess* Frog (Царевна Лягушка), and the metaphor is not working that well once again.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#72

Post by komali2 »

nivenkos wrote: post #47
usrusr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's for regular releases. I'd be surprised if the initial drop wasn't much stronger for something that has already been a living legend for many years. That initial wave of "oh, I've heard so much of them, probably won't play even with a graphical mode, but I still want it in my library" is one of a kind. The long tail will probably be much flatter, but only compare to regular releases once you separate out ev…

I'm a fan of the game but waiting for proper Linux support. I also have a lot of other games to finish beforehand.

What issues were you having? I run it on a steam deck just fine all the time. I guess you mean you don't want to run on a compatibility layer? I haven't noticed performance issues if that's your concern.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#73

Post by skjoldr »

bovermyer wrote: post #29
Mengkudulangsat wrote: post #11

Please incorporate ChatGPT into this game! Imagine the storylines!

I disagree vehemently and violently with this suggestion. Dwarf Fortress's charm results from human-crafted procedures interacting in unexpected and fascinating ways. If ChatGPT (or other AI bullshit generators) were used instead, it would change the experience entirely.

What do you mean "instead"? A custom GPT would have to be crafted for this game by humans anyway, and used to augment the human-written content. Much of this game's gameplay is emergent and hard to predict using deterministic algorithms.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#74

Post by criley2 »

program_whiz wrote: post #65

Glad to see this, because they have worked long and hard on this game. For the optimistic, divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years (they started work in 2002). They've made some money in the meantime obviously, but seeing the final profit doesn't accurately capture the overall investment. Just in case you were thinking of quitting your day job to become an overnight millionaire making indie games.

This doesn't really make sense. They were a donations-run "charity" shop making a free game. They only decided to put it on Steam so they could fund a retirement as well as a future for the game.

For any indie devs out there: don't give your game away for free for 18 years if you want to make money. That's really the lesson here.

Had DF monetized in 2006 instead of going free, and played the industry game as others do, I would not be surprised to see DF at $100M in 2023.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#75

Post by nevi-me »

kybernetyk wrote: post #70
nevi-me wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tax should be post-expenses

What expenses would they have realistically? 2 PCs? if you mean their salary that still would be taxable at their personal income tax rate.

Yes, I'm merely saying that one can't derive the tax from the $7m without considering expenses. Salaries being taxable at the employees' rate doesn't make it invalid.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#76

Post by kilgnad »

criley2 wrote: post #74
program_whiz wrote: post #65

Glad to see this, because they have worked long and hard on this game. For the optimistic, divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years (they started work in 2002). They've made some money in the meantime obviously, but seeing the final profit doesn't accurately capture the overall investment. Just in case you were thinking of quitting your day job to become an overnight millionaire making indie games.

This doesn't really make sense. They were a donations-run "charity" shop making a free game. They only decided to put it on Steam so they could fund a retirement as well as a future for the game. For any indie devs out there: don't give your game away for free for 18 years if you want to make money. That's really the lesson here. Had DF monetized in 2006 instead of going free, and played the industry game as others d…

Nah. DF became popular because it's free. That is a huge part of the allure.

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#77

Post by throwaway41213d »

nevi-me wrote: post #66
program_whiz wrote: post #65

Glad to see this, because they have worked long and hard on this game. For the optimistic, divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years (they started work in 2002). They've made some money in the meantime obviously, but seeing the final profit doesn't accurately capture the overall investment. Just in case you were thinking of quitting your day job to become an overnight millionaire making indie games.

The tax should be post-expenses

[flagged]

Re: Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress

#79

Post by rob74 »

criley2 wrote: post #74
program_whiz wrote: post #65

Glad to see this, because they have worked long and hard on this game. For the optimistic, divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years (they started work in 2002). They've made some money in the meantime obviously, but seeing the final profit doesn't accurately capture the overall investment. Just in case you were thinking of quitting your day job to become an overnight millionaire making indie games.

This doesn't really make sense. They were a donations-run "charity" shop making a free game. They only decided to put it on Steam so they could fund a retirement as well as a future for the game. For any indie devs out there: don't give your game away for free for 18 years if you want to make money. That's really the lesson here. Had DF monetized in 2006 instead of going free, and played the industry game as others d…

OTOH, if they would have asked money for it from the beginning, it may never have gotten as far as it did. The market for a commercial game with text graphics was pretty small even back in 2006...
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