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

monogame.net

91–100 of 266 posts

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

#91

A true Christmas story! Somewhat unrelated, could someone provide insight into the following - "MonoGame is a "bring your own tools" kind of framework, which means that it provides the building blocks to build your own engine and tools, but it isn't quite an engine itself. If you are expecting a scene editor (like Unity or Unreal), MonoGame is not that. If you love coding and understanding how things work under the h…

Yes, this is basically correct. When you start writing a game with MonoGame, all you get is basically a class with two methods, Update() and Draw() that MonoGame will be calling in a loop, plus a bunch of libraries for input, graphics, audio, content loading etc. you can use in your code. It's a step beyond something like bare raylib or SDL2, but it's a far cry from Unreal, which lets you think in terms of game entit…

I think a lot comes down to whether a game is art-first or code-first, and almost all modern games are art-first, so it makes sense to have your platform be one that artists and designers are immediately productive in, and the software people are basically writing behaviour modules and plugins for that established system.

But it's good that code-first engines still exist. There are always going to be projects that are more experimental, or don't have a clear pattern of entities, or are dynamic enough that that kind of thing doesn't make sense.

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

#92
post #28
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

He also put an insane amount of effort, far more than most of us mortals.

See: Blood, Sweat and Pixels; Chapter 2

https://a.co/d/4OIUtsN

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

#93

I'm sorry but why C#? Isn't the big tech (Microsoft) in this case is a very big downside? Why not LÖVE (Lua) for example? https://love2d.org/ There is also libGDX (Java) but not sure Oracle is any better than Microsoft. https://libgdx.com/

Lua is awful for anything large. It is untyped, refactoring does not exist, etc. C# is an amazing language with amazing tools and very good libraries.

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

#94
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...)

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

#95
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This doesn't seem high to me at all. You buy the game, try it for an hour, feel kind of meh on it or even just see a different game you think you'd like even more, and hit the refund button. If anything, I'm surprised it's only ~12%.

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

#96
post #61
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.

I mean, this indie developer sold more than lots of (most?) AAA studios, and AAA studios have a lot more operating costs than an indie. Donating one dev year is a lot easier when you sell 50 million copies and hire no one than when you sell a couple million copies and have 100 employees plus investors. (I have 3000 hours on this game, so definitely not biased against indies or something.)

These studios have profit margins in the multi-millions, they could afford a symbolic $100k donation. Instead they choose to push their developers through another crunch cycle.

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

#97
Stardew Valley is one of a few indie games that seems to be known outside the usual “gaming” circle. I have a few friends who’ve never engaged with any games but absolutely loved Stardew Valley. It’s the pinnacle of cozy, I suppose.

ConcernedApe has done something special with game development to achieve that. I always look to him as an example as I take to game dev as a hobby. This is yet another way I want to take after him for sure. Looking forward to Haunted Chocolatier!

Also I’d never heard of MonoGame somehow, def going to take a peek now!

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

#98

I'm sorry but why C#? Isn't the big tech (Microsoft) in this case is a very big downside? Why not LÖVE (Lua) for example? https://love2d.org/ There is also libGDX (Java) but not sure Oracle is any better than Microsoft. https://libgdx.com/

C# is open source now and has been for a while. Same as .NET

Only proprietary bit is the debugger (vsdbg) but there are open alternatives.

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

#99
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How does the Godot donation expand their empire? Other than get more people into game development?

It expands their empire like Microsoft pledging to "support" Open Source: it's disingenuous, self-serving, and develops a "claim" of authority over the sector. It allows them, the makers of Unreal Engine, to develop a business relationship with their competition and influence the trajectory on one of only major alternatives in order to control the market more.

If Epic Games really cared about Godot, they would align more with their values in-house. Their M&A drives the organization like a propeller.

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

#100

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?

For whom? The manufacture? It's closer to 10-30% for the manufacture (lower for white label goods, higher for "premium" brands). And it's higher for products that enjoy monopoly status.

For retailers, it's 2-3%, but retailers also get products on loan and negotiate various agreements that help cover the costs of displays, shipping, marketing, and wastage. So even that small percentage margin is skewed a bit.

There's a reason that retailers and food manufactures ("canned goods") were some of the largest American companies prior to technology taking off. It's a highly profitable industry.

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