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For anyone nitpicking the animations, UI or graphics choice... Please go and read about the reasons which drove the Adams brothers to finally cash in on their 2

For anyone nitpicking the animations, UI or graphics choice... Please go and read about the reasons which drove the Adams brothers to finally cash in on their 20 year long passion project. Spoiler alert: cancer and inadequate health care coverage is a terrible combination.

AndrewOMartin 4y ago
- nmilo 4y ago
  - canadianfella 4y ago
wisnoskij 4y ago
These guys have been getting donated like 5-20k per months for a over a decade.
- RHSeeger 4y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is on this; whether you're saying they make plenty of money, or not enough, or if you're not really speaking to whether it's enough. But speaking directly to the numbers - The smallest monthly amount the article mentions is $3,000 / month - The highest monthly amount the article mentions is $8,181 / month (Dec 2104) - The current number seems to indicate $6,999 / month - $7,000 * 12 = $84 / year - Split between two people, that's $42,000 / year each - General rule of thumb is that the cost for an employee doubles their salary (to account for expenses such as health care, supplies, taxes, etc). So assume they're actually making less than that. We'll make it $30,000 since the overhead for a contractor is less than that for an employee. $30,000 per year is not a lot of money to live on.
  - dilznoofus 4y ago
    $7k tends to be on the higher end, but it ends up fluctuating wildly When he releases a new version, people pay attention and donate. When he takes time to introduce fun features that drive excitement, people don't donate because he doesn't release. He occasionally adds a gentle ask for donations at the end of his progress blogposts, and it seems more like a guy who hates having to ask and would prefer to ignore money - which also seems like his entire personality.
  - wisnoskij 4y ago
    I am seeing some 16ks if this graph is correct (https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/5gbwz3/i_plotted_the_donations_to_bay12games_since_2008/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/5gbwz3/i_plo...) My point is responding to "For anyone nitpicking the animations, UI or graphics choice... Please go and read about the reasons which drove the Adams brothers to finally cash in on their 20 year long passion project." They have been cashing in for a decade, it is a profession game put out by a decently paid experienced team, if I want to have a problem with the graphics or gui at whatever price they are charging, I will do so. Including patron, it looks like they averaged over 11k per month last year.
    - RHSeeger 4y ago
      > decently paid experienced team If you're talking about the team they have doing the front end work for them, sure. But if you're talking about the two DF developers, certainly not. They've been making money on the game for years, sure... but a relatively low amount of money on the game, certainly not something I'd label as "cashing in". Rather, I think they believe the Steam move is "cashing in" because they hope it will bring them a lot more money; an amount I would help is better aligned with their work.
fnordpiglet 4y ago
Link to read up ? Edit: here https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xypb5/the-dwarf-fortress-creators-werent-in-it-for-money-but-now-they-need-it https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xypb5/the-dwarf-fortress-cr...
- dilznoofus 4y ago
  For a general thing, the NYT profile of Zach and Tarn from DF being in the MoMA is great, but that was 2011: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-o... "Zach brought over a drinking glass from the house in case I got thirsty, because Tarn owns only a couple of dishes. In the fridge were three sodas and a jug of water and nothing else. Tarn said I was welcome to anything, although the jug technically belonged to Scamps — the tap water has something in it that makes the cat refuse to drink it. Tarn consumed “maybe one glass” of water in the last three months, hydrating with soft drinks instead. “Water’s not doing it for me these days,” he said. “I know it’s bad, but the sugar goes right into programming the game. If I don’t drink soda now, I get a headache and can’t do any work.” Tarn has had to deal with fans haranguing him about his health for a while. It's been a pretty common meme in DF culture to wonder what's going to happen to the codebase when Tarn passes it, with heavy implication that it'll never get to v1.0. " . . . in the only moment I heard him speak with anything like bitterness, Tarn called Minecraft a “depressing distillation of our own stuff.” He paused, adding more magnanimously that the game “has its own things going for it.” The problem, he concluded, “isn’t with Minecraft so much as it’s with society.”
  - ingenieros 4y ago
    I'd also recommend watching this interview NOCLIP recently did with Tarn where he talks specifically about the Steam release... https://youtu.be/VAhHkJQ3KgY?t=1199 https://youtu.be/VAhHkJQ3KgY?t=1199

AndrewOMartin 4y ago

nmilo 4y ago
- canadianfella 4y ago

wisnoskij 4y ago

These guys have been getting donated like 5-20k per months for a over a decade.

RHSeeger 4y ago
I'm not sure what your point is on this; whether you're saying they make plenty of money, or not enough, or if you're not really speaking to whether it's enough. But speaking directly to the numbers - The smallest monthly amount the article mentions is $3,000 / month - The highest monthly amount the article mentions is $8,181 / month (Dec 2104) - The current number seems to indicate $6,999 / month - $7,000 * 12 = $84 / year - Split between two people, that's $42,000 / year each - General rule of thumb is that the cost for an employee doubles their salary (to account for expenses such as health care, supplies, taxes, etc). So assume they're actually making less than that. We'll make it $30,000 since the overhead for a contractor is less than that for an employee. $30,000 per year is not a lot of money to live on.
- dilznoofus 4y ago
  $7k tends to be on the higher end, but it ends up fluctuating wildly When he releases a new version, people pay attention and donate. When he takes time to introduce fun features that drive excitement, people don't donate because he doesn't release. He occasionally adds a gentle ask for donations at the end of his progress blogposts, and it seems more like a guy who hates having to ask and would prefer to ignore money - which also seems like his entire personality.
- wisnoskij 4y ago
  I am seeing some 16ks if this graph is correct (https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/5gbwz3/i_plotted_the_donations_to_bay12games_since_2008/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dwarffortress/comments/5gbwz3/i_plo...) My point is responding to "For anyone nitpicking the animations, UI or graphics choice... Please go and read about the reasons which drove the Adams brothers to finally cash in on their 20 year long passion project." They have been cashing in for a decade, it is a profession game put out by a decently paid experienced team, if I want to have a problem with the graphics or gui at whatever price they are charging, I will do so. Including patron, it looks like they averaged over 11k per month last year.
  - RHSeeger 4y ago
    > decently paid experienced team If you're talking about the team they have doing the front end work for them, sure. But if you're talking about the two DF developers, certainly not. They've been making money on the game for years, sure... but a relatively low amount of money on the game, certainly not something I'd label as "cashing in". Rather, I think they believe the Steam move is "cashing in" because they hope it will bring them a lot more money; an amount I would help is better aligned with their work.

fnordpiglet 4y ago

Link to read up ? Edit: here https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xypb5/the-dwarf-fortress-creators-werent-in-it-for-money-but-now-they-need-it https://www.vice.com/en/article/8xypb5/the-dwarf-fortress-cr...

dilznoofus 4y ago
For a general thing, the NYT profile of Zach and Tarn from DF being in the MoMA is great, but that was 2011: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortress.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-o... "Zach brought over a drinking glass from the house in case I got thirsty, because Tarn owns only a couple of dishes. In the fridge were three sodas and a jug of water and nothing else. Tarn said I was welcome to anything, although the jug technically belonged to Scamps — the tap water has something in it that makes the cat refuse to drink it. Tarn consumed “maybe one glass” of water in the last three months, hydrating with soft drinks instead. “Water’s not doing it for me these days,” he said. “I know it’s bad, but the sugar goes right into programming the game. If I don’t drink soda now, I get a headache and can’t do any work.” Tarn has had to deal with fans haranguing him about his health for a while. It's been a pretty common meme in DF culture to wonder what's going to happen to the codebase when Tarn passes it, with heavy implication that it'll never get to v1.0. " . . . in the only moment I heard him speak with anything like bitterness, Tarn called Minecraft a “depressing distillation of our own stuff.” He paused, adding more magnanimously that the game “has its own things going for it.” The problem, he concluded, “isn’t with Minecraft so much as it’s with society.”
- ingenieros 4y ago
  I'd also recommend watching this interview NOCLIP recently did with Tarn where he talks specifically about the Steam release... https://youtu.be/VAhHkJQ3KgY?t=1199 https://youtu.be/VAhHkJQ3KgY?t=1199