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

744 points by sph 4y ago

ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
The drop-off after launch is pretty wild.
- mouse_ 4y ago
  Yeah, I'm waiting for adventure mode. That's the only part of this game that ever interested me; I wanna play it like a roguelike/dungeon crawler.
- hrydgard 4y ago
  What dropoff? The newest number is on top. (Though yeah, there will be a dropoff for sure, it's just not visible here).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - usrusr 4y ago
    There has been a discount.
  - ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
    Ha, I should really learn to read.
- sph 4y ago
  If you mean in player count, that's normal. Peak is always during launch day, then there's a long tail, and very successful games might slowly rise after a couple years and surpass the launch peak. While Dwarf Fortress has had a fantastic launch, it will never be a wildly popular game to increase its player base by much more than its release, especially in the oversaturated gaming market of today.
  - smcl 4y ago
    Yeah there's always a fairly substantial drop-off. Dwarf Fortress[0] dropping by half from 14k on average down to 7k one month later is roughly the same as Elden Ring[1] (522k to 211k) but on a slightly different scale [0] - https://steamcharts.com/app/975370 https://steamcharts.com/app/975370 [1] - https://steamcharts.com/app/1245620 https://steamcharts.com/app/1245620
  - Nzen 4y ago
    If you would like to hear an analysis of these two trends, Jason Rohrer goes over launch day sales for a game he released in 2014 and 2018 in this gdc talk [0]. [0] https://youtu.be/sIqz5xmQKnc?t=506 https://youtu.be/sIqz5xmQKnc?t=506 While the entire video is 32 minutes, the relevant section is about 5 minutes.
- SXX 4y ago
  For normal commercial games there is a formula of how you can estimate first year and lifetimes sales of specific title: Sales in first 2 months * 2 = Sales in first year Sales in first year * 2 = Lifetime sales Since DF is very special project it's will likely have much longer tail of sales, but most likely math would be about the same during first 3-5 years. PS: I'm game developer and this is industry standard to estimate sales.
  - usrusr 4y ago
    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 everybody who bought in roughly the same way those nice hardback Shakespeare collections are bought.
    - nivenkos 4y ago
      I'm a fan of the game but waiting for proper Linux support. I also have a lot of other games to finish beforehand.
      - komali2 4y ago
        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.
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    Most games are developed, a bit of effort/money directed on promotion/marketing, dropped, and then onto the next project. So I think these numbers are more of a reflection of developer than consumer trends. Games that are developed in a different way often show [very] different trends. One of the most extreme examples I can think of is Kenshi. Its SteamDB [1] numbers are something else! It was made by one guy who worked as a security guard to make ends meet while making it. Of course making games has to be a labor of love though. I mean the guy had double digit player counts for years, and sales likely reflective of that (if not worse), while he continued to keep developing a game that he was clearly building for himself at least as much as for "the market." And as for Dwarf Fortress, it's kind of in a mixed zone, because it got the sort of big marketing/promotion push that's usually reserved for "fire it and forget it" type titles, and the consequent drop in players it entails as you ended up doing things like attracting players who thought they were buying 'The Sims - Ultra Detailed Dwarven Edition With Retro Graphics' and quit after 30 minutes. But I really don't think that's the developer's plan. So I suppose we'll see!
- poulpy123 4y ago
  there is no drop off visible yet, the first number is also their latest (january but I guess it also cover the december sales)
- ilyt 4y ago
  Those are preceding months and are not sales but donations
- officeplant 4y ago
  Still waiting to join the second wave of macOS buyers stuck on the original game.
- AlwaysRock 4y ago
  I was confused initially as well but you are reading it backwards. They were getting ~15k a month before launch and that jumped to 7 mill after launch. I am very interested to see what it normalizes to. 100K a month? several hundred? 15K a month again?
mouse_ 4y ago
Awesome.
rav 4y ago
That's incredible! Congratulations to the generous indeed. I played the old game many years back and was once also a monthly supporter, but these days I have less time to play, so I bought the Steam version primarily to support Bay 12. It's so nice to see such great support. I wonder what the monthly level of income from Steam will be in the future.
- jmorenoamor 4y ago
  Me too, I might try a fortress this summer on vacation, but for now, I gave them my support for their love and dedication
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dschuetz 4y ago
Well, yes. Charging 30$ will generate those numbers for such an anticipated game.
- flohofwoe 4y ago
  It could also have completely flopped though, since the classic version is free and for die hard DF fans who know all hotkeys inside out there's little actual reason to switch to the Steam version. But they did a really good job making the game approachable to newcomers.
  - somenameforme 4y ago
    Many of the other big classic style roguelikes on Steam, like ADoM and ToME, also have free versions available. And those games also do excellently (though nowhere near as well as DF is doing). Games are still such a refreshing change from the MBA driven coercion in much of other business, and especially tech. Make a good product, and people will buy it. And appealing to a micro-niche is still enough to make one a multi millionaire.
    - komali2 4y ago
      I've been thinking about this a great deal lately, but in other areas of content creation like YouTube. I'm so tired of the YouTube thumbnail and clickbait headlines and predicable content on YouTube. Every once in a while I'll stumble on a niche that rejects this with very clear explanatory titles, super long play times, and informative or relaxing content. "walking through a city without narration" is one genre that features this, or the whole sleepy-time sounds genre. Unarrated full game playthroughs as well. I'm dipping my toes into video content creation and I'm curious about taking a different approach than the one designed to play on the algorithm and get huge view numbers. I remember Tim Ferris writing that niche products is what people should target. Back in 2013 he was writing that indie entrepreneurs should never sell something for less than 100$ because you can't compete on economics of scale and thin margin. I wonder if that's what a lot of YouTube is doing, and whether a niche angle could be possible. Basically, is it possible to make content that's very niche but wouldn't do well in the YouTube algo because it lacks clickbait headline and someone making the :O face in the thumbnail, and rather than try to monetize through huge view numbers and ads, instead using YouTube as a sort of side channel towards whatever other services or products you provide? I'm not interested in monetization but for me I make motorcycle videos, perhaps a shop I run or a tourist service I provide: what could possibly be more niche than "hire me if you're interested in a full service motorcycle tour in Taiwan" lol. Coming back to games I have similar ideas about that, a lot of us are sick of AAA and refuse to touch phone games. I'm not interested in gambling or psychological head games. I used to be an avid battlefield fan and haven't touched the last two. I probably am done with Bethesda. Now I only play indie games. So is there a market for people like us that indie developers can target? I'd happily have paid a hundred dollars or even more for a game like dwarf fortress. Given the hours of enjoyment I get, compared to the cost of a vacation or something, by some algorithms DF to me could be worth thousands!
Mengkudulangsat 4y ago
Please incorporate ChatGPT into this game! Imagine the storylines!
- danuker 4y ago
  Imagine the OpenAI bill.
  - Mercury55 4y ago
    Imagine developing the tech be usable in any game.
- sveeeeeene 4y ago
  I would like AI generated images of monsters, heroes, items and events
  - hoseja 4y ago
    It's such an obvious usecase. Can't wait for a workable implementation somewhere.
  - b800h 4y ago
    ...based entirely on the images from Moraff's Dungeon please.
- bovermyer 4y ago
  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.
  - skjoldr 4y ago
    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.
zexodus 4y ago
I was about to throw some money down their way, but apparently the steam version does not work on Mac M1/M2. I'm too young/uninitiated/whatever/visually_oriented to play the older version.
- detaro 4y ago
  People apparently have gotten the windows version to work through wine, there's some guides in the steam forums for the game.
- haunter 4y ago
  It works https://re-actor.net/dwarf-fortress-how-to-run-the-game-on-mac/ https://re-actor.net/dwarf-fortress-how-to-run-the-game-on-m... But you need the actual files downloaded obviously. So you either have to have a PC where you can download the game files from Steam (Windows VM works too) and then copy over to your Mac. Or you can buy the game from itch.io (it's the same but you also get self-extracting archive + you get a Steam key as well) https://kitfoxgames.itch.io/dwarf-fortress https://kitfoxgames.itch.io/dwarf-fortress
  - tinyhitman 4y ago
    With steamcmd (the steam client CLI) one can download whatever version of their owned games they want.
    - junon 4y ago
      In theory. In practice, it's a headache getting that thing to work.
- aequitas 4y ago
  I bought the Steam version and run it in Wine on both an Intel and M1 Mac. I ended up refunding the Steam version and bought it on itch.io so I could just directly download the game files and updates instead of having to mess with Steam inside Wine (the Mac Steam does not allow you to download Windows files). Also you get a Steam key with itch.io, so when they release a proper Mac version I can add it to my library still. There are (where?) some issues with missed mouse presses (double click issue) which make it really annoying to play, but there is a workaround for that which worked fine for me: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2898353855 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=28983...
ilaksh 4y ago
A little less than half goes to taxes. Is that normal?
- atdrummond 4y ago
  Yes. There are ways they could have minimized that payment but it doesn’t seem that the team is primarily money motivated in the first place, so may as well just make the process simple and pay up.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    What ways are you thinking of? They could have incorporated and posted losses for 2? straight years before the IRS started auditing; those losses could have been deducted against this revenue. What other angles are there?
    - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
      can't they book expenses? income taxes are to be paid on "net profit" and not gross receipts, right? how can you pay half of revenue as taxes? this assumes tax rate is 50% and there are no expenses?
      - wongarsu 4y ago
        If we assume their previous income was covering their expenses (a reasonable assumption for a 18 year old company), the $7M from Steam would be pure profit. Now I'm not sure about Washington (?) tax rates, but just for comparison: in Germany you would have paid about 35% taxes on company profits, and another 20% income/capital gains taxes if you just pay it all out to the owners. Not that this is the smartest choice, at that point you play games like keeping money in the company to spend on a company car. But if you don't care about optimizing your taxes 50% doesn't seem unreasonable.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
masakreTech 4y ago
And? - Cherry games with Hollow Knight have made more money and it's just a team of three people.
- an-honest-moose 4y ago
  And Minecraft blows all of them out of the water. That's not the point here. The point is that Dwarf Fortress has been a labor of love for two decades and it's nice to see these guys get some solid financial security for all that hard work.
- dunefox 4y ago
  Hollow Knight is not even remotely close to the complexity and effort of dwarf fortress.
- TheUndead96 4y ago
  We can celebrate things separately. One good thing does not detract from another.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    Jealous people don’t think that way though, unfortunately.
- kelvie 4y ago
  " Comparing accomplishments is a short-circuit pathway to tearing others down." This is from a comment that I read on HN a few days ago that really stuck out to me, and applies here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34581366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34581366
Archelaos 4y ago
> 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.
- qcic 4y ago
  Which is much more gruesome and makes a lot more sense. I expect more hesitancy in potentially killing the prince than kissing a frog.
- IncRnd 4y ago
  Followed by: But, as he fell, he was changed from a frog into a handsome Prince with beautiful eyes, and after a little while he became, with her father’s consent, her dear companion and playmate. [1] [1] https://www.pookpress.co.uk/the-frog-prince-story-a-tale-by-the-brothers-grimm/ https://www.pookpress.co.uk/the-frog-prince-story-a-tale-by-...
- caporaltito 4y ago
  From now on, I will switch to this version for my child's story before sleep
- mijoharas 4y ago
  Sounds like polymorph from DND to me. > The transformation lasts for the duration, or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Polymorph#content https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Polymorph#content [Edit] trimmed quote
  - FeepingCreature 4y ago
    But as he fell, he was changed from a frog into a handsome prince, who then had to make death saving throws for a few rounds but luckily the princess had Lay On Hands, and so they lived happily ever after.
- mlindner 4y ago
  I'm not sure if you can call Brothers Grimm version "canonical" as from my understanding all they did was document in writing single versions of already well known folk tales that were carried through generations by oral memory. Many of which had many different versions depending on who told the story. So I'm not sure you can use the word "canonical" in this case.
huhtenberg 4y ago
That's post-Steam-fees and pre-taxes. Irrespective of that - good for them, well-deserved IMO.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  I wonder if they had a different agreement than standard or Steam just cashed out something north of $3 million from this alone. It's true what they say: Valve used to make games, now they make money.
  - eatsyourtacos 4y ago
    >Valve used to make games, now they make money You can say that, but really what they moved to is creating a platform that saved PC gaming. I can't imagine where we would be at without Steam. There would be 20 different platforms we would have to install full of bloatware garbage and everything would be horrific as all fuck. Indie games would be having a much harder time, because sure there would be other things out there but again it would be so split that it would be hard to even hear of games to get traction. PC game prices are a damn steal, which helps everyone because at $15-20 I will buy way more than $50-$60 a pop. Every platform would have it's own bullshit DRM that would make things a nightmare. Steam allows offline play, family sharing.. it just freakin works without being fancy bullshit. So yeah, they certainly make money. But I can't thank them enough for what they have done.
    - TillE 4y ago
      The Steam app itself is also pretty great. I didn't fully appreciate that until the Epic Games Store, which runs about as well as a sloppy Javascript app from ten years ago. It's been in the same dire state for years. Meanwhile Steam is pretty quick, the interface is well organized, and there are tons of useful features from controller configuration to the mod workshops. I definitely agree that there's an alternate Steam-less timeline where major game publishers migrate entirely to consoles, as they were threatening to do in the mid-2000s. We'd never have all these PC ports from Japanese developers (from Dark Souls to Persona 5) without Steam.
sprkwd 4y ago
Good for them.
IncRnd 4y ago
Earlier this month: Dwarf Fortress has sold half a million copies (bay12forums.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34275149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34275149
curiousgal 4y ago
It's funny how, if those tax dollars were spent properly (helathcare instead of missiles), the brothers wouldn't have needed to make the Steam version of the game.
- dang 4y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625181.
- swarnie 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 4y ago
    Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625181.
  - komali2 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - dang 4y ago
      You repeatedly posted flamewar comments to this thread. You've been doing that repeatedly in other contexts too. Moreover, we've had to warn you more than once before. We ban accounts that continue like this. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop doing it, we'd appreciate it. Edit: Please stop posting nationalistic flamebait in particular. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
    - db48x 4y ago
      Swarnie probably works in the defense industry. Buying missiles pays his company who pay his salary. Of course, the government takes some of that salary back as income tax, at which point it starts to become complicated.
ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
Good for them. I'm so glad to see decades of hard work be rewarded.
student2k 4y ago
Good for them, hope they keep working on DF, as there are many things in the roadmap,
jmyeet 4y ago
I'm super happy for these guys. They really have struggled with donations for many years. It's nice to see them get the bag. For those commenting on the sales drop off, it is a problem for AAA titles that a half-finished product gets sold to the public and then abandoned because it's easier to just move onto the next thing. But I want to counter that with the story of No Man's Sky. I highly recommend the Internet Historian video on it [1]. The short version is for various reasons the game over-promised and under-delieved on launch but Sean and HelloGames have now spent years continuing to develop the game with free and significant updates. I can only imagine this still drives sales growth or it wouldn't be sustainable. But it's really repaired HG's and NMS's reputation. NMS has a real cult following now. And then of course there's Minecraft whose long tail of sales is truly mind-blowing. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5BJVO3PDeQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5BJVO3PDeQ
otikik 4y ago
Very happy for them and everyone involved
program_whiz 4y ago
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.
- tinus_hn 4y ago
  In calculating this you should also keep in mind the very real risk that that game you’re spending 20 years on doesn’t pan out and people don’t buy it. That risk makes it reasonable for the reward to be high.
- nevi-me 4y ago
  The tax should be post-expenses
  - kybernetyk 4y ago
    What expenses would they have realistically? 2 PCs? if you mean their salary that still would be taxable at their personal income tax rate.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - nevi-me 4y ago
      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.
      - aliqot 4y ago
        plus Steam's cut I'd imagine.
slackfan 4y ago
Nice! Grats to Bay 12 for an excellent launch, and a successful shoring up of their future.
shever73 4y ago
So happy for Tarn and Zach. DF is a truly special game, and I'm happy that they've been able to secure both theirs and DF's future. I wish an easier Mac release was available, but I'll keep checking.
jeffwask 4y ago
This is a triumph of indie game dev. Really happy for them.
pyrrhotech 4y ago
Very well deserved, and something they should have done a long time ago. Better late than never
qrush 4y ago
So very glad to see this as a long time DF player. The new version on Steam is an incredible leap, and it's clear the only way this would have happened is with a real partner that could help them bring the game to a bigger market. Excited for the next 20 years of building fortresses with my depressed dwarves.
- jtms 4y ago
  Just spritz them with water mist and they’ll be fine!
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - qrush 4y ago
    Working on that for my fortress now but I have managed to flood the caverns with a river I've redirected...
    - jtms 4y ago
      Sounds like Fun was had! I’m guessing you were going for a proper waterfall? In the future you could try a Dwarven Mist Generator. I like to put them above high traffic areas so everyone has to pass through it constantly. https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Mist#Ring_generator https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Mist#Ring_gen...
AcerbicZero 4y ago
I'm a bit addicted to Rimworld when it comes to this genre, but I bought DF just to support the OG's - plus I wasted 4 months on a terrible contract job and the only thing that kept me sane was playing Liberal crime squad in the background.
izzydata 4y ago
What are they going to do next? Perhaps they will start a studio, hire some more people and work on some new endeavors with this money?
- b4je7d7wb 4y ago
  I think they will just keep working on df the way they have so far for another 20 years before retiring.
  - jtms 4y ago
    I really hope so, but I also hope they continue to work with the UI team… the Steam version changes have really impressed me!
    - azernik 4y ago
      They are absolutely continuing to work with the UI team (who, as far as I understand, are just modders doing a bunch of discounted/free design while Tarn still does the coding). Getting the Steam version working with adventure mode is what they're working on now. (Their new developer seems to be more of an old-school low-level hacker working on performance and systems.)
      - jtms 4y ago
        That's really great news! I am so happy for them and everything they have accomplished and will continue to accomplish. It's truly an inspiration to me.
- Arrath 4y ago
  They've already hired another developer to work on the game with them. I doubt they have any grander plans than continuing to work on DF, its their life's work after all.
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  They have a roadmap on their site. At the historical rate of development, the game will continue to be developed by Toady until his death, upon which (barring suspicious circumstances) the game's source code will be released.
ismyrnow 4y ago
> A little less than half will go to taxes... :sad:
jliptzin 4y ago
I haven’t played it, and I have no doubt it is an amazing game I would enjoy. But how do people have time for all these games? There are so many compelling games out there, each demanding hundreds or thousands of hours of time to fully enjoy.
- seanw444 4y ago
  Play it little by little when you do have time. Play whichever game captures your intrigue the most. Don't waste time on deciding which one to play.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Every now and then you find some hours to play. I play games maybe less than an hour per day, some free days I play more, with my most played game being Factorio with 175 hours, and I'm proficient in it + feel like I've spent a lot of time playing it, but I also owned it since 2015 or something like that, so 2922 hours available, 175 spent on Factorio so around 0.06 hours per day, calculated that way. I tend to prefer "complicated" games that require some sort of time investment to figure out (once figured out, they don't remain as fun for me), but there is no game I've spent more time on than Factorio, and it's "just" 175 hours over the years, which is very low if I compare it to others. Summary is, you don't have to spend 100s/1000s of hours in any game in order to fully enjoy it.
  - WXLCKNO 4y ago
    I hate that I feel guilty for playing games which require a time investment. Factorio is exactly the type of game I would like to play. However I'm "stuck" playing games with short matches and no long single player games. It's easy to put 5 minutes into Rocket League because it feels like just a burst of gaming but then you can do 20 games in a row and still put in an hour.
    - capableweb 4y ago
      Don't feel guilty! At this time of year I can only find 30 minutes free here and there, and I'm currently playing Captain of Industry (similar to Factorio), the most important thing is to keep a text document with what you are doing, so you can iteratively get there across days, rather than just in one day. Basically a backlog for your own quests in the game :)
ixtli 4y ago
I’m so happy for them. This really made my day.
TheRealPomax 4y ago
Slowest start-up in history. Good for them.
AlwaysRock 4y ago
Really interested to see what their revenue numbers will look like when sales normalize. It will probably take a few months but will they be at 100K a month mid year? Really interesting what the staying power of DF will be now that it is more accessible.
xkcd1963 4y ago
Exciting times lay ahead
andrei_says_ 4y ago
Another overnight success preceded by decades of hard work.
fortituded0002 4y ago
Are these sales numbers or how much they make after everyone else gets their cut? Is that what they mean by "taxes"? Steam takes 30%. The publisher can easily take 50%, but they may have negotiated better terms due to the funds they put in on their own and that it's an existing game.
xkcd1963 4y ago
If they could make this multiplayer, I'd pay goldnuggets
tiffanyh 4y ago
Why did they wait so long to charge for the game? (I've never played it, so forgive my ignorance)
- jy1 4y ago
  This is a new version of the game with a GUI on steam. previously it was text only, and not very accessible.
  - tiffanyh 4y ago
    What about a text-only game, prevented them from charging for it?
    - jy1 4y ago
      Nothing per se, but the GUI version has broader appeal so it would sell better.
japhib 4y ago
Keep in mind that Steam takes about 30% of all sales. But good for them! 20 years of work, and their game appearing in the Museum of Modern Art, should definitely result in some financial security!
- 59nadir 4y ago
  This is after Steam's cut.

744 points by sph 4y ago

ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago

The drop-off after launch is pretty wild.

mouse_ 4y ago
Yeah, I'm waiting for adventure mode. That's the only part of this game that ever interested me; I wanna play it like a roguelike/dungeon crawler.
hrydgard 4y ago
What dropoff? The newest number is on top. (Though yeah, there will be a dropoff for sure, it's just not visible here).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- usrusr 4y ago
  There has been a discount.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
  Ha, I should really learn to read.
sph 4y ago
If you mean in player count, that's normal. Peak is always during launch day, then there's a long tail, and very successful games might slowly rise after a couple years and surpass the launch peak. While Dwarf Fortress has had a fantastic launch, it will never be a wildly popular game to increase its player base by much more than its release, especially in the oversaturated gaming market of today.
- smcl 4y ago
  Yeah there's always a fairly substantial drop-off. Dwarf Fortress[0] dropping by half from 14k on average down to 7k one month later is roughly the same as Elden Ring[1] (522k to 211k) but on a slightly different scale [0] - https://steamcharts.com/app/975370 https://steamcharts.com/app/975370 [1] - https://steamcharts.com/app/1245620 https://steamcharts.com/app/1245620
- Nzen 4y ago
  If you would like to hear an analysis of these two trends, Jason Rohrer goes over launch day sales for a game he released in 2014 and 2018 in this gdc talk [0]. [0] https://youtu.be/sIqz5xmQKnc?t=506 https://youtu.be/sIqz5xmQKnc?t=506 While the entire video is 32 minutes, the relevant section is about 5 minutes.
SXX 4y ago
For normal commercial games there is a formula of how you can estimate first year and lifetimes sales of specific title: Sales in first 2 months * 2 = Sales in first year Sales in first year * 2 = Lifetime sales Since DF is very special project it's will likely have much longer tail of sales, but most likely math would be about the same during first 3-5 years. PS: I'm game developer and this is industry standard to estimate sales.
- usrusr 4y ago
  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 everybody who bought in roughly the same way those nice hardback Shakespeare collections are bought.
  - nivenkos 4y ago
    I'm a fan of the game but waiting for proper Linux support. I also have a lot of other games to finish beforehand.
    - komali2 4y ago
      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.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  Most games are developed, a bit of effort/money directed on promotion/marketing, dropped, and then onto the next project. So I think these numbers are more of a reflection of developer than consumer trends. Games that are developed in a different way often show [very] different trends. One of the most extreme examples I can think of is Kenshi. Its SteamDB [1] numbers are something else! It was made by one guy who worked as a security guard to make ends meet while making it. Of course making games has to be a labor of love though. I mean the guy had double digit player counts for years, and sales likely reflective of that (if not worse), while he continued to keep developing a game that he was clearly building for himself at least as much as for "the market." And as for Dwarf Fortress, it's kind of in a mixed zone, because it got the sort of big marketing/promotion push that's usually reserved for "fire it and forget it" type titles, and the consequent drop in players it entails as you ended up doing things like attracting players who thought they were buying 'The Sims - Ultra Detailed Dwarven Edition With Retro Graphics' and quit after 30 minutes. But I really don't think that's the developer's plan. So I suppose we'll see!
poulpy123 4y ago
there is no drop off visible yet, the first number is also their latest (january but I guess it also cover the december sales)
ilyt 4y ago
Those are preceding months and are not sales but donations
officeplant 4y ago
Still waiting to join the second wave of macOS buyers stuck on the original game.
AlwaysRock 4y ago
I was confused initially as well but you are reading it backwards. They were getting ~15k a month before launch and that jumped to 7 mill after launch. I am very interested to see what it normalizes to. 100K a month? several hundred? 15K a month again?

mouse_ 4y ago

Awesome.

rav 4y ago

That's incredible! Congratulations to the generous indeed. I played the old game many years back and was once also a monthly supporter, but these days I have less time to play, so I bought the Steam version primarily to support Bay 12. It's so nice to see such great support. I wonder what the monthly level of income from Steam will be in the future.

jmorenoamor 4y ago
Me too, I might try a fortress this summer on vacation, but for now, I gave them my support for their love and dedication

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dschuetz 4y ago

Well, yes. Charging 30$ will generate those numbers for such an anticipated game.

flohofwoe 4y ago
It could also have completely flopped though, since the classic version is free and for die hard DF fans who know all hotkeys inside out there's little actual reason to switch to the Steam version. But they did a really good job making the game approachable to newcomers.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  Many of the other big classic style roguelikes on Steam, like ADoM and ToME, also have free versions available. And those games also do excellently (though nowhere near as well as DF is doing). Games are still such a refreshing change from the MBA driven coercion in much of other business, and especially tech. Make a good product, and people will buy it. And appealing to a micro-niche is still enough to make one a multi millionaire.
  - komali2 4y ago
    I've been thinking about this a great deal lately, but in other areas of content creation like YouTube. I'm so tired of the YouTube thumbnail and clickbait headlines and predicable content on YouTube. Every once in a while I'll stumble on a niche that rejects this with very clear explanatory titles, super long play times, and informative or relaxing content. "walking through a city without narration" is one genre that features this, or the whole sleepy-time sounds genre. Unarrated full game playthroughs as well. I'm dipping my toes into video content creation and I'm curious about taking a different approach than the one designed to play on the algorithm and get huge view numbers. I remember Tim Ferris writing that niche products is what people should target. Back in 2013 he was writing that indie entrepreneurs should never sell something for less than 100$ because you can't compete on economics of scale and thin margin. I wonder if that's what a lot of YouTube is doing, and whether a niche angle could be possible. Basically, is it possible to make content that's very niche but wouldn't do well in the YouTube algo because it lacks clickbait headline and someone making the :O face in the thumbnail, and rather than try to monetize through huge view numbers and ads, instead using YouTube as a sort of side channel towards whatever other services or products you provide? I'm not interested in monetization but for me I make motorcycle videos, perhaps a shop I run or a tourist service I provide: what could possibly be more niche than "hire me if you're interested in a full service motorcycle tour in Taiwan" lol. Coming back to games I have similar ideas about that, a lot of us are sick of AAA and refuse to touch phone games. I'm not interested in gambling or psychological head games. I used to be an avid battlefield fan and haven't touched the last two. I probably am done with Bethesda. Now I only play indie games. So is there a market for people like us that indie developers can target? I'd happily have paid a hundred dollars or even more for a game like dwarf fortress. Given the hours of enjoyment I get, compared to the cost of a vacation or something, by some algorithms DF to me could be worth thousands!

Mengkudulangsat 4y ago

Please incorporate ChatGPT into this game! Imagine the storylines!

danuker 4y ago
Imagine the OpenAI bill.
- Mercury55 4y ago
  Imagine developing the tech be usable in any game.
sveeeeeene 4y ago
I would like AI generated images of monsters, heroes, items and events
- hoseja 4y ago
  It's such an obvious usecase. Can't wait for a workable implementation somewhere.
- b800h 4y ago
  ...based entirely on the images from Moraff's Dungeon please.
bovermyer 4y ago
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.
- skjoldr 4y ago
  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.

zexodus 4y ago

I was about to throw some money down their way, but apparently the steam version does not work on Mac M1/M2. I'm too young/uninitiated/whatever/visually_oriented to play the older version.

detaro 4y ago
People apparently have gotten the windows version to work through wine, there's some guides in the steam forums for the game.
haunter 4y ago
It works https://re-actor.net/dwarf-fortress-how-to-run-the-game-on-mac/ https://re-actor.net/dwarf-fortress-how-to-run-the-game-on-m... But you need the actual files downloaded obviously. So you either have to have a PC where you can download the game files from Steam (Windows VM works too) and then copy over to your Mac. Or you can buy the game from itch.io (it's the same but you also get self-extracting archive + you get a Steam key as well) https://kitfoxgames.itch.io/dwarf-fortress https://kitfoxgames.itch.io/dwarf-fortress
- tinyhitman 4y ago
  With steamcmd (the steam client CLI) one can download whatever version of their owned games they want.
  - junon 4y ago
    In theory. In practice, it's a headache getting that thing to work.
aequitas 4y ago
I bought the Steam version and run it in Wine on both an Intel and M1 Mac. I ended up refunding the Steam version and bought it on itch.io so I could just directly download the game files and updates instead of having to mess with Steam inside Wine (the Mac Steam does not allow you to download Windows files). Also you get a Steam key with itch.io, so when they release a proper Mac version I can add it to my library still. There are (where?) some issues with missed mouse presses (double click issue) which make it really annoying to play, but there is a workaround for that which worked fine for me: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2898353855 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=28983...

ilaksh 4y ago

A little less than half goes to taxes. Is that normal?

atdrummond 4y ago
Yes. There are ways they could have minimized that payment but it doesn’t seem that the team is primarily money motivated in the first place, so may as well just make the process simple and pay up.
- fragmede 4y ago
  What ways are you thinking of? They could have incorporated and posted losses for 2? straight years before the IRS started auditing; those losses could have been deducted against this revenue. What other angles are there?
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    can't they book expenses? income taxes are to be paid on "net profit" and not gross receipts, right? how can you pay half of revenue as taxes? this assumes tax rate is 50% and there are no expenses?
    - wongarsu 4y ago
      If we assume their previous income was covering their expenses (a reasonable assumption for a 18 year old company), the $7M from Steam would be pure profit. Now I'm not sure about Washington (?) tax rates, but just for comparison: in Germany you would have paid about 35% taxes on company profits, and another 20% income/capital gains taxes if you just pay it all out to the owners. Not that this is the smartest choice, at that point you play games like keeping money in the company to spend on a company car. But if you don't care about optimizing your taxes 50% doesn't seem unreasonable.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]

masakreTech 4y ago

And? - Cherry games with Hollow Knight have made more money and it's just a team of three people.

an-honest-moose 4y ago
And Minecraft blows all of them out of the water. That's not the point here. The point is that Dwarf Fortress has been a labor of love for two decades and it's nice to see these guys get some solid financial security for all that hard work.
dunefox 4y ago
Hollow Knight is not even remotely close to the complexity and effort of dwarf fortress.
TheUndead96 4y ago
We can celebrate things separately. One good thing does not detract from another.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Jealous people don’t think that way though, unfortunately.
kelvie 4y ago
" Comparing accomplishments is a short-circuit pathway to tearing others down." This is from a comment that I read on HN a few days ago that really stuck out to me, and applies here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34581366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34581366

Archelaos 4y ago

> 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.

qcic 4y ago
Which is much more gruesome and makes a lot more sense. I expect more hesitancy in potentially killing the prince than kissing a frog.
IncRnd 4y ago
Followed by: But, as he fell, he was changed from a frog into a handsome Prince with beautiful eyes, and after a little while he became, with her father’s consent, her dear companion and playmate. [1] [1] https://www.pookpress.co.uk/the-frog-prince-story-a-tale-by-the-brothers-grimm/ https://www.pookpress.co.uk/the-frog-prince-story-a-tale-by-...
caporaltito 4y ago
From now on, I will switch to this version for my child's story before sleep
mijoharas 4y ago
Sounds like polymorph from DND to me. > The transformation lasts for the duration, or until the target drops to 0 hit points or dies. https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Polymorph#content https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Polymorph#content [Edit] trimmed quote
- FeepingCreature 4y ago
  But as he fell, he was changed from a frog into a handsome prince, who then had to make death saving throws for a few rounds but luckily the princess had Lay On Hands, and so they lived happily ever after.
mlindner 4y ago
I'm not sure if you can call Brothers Grimm version "canonical" as from my understanding all they did was document in writing single versions of already well known folk tales that were carried through generations by oral memory. Many of which had many different versions depending on who told the story. So I'm not sure you can use the word "canonical" in this case.

huhtenberg 4y ago

That's post-Steam-fees and pre-taxes. Irrespective of that - good for them, well-deserved IMO.

moffkalast 4y ago
I wonder if they had a different agreement than standard or Steam just cashed out something north of $3 million from this alone. It's true what they say: Valve used to make games, now they make money.
- eatsyourtacos 4y ago
  >Valve used to make games, now they make money You can say that, but really what they moved to is creating a platform that saved PC gaming. I can't imagine where we would be at without Steam. There would be 20 different platforms we would have to install full of bloatware garbage and everything would be horrific as all fuck. Indie games would be having a much harder time, because sure there would be other things out there but again it would be so split that it would be hard to even hear of games to get traction. PC game prices are a damn steal, which helps everyone because at $15-20 I will buy way more than $50-$60 a pop. Every platform would have it's own bullshit DRM that would make things a nightmare. Steam allows offline play, family sharing.. it just freakin works without being fancy bullshit. So yeah, they certainly make money. But I can't thank them enough for what they have done.
  - TillE 4y ago
    The Steam app itself is also pretty great. I didn't fully appreciate that until the Epic Games Store, which runs about as well as a sloppy Javascript app from ten years ago. It's been in the same dire state for years. Meanwhile Steam is pretty quick, the interface is well organized, and there are tons of useful features from controller configuration to the mod workshops. I definitely agree that there's an alternate Steam-less timeline where major game publishers migrate entirely to consoles, as they were threatening to do in the mid-2000s. We'd never have all these PC ports from Japanese developers (from Dark Souls to Persona 5) without Steam.

sprkwd 4y ago

Good for them.

IncRnd 4y ago

Earlier this month: Dwarf Fortress has sold half a million copies (bay12forums.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34275149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34275149

curiousgal 4y ago

It's funny how, if those tax dollars were spent properly (helathcare instead of missiles), the brothers wouldn't have needed to make the Steam version of the game.

dang 4y ago
Please don't take HN threads into flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625181.
swarnie 4y ago
[flagged]
- dang 4y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34625181.
- komali2 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - dang 4y ago
    You repeatedly posted flamewar comments to this thread. You've been doing that repeatedly in other contexts too. Moreover, we've had to warn you more than once before. We ban accounts that continue like this. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stop doing it, we'd appreciate it. Edit: Please stop posting nationalistic flamebait in particular. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
  - db48x 4y ago
    Swarnie probably works in the defense industry. Buying missiles pays his company who pay his salary. Of course, the government takes some of that salary back as income tax, at which point it starts to become complicated.

ThrowawayTestr 4y ago

Good for them. I'm so glad to see decades of hard work be rewarded.

student2k 4y ago

Good for them, hope they keep working on DF, as there are many things in the roadmap,

jmyeet 4y ago

I'm super happy for these guys. They really have struggled with donations for many years. It's nice to see them get the bag. For those commenting on the sales drop off, it is a problem for AAA titles that a half-finished product gets sold to the public and then abandoned because it's easier to just move onto the next thing. But I want to counter that with the story of No Man's Sky. I highly recommend the Internet Historian video on it [1]. The short version is for various reasons the game over-promised and under-delieved on launch but Sean and HelloGames have now spent years continuing to develop the game with free and significant updates. I can only imagine this still drives sales growth or it wouldn't be sustainable. But it's really repaired HG's and NMS's reputation. NMS has a real cult following now. And then of course there's Minecraft whose long tail of sales is truly mind-blowing. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5BJVO3PDeQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5BJVO3PDeQ

otikik 4y ago

Very happy for them and everyone involved

program_whiz 4y ago

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.

tinus_hn 4y ago
In calculating this you should also keep in mind the very real risk that that game you’re spending 20 years on doesn’t pan out and people don’t buy it. That risk makes it reasonable for the reward to be high.
nevi-me 4y ago
The tax should be post-expenses
- kybernetyk 4y ago
  What expenses would they have realistically? 2 PCs? if you mean their salary that still would be taxable at their personal income tax rate.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nevi-me 4y ago
    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.
    - aliqot 4y ago
      plus Steam's cut I'd imagine.

slackfan 4y ago

Nice! Grats to Bay 12 for an excellent launch, and a successful shoring up of their future.

shever73 4y ago

So happy for Tarn and Zach. DF is a truly special game, and I'm happy that they've been able to secure both theirs and DF's future. I wish an easier Mac release was available, but I'll keep checking.

jeffwask 4y ago

This is a triumph of indie game dev. Really happy for them.

pyrrhotech 4y ago

Very well deserved, and something they should have done a long time ago. Better late than never

qrush 4y ago

So very glad to see this as a long time DF player. The new version on Steam is an incredible leap, and it's clear the only way this would have happened is with a real partner that could help them bring the game to a bigger market. Excited for the next 20 years of building fortresses with my depressed dwarves.

jtms 4y ago
Just spritz them with water mist and they’ll be fine!
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- qrush 4y ago
  Working on that for my fortress now but I have managed to flood the caverns with a river I've redirected...
  - jtms 4y ago
    Sounds like Fun was had! I’m guessing you were going for a proper waterfall? In the future you could try a Dwarven Mist Generator. I like to put them above high traffic areas so everyone has to pass through it constantly. https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Mist#Ring_generator https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Mist#Ring_gen...

AcerbicZero 4y ago

I'm a bit addicted to Rimworld when it comes to this genre, but I bought DF just to support the OG's - plus I wasted 4 months on a terrible contract job and the only thing that kept me sane was playing Liberal crime squad in the background.

izzydata 4y ago

What are they going to do next? Perhaps they will start a studio, hire some more people and work on some new endeavors with this money?

b4je7d7wb 4y ago
I think they will just keep working on df the way they have so far for another 20 years before retiring.
- jtms 4y ago
  I really hope so, but I also hope they continue to work with the UI team… the Steam version changes have really impressed me!
  - azernik 4y ago
    They are absolutely continuing to work with the UI team (who, as far as I understand, are just modders doing a bunch of discounted/free design while Tarn still does the coding). Getting the Steam version working with adventure mode is what they're working on now. (Their new developer seems to be more of an old-school low-level hacker working on performance and systems.)
    - jtms 4y ago
      That's really great news! I am so happy for them and everything they have accomplished and will continue to accomplish. It's truly an inspiration to me.
Arrath 4y ago
They've already hired another developer to work on the game with them. I doubt they have any grander plans than continuing to work on DF, its their life's work after all.
OkayPhysicist 4y ago
They have a roadmap on their site. At the historical rate of development, the game will continue to be developed by Toady until his death, upon which (barring suspicious circumstances) the game's source code will be released.

ismyrnow 4y ago

> A little less than half will go to taxes... :sad:

jliptzin 4y ago

I haven’t played it, and I have no doubt it is an amazing game I would enjoy. But how do people have time for all these games? There are so many compelling games out there, each demanding hundreds or thousands of hours of time to fully enjoy.

seanw444 4y ago
Play it little by little when you do have time. Play whichever game captures your intrigue the most. Don't waste time on deciding which one to play.
capableweb 4y ago
Every now and then you find some hours to play. I play games maybe less than an hour per day, some free days I play more, with my most played game being Factorio with 175 hours, and I'm proficient in it + feel like I've spent a lot of time playing it, but I also owned it since 2015 or something like that, so 2922 hours available, 175 spent on Factorio so around 0.06 hours per day, calculated that way. I tend to prefer "complicated" games that require some sort of time investment to figure out (once figured out, they don't remain as fun for me), but there is no game I've spent more time on than Factorio, and it's "just" 175 hours over the years, which is very low if I compare it to others. Summary is, you don't have to spend 100s/1000s of hours in any game in order to fully enjoy it.
- WXLCKNO 4y ago
  I hate that I feel guilty for playing games which require a time investment. Factorio is exactly the type of game I would like to play. However I'm "stuck" playing games with short matches and no long single player games. It's easy to put 5 minutes into Rocket League because it feels like just a burst of gaming but then you can do 20 games in a row and still put in an hour.
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Don't feel guilty! At this time of year I can only find 30 minutes free here and there, and I'm currently playing Captain of Industry (similar to Factorio), the most important thing is to keep a text document with what you are doing, so you can iteratively get there across days, rather than just in one day. Basically a backlog for your own quests in the game :)

ixtli 4y ago

I’m so happy for them. This really made my day.

TheRealPomax 4y ago

Slowest start-up in history. Good for them.

AlwaysRock 4y ago

Really interested to see what their revenue numbers will look like when sales normalize. It will probably take a few months but will they be at 100K a month mid year? Really interesting what the staying power of DF will be now that it is more accessible.

xkcd1963 4y ago

Exciting times lay ahead

andrei_says_ 4y ago

Another overnight success preceded by decades of hard work.

fortituded0002 4y ago

Are these sales numbers or how much they make after everyone else gets their cut? Is that what they mean by "taxes"? Steam takes 30%. The publisher can easily take 50%, but they may have negotiated better terms due to the funds they put in on their own and that it's an existing game.

xkcd1963 4y ago

If they could make this multiplayer, I'd pay goldnuggets

tiffanyh 4y ago

Why did they wait so long to charge for the game? (I've never played it, so forgive my ignorance)

jy1 4y ago
This is a new version of the game with a GUI on steam. previously it was text only, and not very accessible.
- tiffanyh 4y ago
  What about a text-only game, prevented them from charging for it?
  - jy1 4y ago
    Nothing per se, but the GUI version has broader appeal so it would sell better.

japhib 4y ago

Keep in mind that Steam takes about 30% of all sales. But good for them! 20 years of work, and their game appearing in the Museum of Modern Art, should definitely result in some financial security!

59nadir 4y ago
This is after Steam's cut.