6 ms·
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
by juujian 10mo ago
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.
- mpeg 10mo agoStardew is probably one of the most (if not the most) popular game ever made with MonoGame AAA studios don't really use MonoGame.
- willis936 10mo agoTheir point wasn't about MonoGame. Do AAA studios really not use any open source tools?
- NSUserDefaults 10mo agoMany use Dear ImGui for example and some do donate afaik.
- mpeg 10mo agoThey use a lot of open source libraries, yes, but I think it's about how much of the end product depends on the OSS tool/library. Studios using unreal engine probably don't use that much critical OSS directly – their licensed software probably does. And the software vendors / big studios do donate to tools they depend on, for instance Epic Games donated $1.2m to Blender
- PurpleRamen 10mo agoAAA usually goes with AAA-tools and frameworks. So Unity, Unreal Engine or even their own engine. OSS might be used, but for smaller parts or as tools for producing their stuff (like browser, editor, etc.). So while they sometimes donate, there is not much reason to give a big sum to a single project. They might be even donating more overall, but separated on multiple different projects.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- lostmsu 10mo agoSecond would be Terraria (originally made for XNA).
- oceansky 10mo agoStardew valley was also originally XNA
- wsc981 10mo agoAnother one would be Bastion - code is even open source [0]. --- [0]: https://www.supergiantgames.com/blog/bastions-open-source-branch-for-monogame/ https://www.supergiantgames.com/blog/bastions-open-source-br...
- ZiiS 10mo agoBy sales it is the 17th most popular game accross all systems and all history. But I think Terraria beats it even on Mono
- MangoToupe 10mo ago> This indy developer (is that label fair?) is putting AAA studios to shame. For the hundredth time. He's an extremely rare person focused on quality, value, and competency. And he clearly just loves his own game Edit: Sorry? Pay for what, and risk what why? AAA studios simply cannot deliver good value in comparison. The donation is unrelated—or perhaps, arguably, open source makes this productivity possible.
- rvnx 10mo agoBeyond love, what you prefer ? Pay 100K USD, or put at risk your 500M USD project ? Edit: if the engine is not maintained, there can be compatibility issues, it can go abandoned and lack new features, etc. It's the technical pillar of the product, like Unity.
- vasco 10mo agoIs it so hard to accept someone else might give away money for a charitable reason rather than because of fear?
- rvnx 10mo agoWhen you give money to help a pet shelter, or to feed kids in some far-away location, this is a donation. You give something, and you don't get anything back in return. Even a tax benefit, it doesn't change anything (as at the end you have to pay the same amount of money). But now, what if you "donate" to a public park across the street from your house: Is it charity? Yes, you are giving money to the city/trust that you don't have to give. Do you benefit? Yes directly, your property value goes up and you have a nice place to walk. Does that make it "not a donation"? No. It just makes it a smart donation or even sponsoring a project. In all cases he is securing his own supply chain, and for a very cheap price. It is a very rational business expense.
- vasco 10mo agoI really hate that vision of the world with a passion. For people with such opinion nothing is ever enough or pure enough, but if you ask directly such people donate almost nothing themselves. The fact people with this opinion exist also discourages donations from others because "nothing is ever enough" for you. Also pro-tip, if you do more than a handful donations you'll realize that you as the giver is always the one that most benefits from being charitable. The feeling you get is why you do it.
- fourneau 10mo agoDefinitely indie. It was a solo project until launch.
- CuriouslyC 10mo agoIt's an epic story. Grinding on a solo project for 4 years is pretty daunting, I'm glad the universe rewarded him.
- dleslie 10mo agoValve contributes effort to Wine via Proton, and provides open source software like Steam Audio. EA does something similar, and their EASTL is an opinionated and gaming-focused container and algorithms library that they maintain and made open source.
- dcdc123 10mo agoThey’ve also paid tons to Igalia to develop features for them in open source projects.
- LeFantome 10mo agoMany corporations are free-riding on the Open Source they use. As most of us are honestly. But I think people cynically underestimate the value of the contributions corporations do make and fail to understand just how much of the software we enjoy is only possible due to corporate funding. Igalia may be a good example as most of have are not even familiar with them. But the Linux distro that I use comes from their, the Servo browser is being driven by them, and many other projects benefit from their contributions.
- QuantumNomad_ 10mo agoEpic Games has a program called MegaGrants where they give a bunch of money to various projects. https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants 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-epic-megagrant/ https://godotengine.org/article/godot-engine-was-awarded-epi...
- badrequest 10mo agoLooks like they did literally nothing in 2024?
- mjg2 10mo agoI wouldn't call anything Epic Games does charity: it's all empire expansion for them.
- raincole 10mo agoSo? What Valve does isn't charity either. It's weird that you even mention this word.
- mjg2 10mo agoWhy is Valve's behavior relevant? I mention charity because that's what donations are. It's no secret Epic Games follows Microsoft's patterns for control of the industry.
- closingreunion 10mo agoHow does the Godot donation expand their empire? Other than get more people into game development?
- mjg2 10mo agoIt 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.
- Aurornis 10mo ago> but I don't recollect any contributions of that magnitude from large studios Epic has a grant program that has given out thousands of grants, including over a million dollars to the Blender project https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/megagrants
- zoeysmithe 10mo agoIts 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.
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- oefrha 10mo agoI 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.)
- Zetaphor 10mo agoThese 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.
- tapoxi 10mo agoBut ConcernedApe uses Monogame for Stardew Valley, the studios don't use Monogame. Why would they donate?
- oefrha 10mo agoThey typically pay a lot more than $100k for Unreal and the likes or employees working on their in house engines. Oh and these studios often lose money instead of having profit margins in the multi-million, see Ubisoft.
- didip 10mo agoBecause no middle managers will get promoted for doing this. All large corporate structures are the same: What's the incentive for the mini warlords to expand their mini empire? Nothing else is worth doing (to them).
- firefax 10mo ago>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. Despite all the talk from libertarians about how private donations are the solution to the world's ills, open source software very rarely gets substantial donations.
- Steve6 10mo agoLibertarians don't claim that they have "the solution to the world's ills". Just that the government is causing worse problems than it solves, and generally those problems can be handled by a free market. We're already being taxed like crazy while that money subsidizes things almost everyone disagrees with. The libertarians believe that if people weren't taxed as much they could voluntarily spend money on things that are valuable to them. Some people would donate more and others wouldn't donate at all, and that's okay. I believe we would see a lot more voluntary donations without the burden of high taxes. Claiming "libertarians haven't solved this yet" while continuing to take everyone's money is not a fair argument. To stay on topic, this thread is about a private individual donating to a project he supports. That's something everyone should be happy about. And he did not do it as a political statement.
- gamblor956 10mo agoHistorically, donations to charities drop when tax rates go down. As a percentage of income, donations were highest when tax rates were highest. The best example that low tax rates don't increase giving: in 2017 the TCJA reduced tax rates for most people, and increased the standard deduction (but reduced the charitable deduction). Even though they were being taxed less and had more money to donate, Americans donated several billion less to charities each year (estimates very, but they're all between $15 and $20 billion less each year).
- Steve6 10mo agoI want you to know I took some time research and educate myself on these claims. From my findings, I could not find anything directly correlating the 2017 TCJA to total donations. The TCJA did change how deductions are treated, and more people opted to go with standard deductions instead of itemized deductions, but this is not the same as total donations. It is possible this incentivized people to donate less because they couldn't get as much of a tax write off. For total donations, it has continued to trend upward despite some fluctuations, and a $20 billion swing is not a large deviation. The numbers I saw were $400+ billion during that time. Again, this has many more factors than the TCJA. Most importantly, I'd like to reiterate that libertarians do not claim that cutting government will "solve" problems like open source projects getting enough funding. Just that it will give the free market an opportunity to find a balance. No big bill is going to solve these problems either, it will only make it worse. The end does not justify the mean. Stop taking people's money, and let them spend it on the things they find valuable even if you disagree with it.
- jayd16 10mo agoAAAs use their own engines, or increasingly Unreal Engine, though. They usually prefer to get a contract and a neck to wring as far as vendor tools go.