[HN Gopher] Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of ...
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Bay 12 Games has made $7M from the Steam release of Dwarf Fortress
Author : sph
Score : 700 points
Date : 2023-02-02 10:34 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bay12forums.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bay12forums.com)
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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?
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| 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.
| Arrath wrote:
| 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.
| b4je7d7wb wrote:
| I think they will just keep working on df the way they have so
| far for another 20 years before retiring.
| jtms wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| shever73 wrote:
| 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.
| xkcd1963 wrote:
| If they could make this multiplayer, I'd pay goldnuggets
| ismyrnow wrote:
| > A little less than half will go to taxes...
|
| :sad:
| huhtenberg wrote:
| That's post-Steam-fees and pre-taxes.
|
| Irrespective of that - good for them, well-deserved IMO.
| qwytw wrote:
| I assume that's also post all the expenses incurred (and profit
| share) by their publishers, who I believe also did quite a bit
| of work on the Steam version. So total Steam revenue should be
| a bit higher than $10mil.
| moffkalast wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| >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.
| jtms wrote:
| without Steam there might have been 20 different platforms,
| but another possibility would have been Microsoft just
| fully taking over the space and treating the PC like a very
| expensive Xbox. Even with Steam's success this has always
| been a possibility. I think Steam's massive investment in
| game compatibility for Linux (ie: Steam Deck) has been an
| amazing counterbalance to stave off the potential of MS
| monopoly on the PC gaming space and I am so thankful for
| their continued support of PC gaming culture and tech.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Given the state of the "Microsoft Store" on windows...
| dear lord we are lucky that is not the case.
|
| I do love Microsoft to a large degree for a lot of
| things.. but holy shit they suck ASS at things like store
| fronts in their own ecosystem. I have barely ever been
| forced to use it, but it literally did not work or gave
| me random cryptic errors when I did.
| TillE wrote:
| 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.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Steam demands I update every time I open it.
| slackfan wrote:
| Nice! Grats to Bay 12 for an excellent launch, and a successful
| shoring up of their future.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| Another overnight success preceded by decades of hard work.
| sprkwd wrote:
| Good for them.
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| The drop-off after launch is pretty wild.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| there is no drop off visible yet, the first number is also
| their latest (january but I guess it also cover the december
| sales)
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| 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_ wrote:
| 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.
| ilyt wrote:
| Those are preceding months and are not sales but donations
| hrydgard wrote:
| What dropoff? The newest number is on top.
|
| (Though yeah, there will be a dropoff for sure, it's just not
| visible here).
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| Ha, I should really learn to read.
| usrusr wrote:
| There has been a discount.
| [deleted]
| sph wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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
|
| [1] - https://steamcharts.com/app/1245620
| Nzen wrote:
| 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 While the entire video
| is 32 minutes, the relevant section is about 5 minutes.
| officeplant wrote:
| Still waiting to join the second wave of macOS buyers stuck on
| the original game.
| SXX wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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!
| SXX wrote:
| As indie game dev myself I totally agree with you, but
| while DF is special it still had usual marketing compaign
| and that big release date. My guess it will likely perform
| even worse than projection since a lot of people who played
| DF for years bought it more like a donation. E.g more of
| people who bought it wont actually play it much and game
| will game less of natural social marketing out of these
| sales.
|
| Again I not saying that Toady gonna abandon the game, but
| sales will go down in coming months and it's very unlikely
| that in coming years they'll get another $7M of sales in
| one month.
| db48x wrote:
| I can see them earning another $7M over the next 20 years
| though.
| SXX wrote:
| No doubt about that. DF have very commited player base.
| mouse_ wrote:
| Awesome.
| jmyeet wrote:
| 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
| pyrrhotech wrote:
| Very well deserved, and something they should have done a long
| time ago. Better late than never
| ilaksh wrote:
| A little less than half goes to taxes. Is that normal?
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| They made 7m in personal income in one month, how would that
| not be normal
| alpaca128 wrote:
| People are just used to wealthy people gaming the tax system
| to a point it's shocking when someone actually pays them.
| mrpopo wrote:
| With this kind of money, you can absolutely get someone to
| do all the work you need to make your tax mostly disappear.
| Heck, they probably find your number and call you directly,
| you would only have to say "Yes, I want to save a couple
| million dollars".
|
| I'm not saying it's good, but at the moment it's just so
| easy, risk-free and completely legal.
| tridentboy wrote:
| The thing is that this is the first time they got this
| kind of money. And it was unexpected, since Dwarf
| Fortress sold their 8 month objective by the second week.
| So they weren't in a position of knowing who and how to
| call that someone.
| [deleted]
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > With this kind of money, you can absolutely get someone
| to do all the work you need to make your tax mostly
| disappear.
|
| Taxes can be deferred or distributed across a number of
| years with various structures if you're willing to put
| that money into a business structure and pay it out to
| yourself over time (which they absolutely should)
|
| But there is no magic wand someone can wave to get the
| money into your bank account and make the tax bill
| disappear without other consequences and/or breaking the
| law.
|
| Note that in these situations, people absolutely will
| come out of the woodwork and try to talk you into various
| schemes to dodge taxes, but that doesn't mean they're
| legal. Plenty of stories about people using dubious
| structures to avoid taxes and then getting crushed by the
| IRS when they get around to auditing the situation.
| komali2 wrote:
| It implies a near 50% tax rate, anywhere in the usa, even
| California, that seems really high.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Highest income tack bracket in the US is 37%. But it's
| different for corporations.
| mperham wrote:
| If you add up all of the jurisdictional taxes, 50% is
| typical for high earners. For instance I pay 38% fed and
| 10% state here in Oregon.
|
| Sketchy dudes will talk about various schemes to lower
| taxes but call it what it is: unethical tax avoidance. The
| real issue we should be talking about in the US is how
| poorly we use that tax income. Our built environment is
| absolutely dreadful because of our car dependency and we
| have little to no social benefits despite having massive
| tax income because our health care system is parasitic.
| bombcar wrote:
| Sketchy dudes talk about it but can't actually _provide_
| solid examples and numbers that don 't involve things
| like "invest all your profits in a failed startup so that
| it's all a business expense".
|
| Look at the actual income tax paid by professional
| athletes; if anyone knew how to do it it would be them.
| wongarsu wrote:
| If they use the money to fund retirement they potentially
| pay taxes twice: once on company profits, and once for the
| natural person who gets the money.
| db48x wrote:
| As an estimate, it will do the job. It'll be wrong, but not
| horribly wrong, and if you had a windfall like that then
| planning based on a conservative estimate is a good idea.
| If you estimate your taxes high, then you get a pleasant
| surprise when your accountant actually crunches the
| numbers.
| [deleted]
| atdrummond wrote:
| 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.
| curiousgal wrote:
| 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.
| swarnie wrote:
| Please continue to buy missiles and aircraft, I enjoy being
| able to afford food.
| komali2 wrote:
| I just had a delicious lunch that was 0.008% of the
| average yearly salary in my country. We have socialized
| healthcare.
|
| Did you know Americans pay more for their healthcare than
| almost anyone on earth?
|
| So what are you talking about lol?
| swarnie wrote:
| My continued employment and ability to procure said lunch
| depends on people buying various flavours of boom sticks.
| komali2 wrote:
| Presumably your skillset could be applied to things other
| than making boom sticks?
| swarnie wrote:
| I could spend my time making increasing intrusive ad
| platforms but that feels beneath me you know?
| case0x00 wrote:
| [flagged]
| zajio1am wrote:
| I think that people in Ukraine are glad for some boom
| sticks right now.
| db48x wrote:
| 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.
| fragmede wrote:
| 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?
| fastball wrote:
| Fairly certain they already are incorporated. If you pay
| yourself with dividends you're paying corp tax + long-term
| capital gains, so 8.7% (for a delaware s-corp) + max 20%
| (less if they pay themselves minimal salary I believe) for
| a total of 28.7% (vs 50%).
|
| IANAA.
| projektfu wrote:
| In the US, only if your corporation is a "C" corporation.
| For an "S" corporation, the income, distributed or
| undistributed, is treated as income on the individual tax
| returns of the owners. So if you and a partner own an S
| corporation, and you make $800k in net income and pay
| yourselves $100,000 in salary each, you would pay
| yourselves salaries (SS & Medicare tax on that portion)
| and then income tax on the net income + salary, so you
| would owe about $156,000 in income tax, plus whatever
| your state charges, and you would owe about $8,000 in
| SS+Medicare (because the company has already paid the
| other half). Rough numbers, of course. This would
| asymptotically approach 37% of income as your income
| increases (plus state tax).
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| IIRC some of the types of corps (S-corp, the one that is
| NOT a corporate veil) lets you pass-through income and so
| you get hit by only one "tax".
|
| But you still have state taxes and other such things. I
| assume they've retained a tax guy before this.
| [deleted]
| qwytw wrote:
| Didn't Kitfox games did a lot of work on the Steam
| version (I assumed art, UI etc. were not done by Bay 12
| games)? They must have incurred some expenses.
| Arrath wrote:
| As I understand it, the figure quoted in the Bay 12
| update is after Steam and Kitfox took their cut from the
| sales.
| wsc981 wrote:
| Set up an offshore that owns the IP and pay a licensing fee
| to the offshore? Licensing costs would then reduce net
| profits and likely also taxes, right?
| moneywoes wrote:
| Well when they want to withdraw the money eventually
| they'd get taxed right?
| conradkay wrote:
| If they withdraw 100k a year for 20 years (or more if
| it's invested) they'll pay a lot less in taxes than 2mil
| once.
| azernik wrote:
| Yes, but as income at a more reasonable tax bracket. By
| default this kind of windfall is taxed the same as
| someone who makes that much money every year for years;
| all those shenanigans let you get taxed as someone making
| a smaller income for a longer time.
|
| Plus, over that longer time you can list a lot of dual-
| use purchases as untaxed business expenses.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Corporate tax and personal income tax?
| jeffwask wrote:
| This is a triumph of indie game dev. Really happy for them.
| masakreTech wrote:
| And? - Cherry games with Hollow Knight have made more money and
| it's just a team of three people.
| dunefox wrote:
| Hollow Knight is not even remotely close to the complexity and
| effort of dwarf fortress.
| kelvie wrote:
| " 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
| TheUndead96 wrote:
| We can celebrate things separately. One good thing does not
| detract from another.
| hinkley wrote:
| Jealous people don't think that way though, unfortunately.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Slowest start-up in history. Good for them.
| IncRnd wrote:
| Earlier this month: Dwarf Fortress has sold half
| a million copies (bay12forums.com)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34275149
| jliptzin wrote:
| 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.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Most people dont. Thus the ever-growing backlog. This applies
| to movies, books, games... You enjoy what you can.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I think the main trick is not having kids, plus remote work has
| given lots of people ~2 hours a day back.
| capableweb wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 :)
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| Thanks for the kind words :)
|
| I don't even have kids and I have plenty of time so I
| need to get my mindset under control lol.
|
| TMI here but due to a feeling of wasted potential because
| of inattentive ADHD (treated but still), I have guilt
| when I procrastinate and am not productive and long games
| don't allow me to lie to myself about it, if that makes
| sense.
|
| Gaming isn't procrastinating on other stuff necessarily,
| it's just the way I feel often.
| capableweb wrote:
| I definitely (and many others, particularly here on HN)
| feel you, I sometimes end up in feedback loops where I
| start gaming, feel unproductive so I start working on
| some side-project but feel like I should be relaxing
| after some minutes so I start doing something else, and
| the cycle begins again.
|
| Sometimes that's OK :)
| seanw444 wrote:
| 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.
| Semaphor wrote:
| No children, or children who are old enough, probably helps. As
| does not working more than 40h a week (or even less). In my
| case, it's also home office (= no commute) that helps.
| [deleted]
| azernik wrote:
| Work-life balance, and selectivity.
|
| Personally, I don't buy games until they're old enough to be on
| 50% sale and the reviews are in.
|
| If you're interested in reviews and community based around
| limited time, I'd highly recommend reddit.com/r/patientgamers.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| As a general rule, people carving out hundreds to thousands of
| hours for a game are not enjoying 'all these' games, they are
| enjoying specifically that one and maybe one or two more if
| they want a change of pace.
|
| Also, I personally find that games like DF lend themselves well
| to having a podcast, audiobook, or twitch stream open on the
| side. It isn't like a big setpiece voice acted narrative game
| that demands your full attention.
| jtms wrote:
| You should try "staying up late"! You wait for everyone else to
| go to sleep and then you get a solid 2-4 hours to fully immerse
| yourself in glorious escapism. The next day, in the midst of
| suffering from sleep deprivation, you wonder why in the hell
| you did that and that tonight you will be going to bed early!
| (And then you don't)
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| 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.
| otikik wrote:
| Very happy for them and everyone involved
| rav wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Me too, I might try a fortress this summer on vacation, but for
| now, I gave them my support for their love and dedication
| japhib wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| This is after Steam's cut.
| qrush wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Just spritz them with water mist and they'll be fine!
| qrush wrote:
| Working on that for my fortress now but I have managed to
| flood the caverns with a river I've redirected...
| jtms wrote:
| 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_ge
| n...
| fortituded0002 wrote:
| 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.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Good for them. I'm so glad to see decades of hard work be
| rewarded.
| program_whiz wrote:
| 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.
| criley2 wrote:
| 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.
| seanhunter wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I didn't play DF in 2006 but I did play it first in about
| 2011, and can categorically at that point it was so user-
| hostile and batshit crazy there's no way the trajectory
| you're talking about would have been possible. Even just the
| normally-simple step of getting a copy of the game you could
| run was a bizarro-world nightmare involving multiple trips to
| the bay12 forum and searching for threads to find the
| download link etc.
|
| Eg if you look at this example Youtube tutorial series from
| 2015, the first 2 episodes are all stuff before you actually
| launch the game. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0sBh
| CMFBvPlF7wG7OH-N...
| kilgnad wrote:
| Nah. DF became popular because it's free. That is a huge part
| of the allure.
| bombcar wrote:
| DF became popular because of the stories it created - and
| being free helped that expand because people could try-
| before-buy.
|
| As it was, the risk would have been way too high for most
| people to pay tenbux or whatever BEFORE playing it (many
| have "donated" way more than that after playing).
| pixl97 wrote:
| Also being free let the developers work on whatever they
| wanted to rather than the "I paid for this and this bug
| happened therefore I'm going to yell about it on the
| internet".
|
| I work in enterprise software, the pressures from paying
| customers are immense. Sales loves to short circuit
| processes to get new features in front of the line. Large
| customers love to short circuit the process. Eventually
| your processes become customer driven rather than
| creation driven. And that's fine if you want to make
| money, but it ain't great if you want to create.
| bombcar wrote:
| And even so Tarn has been pretty responsive to major bugs
| (and even minor ones) - but it is really nice to have the
| expectations set.
| kilgnad wrote:
| The free part was super important because, if the buyer
| doesn't know much about the game, those text graphics are
| a huge deal breaker when combined with payment.
| opportune wrote:
| Highly agree, if DF just came out of nowhere and launched
| their old versions before having enough cachet/community to
| get studios to help them get it polished, it would at best
| become a cult classic years later, but most likely just be
| completely ignored. Without all the slowly increasing
| cultural awareness and community building leading it to
| becoming de facto "the most complicated game that is also a
| simulation and art" it just looks like a really
| complicated, technologically anachronistic game for
| neckbeards. Which it still is, but it's had time to build
| awareness that it's also exceptionally interesting, and
| that that niche isn't necessarily a bad thing.
|
| Also they wouldn't have been able to keep it a single-
| person programming project focused almost entirely on
| expanding the core games features and simulation aspects if
| they released earlier. Way more time would have been spent
| on productionization and getting it good-enough rather than
| done, and more hands would be involved, making it less of a
| passion/art project of an inventor, and just a regular old
| commercial endeavor.
| program_whiz wrote:
| The major lesson is "don't make indie games if you want to
| make money". There are 34 games released per day on steam.
| Most will have revenue under $1000 (and probably most will
| have revenue below $100).
|
| Unless you have a talented team, marketing plan, and lots of
| capital you can burn for a gamble; or are willing to just do
| it for fun for years and don't care if it succeeds -- don't
| quit your job to make indie games. Otherwise you're playing
| Russian roulette. For every hollow knight, Dwarf Fortress,
| Celeste, there are 1000s of other titles you've never heard
| of.
| bombcar wrote:
| To be fair, you'd have to somehow account for what
| percentage of those released each day are just shovelware
| crap. The actual "indie games" to look at would be the ones
| where talented people put time and effort into something. A
| vast majority of those will still fail, but then you have
| at least a true basis.
| ineedasername wrote:
| 2006 was pre-Minecraft territory. Monetizing DF at that point
| in time would have been highly unlikely.
|
| Also the game wasn't built yet. Maybe they could have
| monetized earlier than this, but what does it matter? Maybe
| trying to monetized earlier would have killed the project or
| resulted in a game very different from today. Either way it
| doesn't matter: there are different paths to success and not
| every one of them is an option for every game. DF found one
| though, and that's what matters.
| rob74 wrote:
| 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...
| criley2 wrote:
| Minecraft released in 2009 with a price of $13 a copy.
| How'd that work out for them?
|
| I am a bit older as a gamer so to hear that "2006 the
| market was small" is crazy to me! I grew up playing MUDs
| and believe me, the market for text games in 2006 was a lot
| bigger than it is today! From my perspective, monetizing
| the kids from the 80s/90s who loved text games with the
| best text game of all time as they turn 20s and 30s in the
| 2006... that's the best time in history to sell a text
| game.
|
| I think that as part of DF being monetized, the graphics
| would be replaced, as it was for Steam, and potentially had
| it been done in 2D back in the 2000s, they could have
| envisioned and scaled into a 3D implementation by now. Who
| knows!
| poulpy123 wrote:
| 1/ they obviously didn't do it for the money 2/ Minecraft
| is an extreme outlier 3/ how many 2006 games with ASCII
| interface and costing have been successful ?
| ironSkillet wrote:
| I get your argument about Bay12 potentially making more
| money had they commercialized earlier, but I think the
| comparison with Minecraft isn't so clean. DF is orders of
| magnitude less approachable than Minecraft, so there is
| not even a remote possibility of generating any kind of
| mass appeal to gamers.
| xavxav wrote:
| > 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.
|
| I don't DF would have existed then, it would be hard to see
| it gather the same community and the creators probably
| wouldn't have felt as free to explore their own ideas if they
| felt it needed to be commercially viable.
|
| The thing that made DF's current commercial success _is_ it
| 's previously un-commercial approach. It's a true labor of
| love and that shows in every aspect of the game.
| criley2 wrote:
| We are in a post-Minecraft world, so I don't think your
| criticism has any merit.
|
| Minecraft was a sandbox single-dev game that broke every
| mold and trope, and sold for $4 billion.
|
| Me claiming that DF could be worth $100M in a world where
| Minecraft was worth $4B and is likely worth much more
| now... not a crazy take.
| Agentlien wrote:
| We may be in a post-Minecraft world but Dwarf Fortress
| does not come from one. It predates, and was in fact a
| major source of inspiration for, Minecraft.
|
| If we're talking about whether the highly obtuse ASCII
| version of DF should have monetized earlier we cannot
| point to its highly accessible direct descendant from
| seven years later.
| mikrl wrote:
| Minecraft is also stupidly accessible.
|
| The only dwarf fortress players I know IRL are also
| skilled with and interested in computers. Normies aren't
| sinking 6 weeks (what it took me) to ramp up on DF, and
| certainly wouldn't have in 2013
| xipho wrote:
| > stupidly accessible
|
| Don't underestimate what tiles do for a game in terms of
| (perceived) accessibility. Anecdotally my kids (under
| 11), who will almost certainly abandon the game after
| playing it, are demanding that we get it because they
| like what they are seeing, they like drama (dwarfs into
| zombies), they like building and crafting (infinite
| possibilities vs. MC). Now it's true that I've been
| talking about it, so they are feeding on my hype, but
| they are also genuinely intrigued by it. I think the
| viral potential of DF went way up with the recent
| release, it might not be completely unheard of as common
| amongst the broader gaming populace in the future.
| croes wrote:
| Minecraft was 2009 and had a graphical interface.
|
| I doubt that in 2006 a game with an ASCII-Interface would
| have been a great success if people had to pay for it.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Ok, so how close is minecraft as a "toolkit" for
| converting ascii games to graphical? I don't know how
| minecraft servers/mods/etc work, I just have been
| watching my kid's JJ/Mikey with him. I squarely missed
| the minecraft crazy, I was post-college.
|
| But DF could be (squints) converted to some minecraft
| "world" couldn't it? How hard is it to do minecraft
| worlds that would mirror/translate/active generate from
| some complex sim process like DF?
| croes wrote:
| BTW the view on Minecraft is survivorship bias.
|
| How many developers with better games failed?
| tmtvl wrote:
| I am still bummed out that Alien Software didn't manage
| to finish Neophyte, it had so much promise.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| With better games than Minecraft? Not many. Not many at
| all.
|
| Any game that isn't a building game is immediately
| disqualified from consideration, since most games focus
| on you consuming level content made by others instead of
| expressing your own creativity, and no such game can be
| considered better than Minecraft. And Minecraft is simply
| the best building game out there, I'm open to suggestions
| but I've seen and played a lot of building / digital lego
| games and none of the rest can hold a candle to Minecraft
| balance of streamlined simplicity and creative
| versatility.
|
| If you're looking for a game that is specifically about
| building and sailing battleships, or cars, or rockets, or
| cities, then there are better games than Minecraft. But
| minecraft is more generalist, you can build anything from
| cute cottages to digital computers in minecraft, it has
| the broadest general appeal of any building game I've
| ever heard of.
|
| It was pretty obvious to me from the start, from the beta
| days in 2010 anyway, that Minecraft would be a massive
| success. Even in that early state all the elements were
| there to make it massively successful. And compared to
| other digital lego games at that time, it was hands down
| the best there was. I've seen Infiniminer, don't try to
| tell me that it was pure luck that Minecraft succeeded
| where Infiniminer languished in obscurity.
| rkachowski wrote:
| There are many games that monetised in 2006 and are not worth
| $100M.
|
| The indie gaming scene in 2006 was almost entirely freeware
| with a few exceptions. Indie games as a steam category - let
| alone industry - was unthinkable. Monetisation was
| essentially building a flash game to sell to an ad network,
| there's really no amount of industry game playing that could
| have been done.
| larsiusprime wrote:
| Don't forget the publisher's cut!
| someonewhocar3s wrote:
| [dead]
| napierzaza wrote:
| [dead]
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Perhaps if they'd put it on steam 10 years ago the numbers
| would look better.
| miga wrote:
| Question is whether they recorded investment in the Dwarf
| Fortress over the years, so they could subtract it from the
| base of the tax.
|
| They spent more time on this game than on any other.
| paulluuk wrote:
| > divide ~$4m (post-tax) by team of 2 for ~20 years
|
| So about $100k per year, per person (after taxes)
|
| I know that this is nothing out in Silicon Valley, but for
| reference, the median income in the US is $19k (net) per year,
| and about $15k (net) per year in Europe (if you include eastern
| Europe).
|
| I can't tell from your comment whether you feel 100k is high
| (hence the "optimistic") or low (hence the warning at the end).
| enkid wrote:
| Where are you getting $19k per year as the median income?
| CydeWeys wrote:
| They said median net income, i.e. post-tax.
| selectodude wrote:
| Which is also super wrong because median income for full
| time employees is $54,000
| CydeWeys wrote:
| Many people are not employed though (or are children). I
| wonder if this figure is for every single person. Or it
| could just be wrong.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| As others pointed out, that just can't possibly be
| correct given the median pre-tax number and actual US tax
| rates. If you made the median individual income of $45k
| and lived in a high tax state like California, your net
| would be ~$37k.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| Imagine how much they could have made by now if they had
| launched on steam 10 years ago
| bombcar wrote:
| Potentially less; the game may have a large amount of
| "support purchases" but could end up with a relatively slow
| tail afterwards.
| vkou wrote:
| They were only making 12k per month in the last few years.
| For a long time, it was closer to 2-4k a month.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > I know that this is nothing out in Silicon Valley, but for
| reference, the median income in the US is $19k (net) per
| year, and about $15k (net) per year in Europe (if you include
| eastern Europe).
|
| Your (net) number in the US is way too low.
|
| The real (aka inflation adjusted) median earnings for US
| workers is around $42K before taxes.
|
| Tax rates at the lower end of the income spectrum in the US
| are very low. Federal income tax is effectively 0% for the
| bottom income brackets, though they'll have to pay some
| payroll taxes, state taxes, sales taxes, and others along the
| way. Even considering that, there's no way to go from the
| >$40K median earnings to your $19K net income figure.
| adventured wrote:
| > the median income in the US is $19k (net) per year, and
| about $15k (net) per year in Europe
|
| That's off by close to half. The median income in the US is
| around $37,000 [1], the median full-time income is around
| $53,000 [2] and the median US household income is up over
| $70,000 [3].
|
| It's also worth noting that those median incomes are paying
| low tax rates on that income (typically ~15%-20% including
| federal + state + local + fica, depending on the location).
|
| [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
|
| [2] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t01.htm
|
| [3] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
| axus wrote:
| They've also been receiving donations since early on. Last
| time I checked they were up to 100k per year, but it started
| much smaller. I donated $20 back in the days when they'd send
| back an ASCII art scene in email or crayon drawing.
| bombcar wrote:
| And those early numbers are Tarn _only_ with Zach still
| having a "real job" (Tarn quit his teaching job relatively
| early on).
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I believe he had a research post doc
| davedx wrote:
| > the median income in the US is $19k (net) per year
|
| It's way higher, between $50-70k https://www.census.gov/libra
| ry/publications/2022/demo/p60-27...
| rtkwe wrote:
| You're looking at the median HOUSEHOLD income. So on
| average the wages of two people, median income is a bit
| below half of that at 31k (pre tax I think).
| omni wrote:
| If you look at Table C-1 in parent's source, it has
| median post-tax household income at 65K which is a much
| more reasonable number. We're incredibly wealthy, a per-
| person median income of 19K doesn't pass the sniff test.
| Keep in mind taxes are much lower at the lower end of the
| income spectrum as well. If you're married and making the
| median income, your overall federal tax rate is only
| going to be about 15%.
| HEmanZ wrote:
| So much depends on how you measure it. But median individual
| income in the US is quite a bit higher than 19k no matter how
| you measure it.
|
| Real, adjusted, individual including non working and part-
| time population above 15yo: $38k/yr
|
| Including only full-time workers: $57k
|
| Median household income: $71k
|
| The US has enough problems, no need to make up much smaller
| income numbers than the reality.
|
| https://fred.stlouisfed.org/
| account42 wrote:
| Pretty sure GP is talking about _net_ income.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| That would require greater than 50% taxation, which isn't
| realistic at all in the United States.
|
| The federal income tax rates for lower income brackets
| reach 0%. State, sales, payroll, and other taxes aren't
| going to come anywhere near 50%.
|
| The real, net, median income in the United States is
| significantly higher than what the OP quoted.
| sempron64 wrote:
| The top federal income tax bracket is 37% and the top
| California tax bracket is 12.2%. This is for income
| exceeding 500k. So disregarding local taxes and property
| taxes, in California most of this income would be taxed
| at 49.2%.
| lsaferite wrote:
| Federal taxes are marginal. You don't pay 37% on the full
| 500k, you pay 37% on anything below that bracket start
| point, you pay the lower rates. For instance, if you're
| single and declare $1M in income your effective tax rate
| is more like 33.5% and not 37%.
| azernik wrote:
| This is a subthread about the median income that we would
| compare the $7M payout to, not the $7M payout itself. It
| certainly falsifies the graph paulluuk linked to, and
| using high CA taxes on the Bay 12 payout only further
| undermines paulluuk's comparison.
| sempron64 wrote:
| Apologies for the lack of clarity, I was addressing just
| this sentence in the parent
|
| > That would require greater than 50% taxation, which
| isn't realistic at all in the United States.
|
| My point is that higher than 50% total taxation on a
| large single-year income (considering local and corporate
| taxes) is entirely possible in the United States, though
| it may be less in some states than other. I'm not saying
| that the estimate is correct as the Tarn Brothers don't
| live in California. But if they took the income to a
| corporation, paid corporate income tax, and then took the
| whole income or a large part of it as dividends in a high
| tax state, then >50% is quite possible. On a pass-through
| entity, close to 50% is the standard and unavoidable in
| high tax states.
| HEmanZ wrote:
| Does it seem at all realistic that someone at the median
| is paying 50% income tax in the US?
| mort96 wrote:
| I found this figure: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia
| /commons/b/bc/Median_p... (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
| ki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...). The individual
| median net income was $19k around 2005-2006, maybe they
| were just using outdated numbers? Or it could've been a
| typo or misreading, as the current median net income is
| $29k. In any case, their point still stands with the $29k
| figure.
| endominus wrote:
| The first paragraph of that Wikipedia page: "Personal
| income is an individual's total earnings from wages,
| investment interest, and other sources. The Bureau of
| Labor Statistics reported a median weekly personal income
| of $1,037 for full-time workers in Q1 2022. For the year
| 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the median
| annual earnings for all workers (aged 15 and over) was
| $41,535; and more specifically estimates that median
| annual earnings for those who worked full-time, year
| round, was $56,287."
|
| That graph seems to be just incorrect. All three of the
| links it's supposedly sourced from don't have it on their
| pages. There is a remark of "own work," so I think a
| Wikipedian assembled it themself. Given that it frankly
| contradicts the article it's in, I would assume that it's
| in error.
| mort96 wrote:
| The graph would be consistent with the part you quoted if
| the median earners were paying 33.5% tax: 41535 - (41535
| * 0.335) is roughly the 27598 figure it shows for 2020.
| The figure only shows state and federal income tax, which
| adds up to 13% tax; I don't know enough about the US to
| now if there are other taxes which would add up to 33.5%.
| endominus wrote:
| The graph includes state, federal, and payroll tax.
| They're stacked above the income after tax. They do not
| add up to $41,535.
| mort96 wrote:
| I ignored the payroll tax, because I assumed that's not
| counted as part of the employee's gross income?
|
| And I agree that neither income tax nor income + payroll
| tax adds up to the 33.5%. I don't know if there are more
| taxes which need to be considered. 13% total tax seems
| low.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I ignored the payroll tax, because I assumed that's not
| counted as part of the employee's gross income
|
| Employee share of payroll tax is, employer share (which
| is shown reaching down from the bottom) is not.
|
| > 13% total tax seems low.
|
| Given what I've actually paid with a far above median
| income, 13% soubds reasonable. Its low as a _nominal_
| rate, but there are lots of credits and deductions
| available, and the before-tax median personal income is
| well below the cutoff for EITC, which can be a huge one.
| Heck, a large minority of the population pays _zero or
| negative_ net income tax.
| mlyle wrote:
| > In any case, their point still stands with the $29k
| figure.
|
| Comparing comp for two people who are working really
| hard, doesn't really work when you're comparing to a
| median income that includes lots of people who don't work
| or don't _really_ work.
|
| Similarly, comparing median net income (which includes
| taxation) with a pre-tax windfall doesn't really make
| sense, either.
|
| Further, we're not adjusting for time value of money...
| weknowbetter wrote:
| Anecdotally I know a lot of people who work full time in
| the US and make well under 30k a year.
| mlyle wrote:
| Yup... half the people will be below the median.
| paulluuk wrote:
| I quickly grabbed the numbers from https://en.wikipedia.org/w
| iki/Personal_income_in_the_United_..., where I just copied
| the number from the "W-2 Median Wages" graph, however I have
| no idea what W-2 is so that might explain why so many people
| are saying I'm wrong. Also I used "real wages" which seems to
| be corrected for inflation rather than the actual numbers.
| hnthrowaway0328 wrote:
| Yeah it is pretty good, but not as good if someone really wants
| to take the risk. There are people, e.g. fund managers and
| corporate CXOs that talk about they get the big bucks because
| they take the risk, but TBH what risks do they experience? If
| something fucked up they can simply walk away, usually with fat
| profits for their own. On the other hand, a couple of indie
| developers risked getting nothing from a full-time job, that's
| what real risk-taking sounds like.
| efields wrote:
| Just let it be good. It doesn't need to be more. It doesn't
| need to be such high risk all the time.
| warent wrote:
| You're thinking this in a very capitalist way which seems
| completely unrelated to these two gentlemen. These guys are
| now profiting off the game out of necessity, not because
| they're finally "cashing in" on all their "risk". From the
| beginning, this was a passion project and an expression of
| themselves. Not an investment.
| christkv wrote:
| If they are smart the money will be taken out as dividend and
| thus only pay capital gains tax.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Out of curiosity, are there tax options (specifically,
| retroactive ones) for this situation?
|
| As near as I know: (1) they formed a company at some point in
| the past (S-corp?), (2) they did constant work per year, (3)
| they had some donations per year, (4) they suddenly had a
| large amount of revenue in 2022
|
| I'm guessing they didn't _fully_ account for their time
| /expenses in prior years.
|
| If they didn't, are there options to go back and amend
| previous returns in amounts that would be meaningful?
| (Assuming they have proof, etc.)
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| IANAA, but I pay one every year.
|
| S-Corp is not an efficient entity type for a windfall like
| this. It is a pass through entity, and cannot retain
| earnings year over year, for that you need a C-Corp.
|
| That said, had they already had a C-Corp set up, then this
| income would be taxed at 21%, so after Steam fees and
| taxes, they would be sitting on around $3.3M (not counting
| publisher fees and any expenses that might arise). If they
| hold that money for 120 days, they can then do regular
| monthly dividend distributions of around $7k, and it would
| be considered tax free to their person (assuming married,
| and no other source of income), but keep in mind they
| already paid 21% taxes on it. Any amount above that would
| be taxed at 15% (then 20% at top tax bracket), so if they
| wanted $200k/yr, that would be a monthly dividend of around
| $17k, 7k of that is "tax free" then the other 10k would be
| taxed at 15%. But again, they pre-paid 21% taxes at the
| c-corp level, so 15% would actually be 36%, which is nearly
| top tax bracket already, and it was hit MUCH sooner than if
| you took a higher paid salary.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think this would be difficult to do without tax fraud.
| You cant retroactively increase your salary to show you
| were owed more money for unpaid salary.
|
| If they had money in a C-corp to start with, you could run
| it at a loss (actually paying the salary), and then carry
| forward those losses to offset the windfall.
|
| With an S-corp, Each year the company ran a loss, they
| would receive a negative dividend which would adjust their
| annual earnings down.
| elil17 wrote:
| They'd also likely pay the corporate tax rate in that case,
| which is 21%. Tack on 20% for the highest cap gains bracket,
| and you're at 41% federal unless you can work your way out of
| it with some loophole (e.g. carried losses on the cap gains
| side, idk what on the corporate side). FICA caps at something
| like $150k, so they'd actually be paying more than the
| highest income bracket of 37%.
|
| The really smart move (or evil move, depending how you see
| it) would have been to start the business within a Roth IRA.
| Then you'd just pay the 21% corporate tax rate.
| gizmo wrote:
| They are smart which is why they are spending their lives
| working on something they love instead of worrying about tax
| optimization nonsense.
| tverbeure wrote:
| There's a major contradiction in here.
|
| I'm sure you'll agree that it'd be mindblowingly dumb to
| not set some kind of company for a bunch of reasons? (Eg
| limited liability)
|
| And that you best leave accounting and tax filings to
| professionals so that you can spend your precious time on
| something you love instead?
|
| OP's suggestion automatically flows from that...
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| >There's a major contradiction in here.
|
| I don't think there is. I wholeheartedly agree with the
| prior sentiment. Way too much of peoples lives are spent
| on shit _that does not really matter_. As a people we
| have overcomplicated the shit out of everything to such a
| degree it 's disgusting. And it's all based on greed.
| Optimize this structure to pay the least tax, optimize
| your income into this and that so it magically makes more
| money. Meanwhile those without any real money can't take
| advantage of any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, really
| fair!
|
| Not everyone subscribes to the financial bullshit the
| wealth class has created.
| tverbeure wrote:
| This particular case isn't like that all.
|
| Do you agree with the premise that it would be incredible
| dumb and dangerous not to structure their business into a
| legal limited liability company?
|
| Do you agree that the accounting and tax handling is best
| left to professionals because it can be complicated _and
| because you trade a little bit of money for the peace of
| mind that you're following the rules and more free time_?
|
| If you agree with those two points, then the act of
| paying out the profits as a dividend instead of a salary
| rolls out pretty much for free. Because it's not some
| hard to set up tax avoidance construction, it's the norm.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| The fact of the matter is I'm not saying "don't use a
| professional". I'm against the very concept of how
| convoluted everything is in this world- and nearly
| everything is created in ways that benefit people who
| make up let's say the top 15% of earners.
|
| I'm not oblivious to any of these things, I have an econ,
| accounting & M.S. finance degree. I have a CPA (never
| practiced).
|
| And you know what? I see this shit all the time in my
| line of work. I've been lucky enough to do more of the
| technology/programming side of the industry I'm in so I
| don't kill myself on the meaningless garbage that the
| people I'm creating stuff for actually do.. but I see
| this shit _all the time_.
|
| Structures or laws being set up constantly to avoid tax
| that your normal person has absolutely no way to use.
| Self employed people setting up S-Corps so they don't
| have to pay into social security because they will be
| rich enough they don't need it themselves so why pay into
| the system to help others. People in other countries
| setting up US structures so they can pay a lower tax rate
| here than their home country while they get to reap all
| the benefits. LLCs being set up in delaware so you don't
| have to pay state taxes when one could easily argue you
| operate there if anyone checked. People throwing money
| into dividend paying stocks just because of a low tax.
| Reducing long term capital gains to stupidly low tax
| levels.
|
| I mean I can go on and on. Your average person GETS
| ALMOST NONE OF THESE BENEFITS.
|
| I'm not saying _all_ of the stuff is bad or not needed.
| But the vast majority is set up so people who already
| make way more than the average person don 't have to pay
| their fair share.
|
| So look- I'm more being general here. I'm not
| specifically talking about this case as much as I'm just
| bitching about how the world works. It just disgusts me
| at this point. What one calls "optimization", at this
| point in my life I call it taking advantage.
|
| /rant off
| dcow wrote:
| The tax code is structured the way it is for a reason.
| It's not there to be exploited. It's there to be
| followed. DF is a business and labor of love for the two
| owners. One which generates revenue and is clearly above
| board. There is nothing wrong with taking dividends as
| the business becomes more valuable rather than increasing
| salary. And it's not some mega tax loophole for the
| wealthy. By any measure these two aren't wealthy. It
| takes 30 min with an accountant it doesn't consume your
| life and waste time and sap energy to be on top of your
| books...
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| You can see my other reply above if you care. But I do
| take issue with this
|
| >By any measure these two aren't wealthy
|
| That's objectively so wrong. They are basically set for
| life on money or will be before too long with more sales
| rolling in over time.
|
| The vast majority of people will never see anywhere near
| that amount of money.. yet we don't want to call it
| wealthy. Ludicrous.
| lukas099 wrote:
| They don't need to worry about it if they hire people to
| worry about it for them, which would save them time to work
| on what they love anyways.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| Dividends are not automatically treated as capital gains, but
| in this situation, its possible they would be considered
| "qualified". The company being formed in the US, the
| dividends being paid out to US share holders, and the
| shareholders holding the stock for at least 60 days (120 days
| in some circumstances).
|
| This really only applies to C-Corps as well, and then you run
| into the Double Taxation of C-Corp income and pay a 21% tax
| rate at the corporation, then additional capital gains on the
| dividend income.
|
| BUT dividends would be tax free up to around $80k of income
| (any income (salaries, 1099, etc., also assuming married),
| then they would be taxed at 15% - 25% above that, but do not
| forget, the corporation has already paid 21%.
|
| So optimizing for qualified-dividend-only income requires a
| LOT of forethought, and either accepting a lower income
| (since the benefit maxes out at $80k total income), or paying
| 15-25% + 21% for a 36-46% tax rate on your dividends.
| ivalm wrote:
| I think for this amount an llc+pass through is still likely
| less tax.
| eps wrote:
| They were also making 14-15K per month before that (it's
| mentioned in the post), so they were already extraordinarily
| successful as far as 2-person indie gamedev teams go.
| dmarchand90 wrote:
| Yeah but they were not making that much the whole time. If
| you look back some years they were just scraping by.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Looking at the numbers and releases I must say: If they had
| streamlined their release process to put out releases more
| often then the revenue might have been more even and
| better.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Maybe. Factorio does a great job of putting out releases
| and sharing details about what they are working on and
| you would have thought they were evil incarnate after
| they recently said they had to raise their price by $5 to
| keep up with inflation.
|
| People are fickle and hindsight isnt always so clear.
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| Wow, they raised their price? I thought their whole thing
| was $30 forever because they were never going on sale.
| pdpi wrote:
| The point is that they don't go on sale, not that it's
| $30 forever.
| Akronymus wrote:
| Yeah, because of having inflation close to 20% in the
| past year where they live.
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| I'm guessing they're multi-millionaires by now. Poor
| guys.
| Akronymus wrote:
| Maybe a the founders. But definitely not employees, which
| is where a good chunknof the money is bound to be going
| towards.
| oblio wrote:
| Do you know this for sure? How big is their company?
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| I don't know for sure but 3.5M lifetime sales times 30 is
| $105M*70% is $73.5M, they have around 30 employees, maybe
| they pay $200K a year, so that's $36M over 6 years,
| netting them $37.5M. I could be way off though.
| bierjunge wrote:
| The game wasn't always at $30. I saw it for $20 a few
| years ago (regular price) and I believe it was even lower
| before, like $15, but I'm not sure.
|
| There is also a Nintendo Switch release, so they will
| have to pay for the Dev-Kit's and licenses which are not
| cheap. Not as expensive as in the 80's, 90's, early
| 2000's where a single Dev-Kit could be six figures, but
| still a significant expense for a indie studio.
|
| So we are already a little bit off from the numbers you
| posted. I assume, the 30% you cut off is for taxes. Good
| idea, but Steam and all other platforms where the game is
| sold also want a piece of the cake. I don't know the
| numbers for other platforms, but Steam takes 30% of the
| listed price.
|
| So even with a $30 price tag on Steam, they get $21 after
| commission. An that is pre-tax... They need to buy
| hardware for their developers, rent an office, pay
| developers and so on. So even the founders are not
| getting rich. A "boring" job in business software can
| make you more.
| capableweb wrote:
| Hard to say, working faster/harder doesn't usually mean
| the quality will remain unchanged, and their user base
| probably care more about the quality of releases rather
| than how fast they put out releases.
| TomK32 wrote:
| I'm not talking about working harder or faster, barely
| anyone could keep up with their attention and dedication
| to detail, I mean the release process that appears (from
| the outside in the eye of a webdev who merely does a git
| push and clicks a button some time later) to be rather
| crude shipping of the game. They didn't even use version
| control software 9 years back
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19381634
| dmarchand90 wrote:
| Yes and no. Possibly. Personally, I think their
| dedication to work on it in an artistic 'passion project'
| style is what made the game what it is. I suspect if they
| had followed a more regular schedule they would have
| gotten a more ordinary, and forgettable, indie game.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| As far as indie devs, yes, but in the greater scheme of
| things that is still fairly pittance money. $180k pre-tax
| split two ways, and then eaten into heartily by health
| insurance (Tarn and his brother have mentioned that medical
| issues are what pushed them to do the Steam release) doesn't
| leave a whole lot.
|
| But that also means that as long as they don't significantly
| increase the cost of their lifestyle, that $7m pre-tax will
| go a very long way.
| fragsworth wrote:
| It sucks that their tax burden is going to be higher on
| account of making all this money in a single year, putting
| almost all of it in the highest brackets. Unless they did
| some clever accounting tricks throughout the 20 years to
| prepare for this situation, which I highly doubt they did.
|
| I don't know where he lives, but in California it could
| easily add up to close to 50% since he's "rich".
| filoleg wrote:
| As far as I know, they live in Washington state. Which
| should help with the tax on income at least a little bit,
| given the state has no income tax.
|
| Still, yeah, having the entire amount being dropped on
| them in a single year will probably have pretty major
| federal income tax consequences. Hopefully, they will
| figure it out, and the sales of Dwarf Fortress on steam
| won't dwindle. I find that it is a pretty good timing for
| the release, given that Rimworld (the spiritual
| competitor) has gone extremely mainstream, so people are
| definitely more open these days to that type of games.
| thegjp210 wrote:
| You're confusing income tax liabilities with corporate
| taxes
| chaostheory wrote:
| You're assuming that sales will dwindle very quickly. I
| doubt it given its legendary, cult status.
| yCombLinks wrote:
| That's January sales. Sure, they'll fall off, but it's not
| suddenly zero additional money
| RektBoy wrote:
| From what?
| Slippery_John wrote:
| Donations. They have a patreon and have had paypal
| donations long before that with the occasional donation
| drive to pump up numbers.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah they used to have a PO Box you could mail checks/etc
| to. I still have it in my billpay. The only gaming value
| that has come even close for me has been Factorio.
| Akronymus wrote:
| Maybe aurora 4x could be to your liking.
| autophagian wrote:
| Probably from their Patreon:
| https://www.patreon.com/bay12games
| TomK32 wrote:
| In my days we were sending them money via Paypal and if it
| was above a certain amout, then they'd kindly ask for your
| postal address, draw you a sketch (I have three, one of
| them with two dwarves in minecart jumping over a ravine,
| one of them has a beer in his hand) along with a button.
| nevi-me wrote:
| The tax should be post-expenses
| throwaway41213d wrote:
| [flagged]
| flumpcakes wrote:
| They weren't asking for new "loopholes" they were simply
| stating how basic tax works.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| What expenses would they have realistically? 2 PCs? if you
| mean their salary that still would be taxable at their
| personal income tax rate.
| nevi-me wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| plus Steam's cut I'd imagine.
| bongobingo1 wrote:
| Plus kitfox games, the "steam version" publisher, who
| AFAIK also brought on artists etc, non-nil contributions.
| kryptiskt wrote:
| I think this is their cut after Steam and Kitfox have had
| their share. The gross from half a million sold is $15M.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ixtli wrote:
| I'm so happy for them. This really made my day.
| dschuetz wrote:
| Well, yes. Charging 30$ will generate those numbers for such an
| anticipated game.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| 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.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > 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.
|
| For diehard DF fans "supporting the creator" is a large
| enough reason, even if they never intend to play the steam
| version.
| Slippery_John wrote:
| > for die hard DF fans who know all hotkeys inside out
| there's little actual reason to switch to the Steam version
|
| They made the game so much more playable it's hard to
| understate. We're not even talking mouse vs keyboard here.
| They made one of the core mechanics (labor assignment) go
| from something that essentially required a third party tool
| to manage to something that is trivial to manage in its
| vanilla state. Sure it took some adjustment for long-time
| players and some prefer the algorithms used by those custom
| tools, but those tools are being made available.
| somenameforme wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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!
| badpun wrote:
| Plenty of people wanted to try out DF, but didn't want to
| invest into learning the obscure interface.
| [deleted]
| Mengkudulangsat wrote:
| Please incorporate ChatGPT into this game! Imagine the
| storylines!
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| Actually I think this might be a very useful addition to
| Legends mode. Right now it is pretty tedious and difficult to
| extract meaningful narrative from what is essentially a log
| dump, but if there were a LLM trained to weave those dry tomes
| into wild stories that would be pretty neat.
| danuker wrote:
| Imagine the OpenAI bill.
| Mercury55 wrote:
| Imagine developing the tech be usable in any game.
| bovermyer wrote:
| 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.
| Reimersholme wrote:
| [dead]
| skjoldr wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| Mengkudulangsat wrote:
| You gotta admit DFs name / description generation is just
| gobbledygook most of the time. Tastefully applied, AI
| bullshit generators will do wonders to readability.
| bovermyer wrote:
| Yes, it's janky - but I _like_ the jankiness.
|
| Not everything needs to be perfectly formatted with ideal
| flow and Hemingway-esque readability.
| jtms wrote:
| The gobbledygook is absolutely the point! It's charming,
| fun, and gives the game a constant stream of interesting
| interactions.
| Kiro wrote:
| Why are you so aggressively dismissing ChatGPT? Maybe it has
| no place in this game but it's a technological marvel
| nonetheless.
| jtms wrote:
| I violently AGREE with you! <the severed comment flies off in
| an arc!>
| MagicMoonlight wrote:
| Once we get that kind of generation into games it will be
| incredible.
| sph wrote:
| "Please add ChatGPT" is the new "please rewrite it in Rust."
| poulpy123 wrote:
| Please rewrite it in rust with chatGPT !
| sveeeeeene wrote:
| I would like AI generated images of monsters, heroes, items and
| events
| hoseja wrote:
| It's such an obvious usecase. Can't wait for a workable
| implementation somewhere.
| b800h wrote:
| ...based entirely on the images from Moraff's Dungeon please.
| cabirum wrote:
| ...and NFT item store with prices in dwarfcoins?
| Kiro wrote:
| What does NFT has to do with anything? What's with people on
| this site thinking one of the biggest tech revolution of our
| lifetime is the same as a scam that has no utility
| whatsoever?
| xkcd1963 wrote:
| Exciting times lay ahead
| Archelaos wrote:
| > 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.
| caporaltito wrote:
| From now on, I will switch to this version for my child's story
| before sleep
| mijoharas wrote:
| 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
|
| [Edit] trimmed quote
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| 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.
| qcic wrote:
| Which is much more gruesome and makes a lot more sense. I
| expect more hesitancy in potentially killing the prince than
| kissing a frog.
| mlindner wrote:
| 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.
| kilgnad wrote:
| Its possible it still fits the word. The bible is canonical
| too even though it's basically a pieces of disparate texts.
|
| Basically if it's the first and earliest record and the one
| that everyone looks to as the most accurate source it's
| canonical.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| The whole idea of caring about "canon" is fundamentally
| bollocks anyway when it comes to stories
| kilgnad wrote:
| The word has meaning imo. It's used to seperate the fan
| fiction and maintain consistency during world building.
| It's quite important for the popular stories of our time,
| Star wars and the Marvel cinematic universe.
|
| I know some people hate those franchises but like it or
| not, they are some of the biggest mythologies that came
| out in our time.
| xbar wrote:
| Reference?
| pixl97 wrote:
| History? In the days before books were common stories
| were not told from written pages but memory. This allowed
| stories to change and adapt on the storytellers whims (or
| forgetfulness). Eventually they were ossified in books,
| of which many people think they are the 'canon'.
| xbar wrote:
| Perhaps "canon" means something other than "you can't
| change a story."
| azernik wrote:
| That's relevant to the Bible, or Shakespeare, or the MCU,
| because those works' authors have authority in a way the
| Brothers Grimm do not have authority over folklore.
| IncRnd wrote:
| 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-...
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I was expecting this threads to turn into a fire dumpster, and
| instead it turned into exactly the kind of debate I read HN
| for.
| kirushik wrote:
| 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 (Tsarevna Liagushka), and the metaphor is not
| working that well once again.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| How is it even remotely plausible ?
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Why did they wait so long to charge for the game?
|
| (I've never played it, so forgive my ignorance)
| jy1 wrote:
| This is a new version of the game with a GUI on steam.
| previously it was text only, and not very accessible.
| zexodus wrote:
| 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.
| aequitas wrote:
| 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=28983...
| poisonarena wrote:
| >(the Mac Steam does not allow you to download Windows
| files).
|
| you can !
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/ej1sid/download_wind.
| ..
| haunter wrote:
| It works 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
| tinyhitman wrote:
| With steamcmd (the steam client CLI) one can download
| whatever version of their owned games they want.
| junon wrote:
| In theory. In practice, it's a headache getting that thing
| to work.
| detaro wrote:
| People apparently have gotten the windows version to work
| through wine, there's some guides in the steam forums for the
| game.
| student2k wrote:
| Good for them, hope they keep working on DF, as there are many
| things in the roadmap,
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