After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires(pcgamer.com)
pcgamer.com
After 20 years the Dwarf Fortress devs have to get used to being millionaires
https://www.pcgamer.com/after-spending-20-years-simulating-reality-the-dwarf-fortress-devs-have-to-get-used-to-a-new-one-being-millionaires/
423 comments
As of right now, and barring any future misfortune, this is a great feel-good story for any engineer. These guys brought their passion to life and created something unique and special that has been meaningful to thousands upon thousands of people over the last 20 years. It feels great to see them succeed in this way, and I hope they can continue to work on this for as long as they enjoy it. Congrats to Zach and Tarn, wishing them all the continued success.
They are definitely in 'set for life if we make wise choices' territory. In another month I'm betting they will be in 'set for life even if we make foolish choices' territory. I'm really happy for them. They really stayed true to their passion and I'm happy to see them rewarded for this.
I'm happy for their success. However, I'm dismayed that it was their inability to pay for healthcare that landed them in this (albeit good) situation. It's not a situation that should be forced on citizens in a modern country, for which this particular example is a feel-good ending, but there are many more (orders of magnitude more) feel-bad endings, so to speak.
Wow, this is such a #goodnews story!
> "I'll have to rework… my, uh, whole life, figure out what the heck's going on there. I don't really have any ideas or plans right now. I've just been thinking about dwarf stuff."
> "My wife has plans," Zach said. "We live in a tiny little house, so buying a new house, that's a major goal."
> "I'll have to rework… my, uh, whole life, figure out what the heck's going on there. I don't really have any ideas or plans right now. I've just been thinking about dwarf stuff."
> "My wife has plans," Zach said. "We live in a tiny little house, so buying a new house, that's a major goal."
I love that they straight up said the game won't get any big discounts in the near (~2 years) future
>Q: When is the game going on sale?
>Not soon! And not for very much discount! Bay 12 and Kitfox are going to keep working on this for ~30 years, so it doesn’t make sense to follow normal Steam discounting. For example, we might discount 10% in a couple of months, but we also might not! We certainly won’t be discounting for more than 15% for at least two years!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/975370/view/36316205...
>Q: When is the game going on sale?
>Not soon! And not for very much discount! Bay 12 and Kitfox are going to keep working on this for ~30 years, so it doesn’t make sense to follow normal Steam discounting. For example, we might discount 10% in a couple of months, but we also might not! We certainly won’t be discounting for more than 15% for at least two years!
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/975370/view/36316205...
I’ve often marvelled at these guys and their approach: making one game into your life’s work. Rimworld is perhaps another example of continuously added depth/complexity (although perhaps too soon to call that Tynan’s “life’s work”). Perhaps it’s something peculiar to this genre - so-called management sims.
It seems to me a phenomenon that - while perhaps not unique in art - is both rare and very well suited to this medium.
It seems to me a phenomenon that - while perhaps not unique in art - is both rare and very well suited to this medium.
I am so happy for them. I remember reading about how they struggled living with their parents in their 30s. I could imagine how much self doubt they must have had executing the long term plan of doing a user friendly steam release... will it actually work? And it has! Bravo.
I'm so happy for these guys. Selling 300,000 copies @ $30 each is life-changing money. Over the years they've accepted donations but from what I've seen it's tended to a few thousand dollars a month. Decent but not a lot for 2 people.
I still find DF really inaccessible but this Steam release will prompt me to give it another go. Whatever the case, I'm happy for their success.
I still find DF really inaccessible but this Steam release will prompt me to give it another go. Whatever the case, I'm happy for their success.
Now that money worries are (hopefully) not an issue anymore, I really hope they consider releasing the source code.
Due to being written in C++, mods are quite restricted in what they can do (especially in comparison to more recent games like Rimworld that are trivial to decompile due to using C#). Especially frustrating because performance really isn't up to par - a lot of the old generational forts from a decade+ ago are really only possible now if you tailor your gameplay to account for performance issues.
Due to being written in C++, mods are quite restricted in what they can do (especially in comparison to more recent games like Rimworld that are trivial to decompile due to using C#). Especially frustrating because performance really isn't up to par - a lot of the old generational forts from a decade+ ago are really only possible now if you tailor your gameplay to account for performance issues.
Partner: "What the hell are you playing?"
Me: "Dwarf fortress! It's that game I used to play when I was in college working at the IT helpdesk. They finally added graphics!"
Partner: "I wouldn't exactly call those graphics..."
Me: pulls up copy of DF Classic
Partner: "...I see your point. And this game is fun?"
Me: "Imagine The Sims, if your sims could fight and you can only instruct them to build rather than building it yourself. And then set it in Lord of the Rings."
Partner: "Oooookay. How long have you been playing today?"
Me: looks at clock looks at clock again "Would you be mad if I told you six hours?"
Partner: "...I'm going to leave you to it."
11/10, amazing game. So happy for Tarn and Zach, they deserve every last penny of this.
Me: "Dwarf fortress! It's that game I used to play when I was in college working at the IT helpdesk. They finally added graphics!"
Partner: "I wouldn't exactly call those graphics..."
Me: pulls up copy of DF Classic
Partner: "...I see your point. And this game is fun?"
Me: "Imagine The Sims, if your sims could fight and you can only instruct them to build rather than building it yourself. And then set it in Lord of the Rings."
Partner: "Oooookay. How long have you been playing today?"
Me: looks at clock looks at clock again "Would you be mad if I told you six hours?"
Partner: "...I'm going to leave you to it."
11/10, amazing game. So happy for Tarn and Zach, they deserve every last penny of this.
>"We found a foolproof way of saving our money, which was to not sell anything for 20 years and then drop it all," Zach deadpanned.
Lol
Lol
I love the voiceover screencapture of how to play the game on the Steam demo videos. Would like it if more apps had tutorials like that from the creators.
source: https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/
source: https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/
This is so amazing and inspiring. I was actually sitting down lately and thinking about what my next project is, as I've been working on a few other projects for a few years now, but nothing that will make any money. I think it could be fun to work on that kind of game for a long time, and not feel that pressure to deliver anything. Then hire some people at the end to make it more palatable, I guess. Question is, how much is luck when you work on something for that long? I think that in that time-frame you can do anything you set your mind to!
Congrats to the Adams brothers.
To my knowledge, Dwarf Fortress is the closest thing to Hari Seldon’s Prime Radiant
To my knowledge, Dwarf Fortress is the closest thing to Hari Seldon’s Prime Radiant
I’ve played for about two hours over the last decade. So playing the game hasn’t given me all that much pleasure. But I got considerably more pleasure reading Let’s Plays, so I dropped the 30bux on general principle. Congratulations to them.
Congrats to them! Very rare to see people who follow their dreams no matter what their field become millionaires.
On a side note, I feel like I should like Dwarf Fortress, but every time I look at it, it seems completely daunting.
On a side note, I feel like I should like Dwarf Fortress, but every time I look at it, it seems completely daunting.
Congrats! I bought it with no intention falling down the rabbit hole again; rather, I owe them for all the time I spent playing in high school. So happy for them both!
Respect to the developers for their effort. But I would never get into dwarf fortress because to me the idea is kind of insane. I get that it is fascinating to try and model complex
real-world behaviour into a video game. But the truth is you can spend 100 lifetimes worth of time perfecting these systems that try to appear like a physical world (but really aren't) by trying to preprare for every possible situation the player can get into. And in the end you don't even come close to preparing for 0.1% of the possibilites.
So on one end you are mercilessly sacrificing gameplay for complexity to the point where the game devolves into manual reading. And on the other hand the complexity is never going to be enough.
Maybe in the future AI Networks will be able to come up with convicing game-systems like in dwarf fortress on the fly to offer an illusion of complex emergent behaviour.
So on one end you are mercilessly sacrificing gameplay for complexity to the point where the game devolves into manual reading. And on the other hand the complexity is never going to be enough.
Maybe in the future AI Networks will be able to come up with convicing game-systems like in dwarf fortress on the fly to offer an illusion of complex emergent behaviour.
They deserve all the money they will get from their game. I am really happy for them, they allowed us to play DF for free for so long that I would not be mad if the sell price on steam was higher. DF is an awesome game and I hope they continue to improve it and to add content.
Good job guys !
Good job guys !
Worth noting that in the Steam store it says Windows only right now. (no Penguin/Linux yet)
Lots of talk about the financials here, so I thought people might be interested in this financial simulator I've been working on.
Here's a very simple scenario that I set up to forecast Tarn and Zach's windfall:
https://thetortoise.io/shared-scenario/72ff9de5d4f64a408f83c...
I just set it up with an initial $4m balance and a 100k annual drawdown. It uses some fairly standard market assumptions and is all in real terms.
Feel free to experiment with it, and always happy to get feedback!
Here's a very simple scenario that I set up to forecast Tarn and Zach's windfall:
https://thetortoise.io/shared-scenario/72ff9de5d4f64a408f83c...
I just set it up with an initial $4m balance and a 100k annual drawdown. It uses some fairly standard market assumptions and is all in real terms.
Feel free to experiment with it, and always happy to get feedback!
I'm super happy for them. When they've got this version available off of Windows, I'll contribute some more to their, uh, new reality.
100% well deserved. I'm disappointed that there's no Mac release yet, but I'm sure it will come. As soon as it does, I'll be switching from the Patreon brigade to paid-for on Steam.
I love Dwarf Fortress, and I'm delighted that this labour of love has paid off for them.
I love Dwarf Fortress, and I'm delighted that this labour of love has paid off for them.
Congrats to the guys but my selfish hope is this helps spur some life back in to the Real Time Strategy genre -- so good news even if you aren't in to DF per se.
People are making a lot of assumptions about the finances of the publishing deal with Kitfox
Really happy for these guys. I've loved this game for 15 years.
Hopefully they don't go the way of Notch and spiral out of control
people like complex games as opposed to tunnel runners. and no AAA studio can compete with what dwarf fortress got.
Designed a second game, put all the marketing learnings into it, 48 hours after launch the biggest streamer on twitch was streaming it.
4 days later he quit working for me. Couldnt be happier for him.
The biggest thing I saw was that 2 guys, Unity, unity asset store and some upwork artists made a really pretty decent game. I love how this has come full circle. I'm 47 and back in the 8 bit days games were made by 1 or 2 people. 15 years ago this just wasnt possible, but now with unity, unity assets, remote for hire work, steam and twitch for marketing you can legit make it as a 2 person studio. I love it.
The distribution of Steam and viral marketing of Twitch have revolutionised indie development for the better. In addition to this, as an asset he now has a Discord server with 10ksss+ subscribers. I doubt he will ever pay for a $ of traditional above or below the line marketing.