“That’s it! We win… and it’s your fault!”
Dwarf Fortressreleased on Steam on December 6th and by the end of the month it had sold half a million copies. That’s according to the monthlyBay 12 Games report, in which its developers traditionally share their revenue figures from player donations. Now they have Steam sales figures to share.
“Thanks to everybody that helped out in December,” writes Tarn Adams in the update. “The launch went great - we won’t have all the specific numbers until mid-February when everything has been processed through Valve and Kitfox, but the game sold almost half a million copies in December, which is awesome.”
The infamously complicated (and wonderful) colony sim has been in-development for 20 years, and for the duration has been free to download and play but supported by players whodonatevia PayPal or Patreon. Its Steam release was co-developed alongside Kitfox and costs £25, for which you get a version of the game with a better UI, mouse controls, tutorialisation, an official tileset and more.
I don’t normally write ‘look how many copies this game sold’ stories, because unless you’re a shareholder, why should you care what a thing sells? We’re not a business site. I care in the case of Dwarf Fortress, because the game and its development have brought me tremendous joy for over a decade, and because its success now should guarantee that the humans behind it can continue its development for decades to come.
The December report also says that more bug fixes, quality of life features and the Arena mode are on the way to the Steam release. After those, they’ll start work on bringing Adventure mode to the Steam version. Adventure mode turns Dwarf Fortress into a roguelike played upon the same generated world as the colony sim mode. It’s great andan approachable way to start playing the game.
