Other game developers spoke glowingly about Dwarf Fortress and its impact on launch day, with someone on the Steam forums saying that all the people reviewing the game on Steam shortly after launch were "playing free DF for 25 years, waiting for the opportunity to pay $30. Did you just wait?" I asked. So far, in a 237-page thread, nearly everyone has answered "Yes." Publisher Kitfox Games tweeted that Dwarf Fortress exceeded its projected two-month sales in less than 24 hours. Six days later, Dwarf Fortress has now sold about 300,000 copies, developer Tarn Adams said in an interview with PC Gamer.

"Tanya [Short of Kitfox Games] posted that we sold 160,000 units on the first day, and now we're about double that," Adams said.

Adams and his brother Zach, who have been developing Dwarf Fortress together since the early 2000s, have so far been surprisingly cool about the game's success on Steam.

Based on very basic calculations, Dwarf Fortress' 300,000 units sold equates to $9 million; subtracting Valve's 30% cut, $6 million would be split between the Adams brothers, Kitfox, and new contributors like the artists and composers involved in the Steam release. contributors. Of course, regional pricing makes this figure more ambiguous, and the Adams brothers did not discuss publishing distribution. However, "Dwarf Fortress" remains Steam's top seller, and the two must have millions of dollars in revenue.

"It's a lot of money indeed, but it's also 20 years worth. Divided by 20 years, "that puts them back in the range of a normal engineer's salary. But it's still quite high, obviously."

"I've found a surefire way to save money," Zach grumbled, "by not selling anything for 20 years and throwing it all away.

In 2019, the brothers announced plans for a Steam version of Dwarf Fortress as a way to cover medical expenses. Part of that announcement was to promise fans that they would take care of themselves; when Steam's first payment arrived in February and they became millionaires, they would have to figure out exactly what that meant.

"I think that's inevitable. 'I'm ...... have to remake my, uh, my whole life. Right now I have no idea, no plan. All I'm thinking about is the little guy."

"My wife has a plan," Zach said. 'We live in a tiny little house, so our big goal is to buy a new house.'

The first big problem next year will be finding an accountant in between Dwarf Fortress updates. But Tarn said the money that the Steam version will bring in should also last.

"We don't plan on selling Dwarf Fortress 2 or anything like that in five years. So that's the tail end of this game, however long it lasts. We have to be responsible for what we have.

If there is one game that epitomizes the long tail, it would be Dwarf Fortress. Six days after its release, the wish list has surpassed one million items, and the Adams brothers have years and decades of features to add. The future of Dwarf Fortress includes a tremendously complex magic and mythology system, improved armies and sieges, a reworking of the entire civilization concept of Dwarf Fortress, and an overhaul of the economic system.

And finally, after (at least) a decade of work on it: boats.

"Boats are the prize of the economy. Finally."