Dwarf Fortress' triumph continues unabated, surpassing its two-month sales forecast and selling nearly half a million copies in less than a month (opens in new tab) Co-creator Tarn Adams yesterday told players exactly how much the game has earned since its Steam release in December ( (open in new tab): $7,230,123 and 58 cents.

That's roughly £5.9m or €6.6m, slightly more than the $15,635 (£12.7k/€14.2k) that Dwarf Fortress made in the month before its Steam release. By my calculations, that's an increase of over 46,000% (by my calculations, I mean the calculations in this online calculator (opens in new tab), so if my numbers are wrong, blame it on that). This is a life-changing turnaround, and not just because Adams and his brother Zach were able to hire an unprecedented second programmer (opens in new tab).

"The appreciation you give us is now part of our existence," Adams wrote. It carries us in the cars we drive and sustains us as the food we eat. It no longer has any existence other than that which you have given us."

Of course, not everything is in the hands of the creator. According to Adams, "a little less than half goes to taxes," as well as "to keep paying people's salaries, to pay for new business expenses, and so on." He says that "not all of it is personal money, but a lot of it is," so much so that the brothers have "solved the main health/retirement problems that plague independent people." They also feel that the money is sufficient to "safeguard the future of the game," and that they can safely welcome a new developer (called Putnam) to work on the Dwarf Fortress code.

And as if announcing himself as a billionaire, Adams continued with business as usual. He wrote, "I will start on the arena patch soon," he wrote, "then I'll get to work on improving my quality of life." The quality of life will continue.

"Dwarf Fortress" continues to be its own peculiar oddity, although many developers have been inspired by the game since its release in 2006.