[doug_life]

“In Feb. 2024, Stardew Valley reached 30 million copies sold, and if we assume each copy sold for $15, that means that the game could have generated a revenue of $450 million. A modest 10 percent profit margin puts ConcernedApe’s earnings at $45 million, a number that is likely to increase in the future.” Source: https://dotesports.com/stardew-valley/news/how-much-money-di...

[benoau]

TBH the profit margin on this game is probably closer to 100% than 10%, it was a solo-dev game so never much overhead, I think one guy was hired to work on it.

[tracker1]

30% off the top for most stores (Valve/Steam, Apple/iPhone, Google/Android, etc), then around 50% taxes between state, local... some fixed expenses and overhead. It's probably well under 20% in the bank after all is said and done. That said, it's still a lot of money.

[kevinh]

Valve's 30% cut would lower it substantially. Taxes might put it beneath 50%.

[3eb7988a1663]

The game has also been on sale numerous times for less than $15. It is currently available on Steam for $9

[kiba]

He also put an insane amount of effort, far more than most of us mortals.

[ehnto]

All the game markets take huge cuts. Steam is 30% if I recall correctly.

[jasonjmcghee]

Well he made a 10% deal with a publisher iirc and steam gets 30% - so that's a chunk right there

[foxrider]

Steam takes 30%, other stores take 10-20%

[geon]

Presumably he spent years working on it. His own time should be subtracted from the revenue too.

[pwdisswordfishy]

Why would 1 unit of this game have a "profit margin" of 10%? It's a video game. He's not selling canned goods.

[edent]

Of the purchase price that the end-user pays, the retailer has to pay tax. That knocks off a variable percentage. It would be 20% in the UK.

There's also the cost of selling through Steam / Google Play / Whatever - typically 30%.

I assume the developer has some professional expenses - an accountant at a minimum, probably a lawyer, certainly insurance. Maybe they also have a PR team, advertising, and the like. I don't know whether they pay for testers, translators, and things like that.

Then we get on to things like buying a new development machine, going to tech conferences, taking an educational course, backups, and all the other things that a business needs to spend on in order to be effective.

Maybe a profit margin of 10% is unrealistically low - but developing software has legitimate costs. The margin is never going to be 100%.

[philistine]

What do you think the profit margin of canned goods is? They make cents on every can. Something like 2-3%.

The video games industry is filled to the brim with gatekeepers who take their cuts. Valve takes 30%, just for their store. Publishers start at 10%. Your engine might take a cut.

Estimating that Stardew Valley, the big success video game with the lowest overhead bar none, has made 10% profit might be too low. 20%? Might be high.

[PurpleRamen]

Besides tax and the store's cut, the games also regularly sales and prices-changes. So you can't just extrapolate the price today with the amount of units sold and assume this to be the revenue.

[SXX]

There are regional pricing and sales. Good chunk of those 30 millions sold way below US price. He certainly earned what you say though.