Game development is not a career where many people make a fortune. Most are lucky to get back the monetary cost of their project. Occasionally, you see the opposite, such as what happened for the solo developer behind Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot.
That dev, operating under the name Hamma Studios, made a Reddit thread commemorating the four year anniversary of what's now a notable milestone for their career. In July 2022, they noted a flurry of activity on the Itch.io demo for what would become Dwarves, as it was played over one thousand times.
This led to a spurt of motivation for them to do more, though at the time they were unsure when an update might come, since they were just a hobbyist developer at that point. Well, a lot can happen in four years, and now Hamma Studios has shifted over 300,000 copies of the game, turning that hobby into a full-fledged career.
"That prototype became Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot and has now sold 300,000+ copies, completely changing my life," they write. "Guess the most important part is to just never give up. The 300,000+ copies were sold across Steam, Nintendo Switch, Android and iOS."
To be honest, it doesn't matter where they were sold – those are the exact opposite of rookie numbers. The full version of Dwarves, an auto-battler strategy RPG of sorts, arrived in January of this year on Steam, where SteamDB estimates over half of those 300,000 copies were sold, and over 80% of its reviews are positive.
A quick glance at Steam Charts reveals an all-time high of 5,195 concurrent players for Dwarves, which is not bad at all for a one-person, single-player release. In the comments of their post, the dev writes that, although "cuts and taxes" mean they aren't quite a millionaire, they're still in a good place financially.
"I get to live comfortably as a full-time gamedev (at least for a few years)," they write. In a follow-up comment, they break down how $1 million dollars in gross revenue on Steam would theoretically only yield $185,000 take home pay due to various charges, taxes, and so on.
One particularly notable chunk is a 40% cut for an imagined publisher. Sidekick Publishing and Gamersky Games co-published Dwarves, though it's unclear how their arrangement compares to the hypothetical presented.
That might seem like a lot, but since Hamma Studios is just one employee, there was likely substantial work taken off their desk in the deal, spread across admin, PR, marketing, and other headache-inducing bits and pieces.
All in all, the story is an interesting data point and a glimmer of hope during a distressing time in the games industry and game developers. Chase your dreams - you never know where they may take you.
