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are elephants the bane of dwarves?

HECK YA
- 26 (35.6%)
NO, CATS ARE
- 47 (64.4%)

Total Members Voted: 72


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Author Topic: What would microsoft do?  (Read 6693 times)

smeeprocket

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #45 on: November 28, 2014, 04:53:26 pm »
Yea I would personally make a baby just to sell to Satan for 1 billion+ dollars.

That's a lot of drugs and shiny things to bury my failed morality in.
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GavJ

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #46 on: November 29, 2014, 12:58:34 am »
Tarn Adams is only 36 years old, and has been working on dwarf fortress for 11 years. Not selling it for 2 billion dollars would be extremely dumb, no matter how you slice it, as far as I can see, no matter the motivations.

He has decades left, during which time he could make several other games as complex as dwarf fortress from scratch at the same rate he has made this one.

Except that he could of course code at a much faster rate on top of that, because he wouldn't have to worry about part time jobs now and then or making cartoons for donations, etc. He could hire maids and things to take care of anything he didn't want to bother with other than the games, and pay as few or as many helper staff as he feels like or can manage without having to use a team structure he doesn't like. And then go to town for the rest of his life doing what he loves with TOTAL security.

It's not a matter of selling out. It's a matter of being able to do what he loves even more efficiently than now OR selling out, whatever he truly desires. Plus the flexibility to do what he wants for a ltitle while then stop whenever it stops being fun and go just hang out as a billionaire.

There's really no reason not to do that. There are no downsides unless he just cannot conceive of ever coming up with ANY non-dwarf related ideas, which is silly. Of course he can.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2014, 01:00:10 am by GavJ »
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Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

Orange Wizard

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #47 on: November 29, 2014, 01:08:08 am »
Quote from: GavJ on November 29, 2014, 12:58:34 am
Tarn Adams is ... extremely dumb
Spoiler: lolnope, misread your post (click to show/hide)

...

Hah.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2014, 01:10:32 am by Orange Wizard »
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Quote from: Loud Whispers on June 04, 2016, 07:55:42 pm
Please don't shitpost, it lowers the quality of discourse
Quote from: Cinder on July 21, 2016, 09:25:53 pm
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GavJ

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #48 on: November 29, 2014, 02:21:20 am »
No, what I'm suggesting is that for $2 billion, you would walk away from the project entirely and go start a completely different game from scratch, and still have the prime of your life to do it in. I.e. still doing what you love, still beholden to nobody, still able to actually finish a comprehensive game of this sort, and $2 billion richer, which actually makes you a lot more free to do what you want and love.

Of course you wouldn't stay on as developer and be a lackey... If the deal has huge-ass strings attached like that (such that if you don't stay on you lose your money, etc.), then I wouldn't consider it to be actually describable as "selling the game for $2 billion" in the first place.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2014, 02:24:18 am by GavJ »
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Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

Orange Wizard

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #49 on: November 29, 2014, 03:58:12 am »
Yeah, I realised that 30 seconds after posting. Still, I don't really agree. If you want to say that guy's an idiot for not selling his life's work on the pretense that he can just do it again, fine. I prefer to value some things more than money.
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Quote from: Loud Whispers on June 04, 2016, 07:55:42 pm
Please don't shitpost, it lowers the quality of discourse
Quote from: Cinder on July 21, 2016, 09:25:53 pm
Hard science is like a sword, and soft science is like fear. You can use both to equally powerful results, but even if your opponent disbelieve your stabs, they will still die.

GavJ

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #50 on: November 29, 2014, 04:43:06 am »
The crux of it is that it ISN'T "his life's work," though. It's just 12 (?) years of work. Lives are a lot longer than 12 years.

It's basically like somebody going to college and majoring in history and then getting a history PhD (quite possibly ~12 years), and then getting an awesome, satisfying job that they still loved (but simply didn't have an existing research project to continue) in, I dunno, computer science, instead of history... and also becoming a billionaire at the same time. Would you ever think somebody like that could be making the wrong choice? I think that it would be incredibly counterintuitive to think so.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2014, 12:47:42 pm by GavJ »
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Cauliflower Labs – Geologically realistic world generator devblog

Dwarf fortress in 50 words: You start with seven alcoholic, manic-depressive dwarves. You build a fortress in the wilderness where EVERYTHING tries to kill you, including your own dwarves. Usually, your chief imports are immigrants, beer, and optimism. Your chief exports are misery, limestone violins, forest fires, elf tallow soap, and carved kitten bone.

Orange Wizard

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #51 on: November 29, 2014, 04:51:25 am »
Toady has said that he considers the game his life's work. It's also not really comparable to a PhD.
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Quote from: Loud Whispers on June 04, 2016, 07:55:42 pm
Please don't shitpost, it lowers the quality of discourse
Quote from: Cinder on July 21, 2016, 09:25:53 pm
Hard science is like a sword, and soft science is like fear. You can use both to equally powerful results, but even if your opponent disbelieve your stabs, they will still die.

evictedSaint

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #52 on: November 29, 2014, 07:14:30 am »
Wwmd if customers complained about a buggy game?

EDIT: I misinterpreted the point of this thread...
« Last Edit: November 30, 2014, 01:31:54 am by evictedSaint »
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pisskop

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #53 on: November 29, 2014, 10:42:49 am »
I think its easier to say no to relatively obscene amounts of money than one thinks. . .  Its easy to ignore the surreal.
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Orange Wizard

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #54 on: December 01, 2014, 03:28:59 am »
Well, if you're going to offer me 2 billions to test that hypothesis, I'd be more than happy to prove you right.
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Quote from: Loud Whispers on June 04, 2016, 07:55:42 pm
Please don't shitpost, it lowers the quality of discourse
Quote from: Cinder on July 21, 2016, 09:25:53 pm
Hard science is like a sword, and soft science is like fear. You can use both to equally powerful results, but even if your opponent disbelieve your stabs, they will still die.

BoredVirulence

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #55 on: December 01, 2014, 12:05:54 pm »
Honestly, Toady wouldn't sell out, because Microsoft isn't that dumb. Dwarf Fortress is great, but the code is probably in such an unmanageable state that it would devalue it greatly. Lets be honest, its not worth a lot to begin with, because the player base is comparatively small. Barring some miracle, Microsoft either wouldn't want it, or would offer too little to temp Toady, who would require quite a large sum to depart from DF.

Everyone does have a selling point. Some people may be so detached to make that point insanely high, and in theory someone might exist that has no selling point but I doubt it. Considering Toady's lifestyle, he seems pretty detached from material possession, relationships (which imply children and inheritance), and he seems okay with his finances the way they are. I doubt he has much of a need for money, and does this for the joy of it, and that's admirable and even envious. So his selling point is likely insanely high.

GavJ has a good point, it makes business sense to sell if the price is right. Toady has gained a lot of knowledge about how to make a game like this, and he could redo things better, maybe manage things faster even. With his money he could pay to have a like-minded team help him, or even just a consultant to advise and help organize things. He would have time, and with the money it could even be done more efficiently. He could pay to have people document his code, do the menial tasks, maybe even instill good coding practices which I'm sure he doesn't follow. And no matter how he wants things done, he could always find a way for money to help. So if he wanted, he could redo things better this time around.

No, more likely a situation is that Microsoft decided to expand minecraft to have advanced features already in dwarf fortress. They wouldn't buy DF though, they would at best hire Toady as a consultant. He would probably decline unless the money was quite good, as it would just be a distraction to him.
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smeeprocket

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #56 on: December 01, 2014, 12:16:18 pm »
Or he could not do any of that and just drink Crystal and rotate the brothel he visits on any given day. Maybe build a vault a la Scrooge mcDuck to swim in his vast fortune.
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miauw62

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #57 on: December 01, 2014, 12:44:07 pm »
As if M$ is interested in adding more functionality to Minecraft. Most of the new stuff is lame, and it's been like that for a while (even before MS bought Minecraft)
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k33n

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #58 on: December 01, 2014, 11:42:20 pm »
Quote from: Orange Wizard on November 29, 2014, 03:58:12 am
Yeah, I realised that 30 seconds after posting. Still, I don't really agree. If you want to say that guy's an idiot for not selling his life's work on the pretense that he can just do it again, fine. I prefer to value some things more than money.

I strongly agree with Orange Wizard.
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Weirdsound

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Re: What would microsoft do?
« Reply #59 on: December 03, 2014, 01:31:36 am »
A little snip from the full interview referenced by the Gamasutra article linked earlier in this thread...

Quote
Those ramifications are what has held the Adams brothers back from such a deal -- namely, the pair believes that they were actually end up losing money in such a deal, rather than making more.

"If people saw that there was this other thing out there, we considered in the worst case scenario, then the contributions from people would just dry up, and we'd be sitting with this lump sum that would not have added up to 10 years' salary or whatever. So do we want the stress of having to search for a new IP, or a new angle all of a sudden? We have some name recognition to be able to do that kind of thing perhaps, although it's a very chancy thing."

Intresting...

It sounds like a large part of the reason that Toady turned down the six figures is that he thought six figures wasn't enough for him and his brother to live the rest of their lives on if things fell apart. Of course, this was a proposed licensing deal, not a sale of the Dwarf Fortress IP or code, but it sounds like if somebody wanted to use the DF brand for their own games, Toady might let them if they offered enough money to survive on for another 50 years or so in case of 'the worst case scenario'.
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