this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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I mean it seems like it's been a household name for a while (I say as someone who does not closely follow pop-culture). Has their food/beer/housing money run dry? By all data that I can see, there is something wrong if they're not a multi-millionaire. That's putting it mildly as I'm sure they reached the "can live off this for the rest of my life if I don't blow it" point many times over very quickly even if you pretend early sales don't count.
Also low-cost gamedev is a lot more viable now thanks to gratis tools+internet help+modern funding options etc. Mindustry comes to mind. Price hikes aren't(/shouldn't be) needed to buy a dev a coffee/beer.
Though honestly my main reply was about the inflation claim in general that people like to use (common AAA conversation). But this is pretty silly too, inflation doesn't have much effect on an already-made digital product (and if the product is already fun, I don't see the point in continuously upselling like the hired-an-orchestra type stuff).
It's not just the three original devs any more they actually have a payroll to worry about and are easily burning through a million a year.
Raw yearly sales (assuming 500K at $30) is $15M though. This seems far from struggling territory or even breaking even, and their current costs are probably diminishing returns/unnecessary.
Even if you think the increasing investment is worth it, that's a different argument than inflation. To me it sounds like a lie for continuously growing profits just like any other company.
5M easily go to taxes, steam takes another 2M and with the 33 people that are listed on their site they probably loose 2M on salary alone. Then there is another 0.5M for license, real estate and infrastructure. While it still leaves 5.5M per year average, that's an extremely tight budget for the development of a new game.