Dwarf Fortress Sells 600,000 Copies in Two Months

ign.com:

Dwarf Fortress has sold over 600,000 copies in its first two months on the market according to a new post from publisher Kitfox Games on Medium.

“In the first two months, which ended yesterday, we’ve now sold exactly 606,342 copies of Dwarf Fortress, almost exactly 5,000 of which are from itch.io,” wrote Kitfox Games co-founder Tanya X Short on behalf of the development team.

Prior to release, Kitfox Games posted the projections of an analyst who used the Steam wishlist numbers of previous titles to forecast that Dwarf Fortress would sell around 160,000 units in its first two months. According to Short, that same number of games were sold within 24 hours of its December 6 launch.

The success of Dwarf Fortress reportedly netted the game’s original creators, Zach and Tarn Adams, a healthy January paycheck of $7 million - a figure which dwarfs December’s pre-release earnings of $15,635.

Kitfox Games also posted the Steam traffic stats for Dwarf Fortress, revealing that the store page received a staggering 26.81 million visits in the first two months following its release.

Dwarf Fortress’s Steam release brought much needed graphics, UI and control improvements to the beloved cult classic from 2006, making it accessible to a new generation of gamer, and the game currently has a 95% positive score from 17,478 user reviews on Steam.

In our review of Dwarf Fortress IGN described the game as “infinitely explorable in its complexity and equally as rewarding in the depth you’ll find there, this is the quintessential world simulation and building management game".

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific