Image via Bay 12 Games
Dwarf Fortress has topped 1 million sales on Steam in just over three years. Publisher Kitfox Games shared the news on Bluesky and thanked players for their support.
The brainchild of Bay 12 Games (the studio founded by brothers Tarn and Zach Adams), Dwarf Fortress had been in development for over two decades before it finally debuted on Steam in December 2022.
The procedurally generated fantasy adventure amassed a staunch cult following over the years in the guise of freeware, before Kitfox eventually partnered with Bay 12 to orchestrate a premium release.
Bay 12's game has dwarfed expectations
In a postpartum and publishing retrospective published by Kitfox in February 2023, the publisher revealed it had expected the title to sell around 160,000 units in two months. The game instead breezed past that milestone within 24 hours.
By the end of that two month launch window, Dwarf Fortress had sold precisely 606,342 copies—5,000 of which came from itch.io. Those sales earned Tarn and Zach Adams around $7 million, as opposed to the usual $15,000 they previously received each month via donations when the title was free.
Kitfox emphasized that success was the result of unique conditions that aren't easy to replicate. "Anything I say about Dwarf Fortress probably will not apply to your game, for various reasons," explained the publisher in its breakdown. "See this more like a tour of a model home—interesting, possibly historically remarkable as a moment in time, and ultimately not meant to be a navigational aid."
The publisher underlined that Dwarf Fortress had already achieved "legendary status" in some corners of the internet before arriving on Steam, giving it an immediate competitive edge. "Steam offers additional visibility and promotional opportunities to games that are already succeeding," it added, noting that its role as publisher wasn't to work on the title, bur rather to "maintain both trust and relative piece" between members of the Dwarf Fortress community while Bay 12 smoothed some wrinkles.
The full launch breakdown, penned by Kitfox founder Tanya X. Short, is available on Medium and remains a fascinating read.
