Dwarf Fortress

The Steam premium release sold roughly 160,000 copies in its first 24 hours (6 December 2022). Bay 12 Games publishes public monthly financial reports — the one covering the launch month reported $7,230,123 in revenue, by an enormous margin the studio's biggest month in twenty years. Steam sales passed 1,000,000 copies by April 2025. No production budget figure exists in any meaningful sense: the game was developed by two brothers over two decades funded by direct player donations, which for most of that period ran at roughly $4,000-$6,000 a month.