Stardew Valley developer made a $125k donation to the FOSS C# framework MonoGame

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Scale and Motivation of the Donation

  • Many commenters praise the donation as unusually large for an individual dev and argue it “puts AAA studios to shame,” given how heavily the game depends on MonoGame.
  • Others push back, noting large studios have far higher fixed costs, investors, and staff; a solo developer with a massive hit can more easily give a “developer-year” worth of money.
  • Strong debate over whether this is “charity” vs “strategic sponsorship”:
    • One side: he’s securing his own supply chain at a bargain; that’s a rational business expense, not pure altruism.
    • Other side: self-interest and generosity can coexist; demanding moral purity around donations is counterproductive.

Corporate Support for Open Source

  • Some initial claims that AAA studios don’t meaningfully fund OSS are challenged:
    • Examples cited: Valve (Wine/Proton, Steam Audio), EA (EASTL), Epic’s MegaGrants (e.g., large grants to Godot and Blender), corporate funding via Igalia.
  • Skeptics argue corporate giving is mainly self-serving “empire expansion” or PR, especially in Epic’s case; defenders say motives don’t matter if the money sustains useful tools.

FOSS, Gifts, and Moral Obligation

  • Long subthread on whether profiting from FOSS creates a duty to “give back”:
    • One camp: free software is an explicit no-strings gift; licenses imply no legal or moral obligation.
    • Others: while not legally required, social reciprocity and sustaining public goods create a moral expectation, especially for top beneficiaries.
    • Several distinguish between legal obligations (licenses) and social norms (“you should,” not “you must”).

Stardew’s Economics and Indie Risk

  • Rough figures discussed: tens of millions of copies sold, hundreds of millions in revenue; store cuts (~30%) and taxes reduce personal take, but it’s still a huge success.
  • Multiple comments stress survivorship bias: thousands of indie games release yearly; only a tiny fraction reach even 10k sales. Stardew-type outcomes are “incredibly rare.”
  • Some compare success odds to a lottery; others argue focused effort and years of sacrifice (often supported by a partner) differentiate it from pure luck.

MonoGame, C#, and Engine Choices

  • MonoGame is described as a C# framework, not a full engine: you get an Update/Draw loop and low-level building blocks, not a Unity/Unreal-style editor.
  • This favors “code-first” projects; most modern studios are “art-first” and prefer full engines where designers and artists can work in parallel.
  • C# is defended as a strong choice: open-source .NET, good tooling, widely used in Unity/Godot/XNA successors, higher-level than C++ but statically typed and performant.
  • Console support for MonoGame must be distributed in private repos due to platform NDAs, similar to other engines; the core remains open source.

Indie vs AAA Culture and Design

  • Commenters argue indie games can focus on gameplay and emotional impact without huge budgets or management anxiety, while AAA tends toward risk aversion, tech-driven graphics, and heavy monetization.
  • Others caution against romanticizing indies: there is also “a ton of low-effort garbage,” and many polished titles still fail commercially.

Broader Ecosystem and “Giving Back”

  • The donation is compared to other notable indie/OSS contributions (e.g., to Godot, FNA, Ruby ecosystem), seen as “thank you” gestures that also help keep key tools alive for future projects.