Based on his royalty agreement ($7.50 per unit) and the stated total sales of around 100,000 units, he made $750,000 in royalties. Nice! Sorta wish I got royalties for my projects....
We get royalty money in the games industry. Of course it depends on the project deal, but often once the game has sold a certain number of units royalty checks start coming in. For very successful games these checks can be quite large.
i've had a couple proposals for projects that offered a perpetual royalty instead of upfront payment. i had to weigh the cost of development against the feasibility of the product "taking off" or just dying on the table and earning nothing.