It’s been almost a decade ofStardew Valley, and it remains one of the most beloved games of its genre. We’ve given it top billing on plenty of lists, from ones that highlightgames in the farming sim genre, broadercozy game title lists, and I even named itone of the best PC games of all time. I’m not alone in the prolonged love for Stardew Valley, either – despite launching back in February 2016,the Steam Charts analysis of the gameas I’m writing this in June 2024 shows that just over 80,000 people played the game on Steam in the last 24 hours, which doesn’t even include all of the console and mobile players.
Fans of cozy games the world over have fallen in love with Stardew Valley, with each player finding something different to love about it. For some, it’s thediverse and fleshed-out the townsfolk. For others, it’sthe skill systemand all the gameplay variety it offers. At its core, playing a game like Stardew Valley is about your individual experience, and standing the test of time in an era when indie games are a dime a dozen (sometimes literally) has more than established it as a titan in the genre.
When I scrolled through the Stardew Valley subreddit over the weekend looking for word of when the 1.6 update might hit consoles, yearning to snuggle up on the couch with my Switch instead of sitting at the desk I’m at all day for work, seeing a tweet shared from a similar game, Moonfrost, made me wince.“What if #StardewValley was made by a bigger team and with technology available today?”
Stardew Valley Never Needed To Be Big To Be Great
For those unaware of Stardew Valley’s origin story, it was created by Eric Barone under the name ConcernedApe. What began as a Harvest Moon-inspired fan game Barone worked on in his free time was launched on Steam in early 2016 as the earliest iteration of the Stardew Valley fans know and love today. Some things we adore about the title were yet to come back then. Emily and Shane weren’t originally romance options, there was only the standard farm map until the 1.1 update eight months after launch, and the Ginger Island content added in version 1.5 was but a distant glimmer in Barone’s eye.
But that’s just the thing: Stardew Valleyisbeing developed “with technology available today,” because it’s still receiving regular updates. The last major additions came to PC in March of this year, with plenty of smaller patches since and an impending launch update for consoles and mobile as well. Hell, the most recent patch, version 1.6.8, is barely a month old as I write this. Stardew Valley is in no way limited by the technology Barone had access to in 2016, becausehe’s still developing it todayanddoesn’t see himself stopping anytime soon.
I’ll give it to Moonfrost that ConcernedApeisjust one person, a guy from Seattle who wanted to beef up his resume as he struggled to find a job. When Stardew Valley launched, he was quoted in an interview as saying he had “worked on it ten hours a day every day of the week,” a schedule that only increased as the game gained traction in a densely-populated genre. Even as the project scaled up, as other companies came in to help with the addition of multiplayer or asa small team of loyalists joined up with Baroneto help continue developing the game, Stardew Valley has largely been a one-man effort, and it’s been beloved for almost a decade. So clearly, it’s not the size of the dev team that makes the game great, either.
Taking Inspiration Isn’t Lame, Trying To Start Twitter Beef Is
Taking inspiration from things on the market that already work isn’t a bad thing – in any artistic medium, it’s almost expected. People want art made by people who love art because it feels most authentic that way. And when the love isn’t there from the developers in the making of a game, it’s probably not going to be there from fans of the genre once it launches as a cash-grabby approximation of another game, either.
Stardew Valley was inspired by Harvest Moon, a game plenty of farming sim fans grew up playing. Not one of those titles would have marketed themselves as being like Harvest Moon or implied they were better because of the scale of development. More doesn’t always equal better.
Other games would probably also not havehidden their crypto company investorsquietly in the background until they were called out for it, either, nor would theybe so purposefully vagueabout what exactly in their game requires backing from the blockchain.
The sentimentin the 600-comment, now-deleted Reddit postwas much the same, with plenty of other farming sim aficionados expressing disinterest in Moonfrost because of the unnecessary slight to Stardew Valley. Sure, there’s the saying in media that all press is good press, but it felt unnecessarily mean-spirited, not to mention inaccurate. Stepping on the people you looked up to along the way to get to where you’re going isnevera good look.
