So far, Stardew Valley is the surprise hit of 2016. It's been one of the most-played games on Steam since it launched on February 26, on the top sellers list just as long, and has recently found itself as one of the most watched games on Twitch. That's impressive for any game, but the story of its creator, Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone, makes that success even more incredible.
Barone is the sole developer of Stardew Valley, singlehandedly authoring the game over a period of four years. And now, in a mere 12 days, Barone has sold over 400,000 copies of his game. In less than two weeks, he's gone from being a part-time theater usher (who's making a game on the side) to what we can only assume is a multimillionaire—and the only name behind one of the most exciting indie games of 2016.
I spoke with Barone about the unexpected success of a game he says basically started out as a Harvest Moon clone to teach himself how to code in C#. We also talked about what the money means to him, what's coming next to Stardew Valley, and a Stardew secret that no one has found yet.
Eric "ConcernedApe" BArone
PC Gamer: You made the whole game—absolutely everything in it—by yourself, right?
Eric ConcernedApe Barone: That's correct.
PCG: So that's art, sound, music, coding, everything?
EB: Yes.
PCG: How how long did that take?
EB: I think I've been working on the game for about four years. I mean, part of that was me redoing pretty much everything in the game multiple times, because when I first started I had no pretty much no experience. I had never done pixel art before, I had just very little coding experience, and the earliest versions of the game were, in my opinion, pretty horrible. So as my skills improved over time, I kept wanting to redo everything and improve on it, so that's part of the reason why it took four years. And I worked really hard the last four years, so I mean I can't even begin to estimate how many thousands of hours that I've worked on the game, but it's a lot.
PCG: If you weren't very experienced with coding and hadn t done pixel art and that sort of stuff, why tackle this huge project to teach yourself everything like that?
EB: You know, there's many reasons. For one, I just graduated from college with a computer science degree and I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I had applied at a few places and had interviews and I didn't get those jobs. So I was thinking what am I going to do, you know? I've always been into games. I've always been into doodling and making music, writing and all the various aspects of making a game, but I d never really thought about the fact that I could combine all those things and actually be a game developer. But I was looking for jobs, and I was thinking I would need some way to get better at programming, so I decided to start fooling around with making a game in C#.
I just thought it would be a small little thing. It would take me a couple months [...] But then—I don't know, for some reason I just kept deciding I wanted to go bigger and bigger...
As someone who had always grown up spending countless hours playing Harvest Moon and a huge Harvest Moon fan, and then always looking on PC to try to find like a fan-made or an indie Harvest Moon clone—I was never able to do that. I looked like all over the internet for it and I never found anything satisfying. So here I was deciding I would make a quick little game to try to learn how to code in C#, I decided I would make a Harvest Moon clone. Four years later that eventually evolved into Stardew Valley. At first it was just going to be a way to practice and get better at programming.
PCG: At what point in the process did the scope shift? When did you say wow, this is actually really fun and I want to keep going?
EB: It was actually pretty early on—but my ambitions for the game grew over time. At first I thought it was just going to be something I would release on Xbox Live Indie Games, which is kind of a free-for-all. Anyone can publish a game on there, I just thought it would be a small little thing. It would take me a couple months, I would post it to Xbox Live, and that would be it. But then—I don't know, for some reason I just kept deciding I wanted to go bigger and bigger with it.
PCG: How how does it feel after four years of work to see the game become so immediately popular?
EB: It feels great. It really feels great.
PCG: Were you expecting this sort of reception?
EB: I wasn't, no. I mean, I thought it would be popular with people who were fans of Harvest Moon or Rune Factory, and I thought that would pretty much be it. I never expected it to have such wide appeal. I mean, I'm super happy about it and I'm blown away by the reaction, but I'm surprised too.
PCG: What do you attribute that appeal to? Because it's obviously struck a chord with a large portion of PC gamers.
EB: I've spent a lot of time thinking about that, and I'm not exactly quite sure, but I have some theories. I think maybe it has to do with just indie in general. Like what are indie games? What should indie games be about? I think that one of the things that's special about indie is that it's kind of a personal connection between the creator of something and the audience. And it's kind of rare, I think, that someone made a big game entirely by themself, and I think that makes it a lot more personal, and that's kind of what people are looking for in an indie game. Maybe they didn't even realize that s what they're looking for, but it's kind of what makes 'indie' special, you know? It's not some faceless corporation that is giving you a focus tested message or focus tested experience. It s this raw connection between the creator and the audience. I think maybe people are ready for that sort of thing.
PCG: The last game I can think of where a lone developer made a game that has seen this much excitement and this much success so rapidly was with Minecraft and Notch—which is a huge bar to be compared to.
I definitely thought about Notch. [...] If you have a vision and the drive to turn that vision into reality, there's basically no limits to what you can achieve, and that was really inspirational.
EB: Oh, I definitely thought about Notch. It was definitely an inspiration. I mean, of course, I never thought I would achieve that kind of success—and I still haven't even come close to his kind of success. But when I started working on Stardew Valley, it was around when I had started playing Minecraft as well and I was thinking this proves that an indie game—there's no limits, basically. If you have a vision and you have the drive to turn that vision into reality, there's basically no limits to what you can achieve, and that was really inspirational.
PCG: So how many copies of Stardew Valley have you sold so far?
EB: Um, let me see. Let me refresh my little Steam back-end here.
PCG: You just have that open all the time?
EB: [laughs] Yeah, I've just been refreshing it all day. It's pretty exciting. I think it's at around 380,000 units.
[Note: This interview took place on 3/8, so I asked Barone for a more current figure. As of 3/9, he said there have been roughly 425,000 sales across Steam and GOG.]
On the next page: What the money means to Barone, and what he still wants to add...
PCG: How do you think your life is going to change?
EB: Yeah I mean, I don't want it to affect my life in any way. My lifestyle isn't going to change. My career plans haven't changed. I love making games and I want to continue to make games. If anything, this just makes it so that I can relax and create games without there being a huge amount of pressure, you know? Not only from myself and from life events, but also people that I know, family and everything. They know now that this isn't just some crazy pipe dream that I had. It's actually a real thing. That feels good.
PCG: Did you get a lot of pushback from your family developing a game for four years like this?
EB: I think they mostly believed in me, and I really appreciate that. I'm fortunate that I had friends and family who believed in me. But I wouldn't be surprised, and I wouldn't blame them, if they had a little bit of doubt that maybe I was just kind of insane.
I pretty much have ideas with regard to every single area of the game that I could expand on.
PCG: Were you working as well?
EB: I had a part time job at the local theater—I was an usher. So I was doing that, but also me and my girlfriend were living together—well, we still are—and kind of living off of her grad school stipend. Kind of scraping by, I guess.
PCG: Will the success of Stardew change the scope of the project? Do you plan on hiring people maybe to help you with it?
EB: I haven't really decided on that yet. In terms of the content of the game, I don't think I want to hire anyone. Like I was telling you before, I think part of what people like about Stardew Valley is that it s kind of like a personal thing. And I think the fact that it's been a success with me just working on it by myself—I don t really want to change that. However when it comes to things like porting the game or adding multiplayer or more technical aspects of the game, I'm open to possibly bringing more people into it. But I just have to assess that first and see if it's something I need help with or not. I like working alone, I like working by myself in many ways, so if I can get away with it I'll probably continue to just do it like that.
PCG: What do you plan to add?
EB: I pretty much have ideas with regard to every single area of the game that I could expand on. I want to release a pretty substantial free content update. That's my plan right now. When that'll actually happen—like, in what order I do things—I'm not quite sure yet. People, for example, have expressed a lot of interest in me adding more marriage candidates, especially Shane for some reason. And I'm definitely open to that. I like all the characters and so I'd be fine with adding pretty much anyone as a marriage candidate. Of course I only have a limited amount of time that I can spend on working on things but I'm going to try to basically expand every area I can.
I have a lot of ideas for end game content, to make it so that you can keep playing the game after two or three years in-game and there's more stuff to do, you know? These huge long term goals to keep you engaged with the game for a long time. Also the mines are an area that I think could use some more variety. I used to have dungeons in the game and stuff—that was back when the mines were procedurally generated, which didn't end up working out, but I would be interested in adding something like that again. Not necessarily procedurally generated dungeons, but just more varied areas to explore in the mines with some different gameplay mechanics.
[SPOILERS]
PCG: Is there anything in the game that you're unhappy with?
EB: Well, there's nothing that I really dislike. There's a couple things that maybe I regret a little bit, but I'm still actively releasing updates to the game and things might change a bit. For example Grandpa's evaluation at the end of two years I feel like is a little bit harsh. It s kind of something I added at the last minute to tie together the story with your grandfather, and I feel like it's a little bit too harsh and it kind of breaks the relaxed feel of the game. And many people who ve played it have expressed that same idea. So I'm actually working on that right now, even this morning I was finishing it up. I'm going to change that a little bit, make it softer. Make it more open ended, so you don't feel like there's some score that the game is evaluating you on and judging you for. I want Stardew Valley to be a really relaxed and joyous experience. I don't want it to be stressful at all or for you to feel bad that you didn't please Grandpa.
[SPOILERS ARE OVER]
PCG: What about co-op? Will that be part of the big content update you mentioned?
EB: I was thinking it would be separate from the content update, so that's why I was saying I'm not exactly sure what order I'm going to do the stuff in.
If there's one thing I ve learned from the development process of Stardew Valley it's do not make estimates. Because I thought that [the game] was going to be done two years ago.
PCG: When I was first hearing about Stardew Valley a year or two ago, co-op was almost the selling point of the game. Did you see Stardew as a co-op game first?
EB: You know, not really. I kind of felt like I needed to add co-op because that was something that would make it substantially different than Harvest Moon, and would kind of justify its existence at all. It kind of makes sense for PC. As the game evolved and gained a lot more character of its own, I felt like its existence was justified regardless of co-op. So I got to a point where the single player was pretty much done and I didn't really want to... a lot of people wanted to play the game, and I felt bad just holding off because I wanted to finish multiplayer which I didn't even know exactly how long that would take. So I just decided to release the single-player version. And I'm still going to add multiplayer. I mean, I've been saying that for a long time and that's a promise I've made, and I'm going to do my absolute best to follow through on that promise.
PCG: Do you have a sense of how long that might take?
EB: No. [Laughs] If there's one thing I ve learned from the development process of Stardew Valley it's do not make estimates. If you can help it, never make estimates. Because I thought that Stardew Valley was going to be done two years ago, three years ago, right? I was saying oh, it'll be done in a few months, and then three years later it finally is done. So I just don't want to make a promise that I can't keep, or even a suggestion that I won't be able to live up to.
On the next page: Stardew Valley's content update plans, the possibility of DLC, and a big secret...
PCG: Is DLC or paid updates a possibility for Stardew Valley?
EB: It's possible. I mean, the game has been such a success that I don't necessarily need to do that. I won't say that I won't do that, I don't know, it's possible. It depends on how substantial of an update it is, I guess. If I added like a whole new thing that took a long time to develop, I might consider doing some kind of DLC or something like that. But at this point, I don't have any official plans to do anything like that and any ideas that I have right now would probably just be free updates.
I want everyone to have a perfect experience with Stardew Valley. It's super important to me.
PCG: Lastly on updates, you patched Stardew several times within the first three days of its launch. Why not take a break?
EB: I was talking before about a one-man indie project and why that's a little bit different, and I think this is the same thing. It's like all of that pressure is on me. If anything goes wrong, if anyone has a crash or a bug, I basically feel personally responsible for it and it weighs heavily on me. I want everyone to have a perfect experience with Stardew Valley—It's super important to me. So that's pretty much it. I mean, I was just really stressed out at launch hearing people say that this and this doesn't work, the game's crashing—I mean, it's not like it was super buggy or anything. I don t want to say that, but there were some problems and I felt really personally responsible for it. So I just had to fix it as fast as possible, and there's still bugs I'm aware of and I'm working on another patch right now, which will hopefully be out either today or tomorrow.
PCG: But you were fixing people's corrupt save files manually. I think that goes above and beyond the call at that point
EB: Well, you know, it's like I said; I feel personally responsible for everything that goes wrong with the game, and I want to have a personal connection with the people who play my game. That's important to me, and so if that means fixing a random corrupt save file, well that's part of the whole thing.
PCG: The first Stardew Valley mods have already been created. Do you have any plans for official mod support, an API, Steam Workshop support, or anything like that?
EB: I'm definitely going to look into Steam Workshop support, it seems like a pretty good system for managing mods. I haven't really looked into it that much yet because I've just been so busy with fixing bugs and everything, but it's something I definitely am going to look into. I think that modding is really fun and can add a lot of life to the game. And personally I'm just excited to see what happens and to play these mods myself, because I've been playing the same game for four years now. I'm ready for some new content that I didn't develop myself, so I definitely will look into Steam Workshop support. I don t know about an official modding API. It's possible, it kind of just depends on how much demand there is for it. The game seems already pretty moddable in its current state, so I'm not sure if that would be necessary.
PCG: What did you think of the easier fishing mod, and the general outcry towards fishing in the game?
EB: I personally really love the fishing mechanic. In fact, it's one of the things I'm most proud of in the entire game, so I'm not going to change it. I understand that it's difficult for some people, and I think that even if you find it difficult at first, if you keep trying I think anyone can master it eventually. So my suggestion is just keep practicing at it. It's kind of like with any sort of skill in real life. It's tough at first, but eventually you get better at it and I think that's kind of what is cool about the fishing mechanic in Stardew Valley. But if people want to mod it and make it easier, I'm fine with that too.
Stardew Valley is the kind of game where there's not much challenge. It's not easy to make challenge in the game—it's a very laid back relaxed game.
PCG: Personally I agree. The fact that it's not just an easy click a button, catch a fish minigame means you can make fish more valuable.
EB: Yeah, exactly. And Stardew Valley is the kind of game where there's not much challenge. It's not easy to make challenge in the game—it's a very laid back relaxed game, so it's like this is one area where there's a little bit of skill and challenge involved, and I think that's fun. There's definitely people who enjoy that sort of thing, I know I do. I wanted the game to have something for everyone and be open ended so you can do what you like in the game.
PCG: At what point did publisher Chucklefish come into the process, and did you approach them or did they approach you?
EB: They approached me, it was maybe two years ago. I had put it on Steam Greenlight, and I don't know how they heard about me but Finn, the director of Chucklefish, approached me and he asked me if I wanted to be published by them—And I was like a nobody at the time. No one knew about Stardew Valley. They were working on Starbound at the time, it hadn't come out yet. So it was a huge opportunity for someone like me. I wanted to be a success but I didn't really know how to get any exposure, to get people to know about my game. So I signed on with them and they've really helped me a lot in not only helping me promote the game, but also just a lot of behind the scenes kind of stuff. Hosting my website, helping me set up the official Stardew Valley wiki, just people that I can talk to and ask for advice because they've been through this sort of stuff in the past. It's just nice to have some people that are on your team that you can confide in and get support from.
PCG: And they didn't have any direct influence on the actual development, right?
EB: Yeah, they had none. None at all. They didn't interfere or try to interfere at all with any of the development of the game, and they pretty much left everything up to me. It's all what do I want to do and then they help me achieve that, and that's mostly not actually development stuff but more all the other stuff that's involved with developing a game. Business side and PR and all that stuff.
PCG: Finally, are there any secrets in the game that you haven't seen anyone find yet?
EB: Yes.
PCG: Yes?
EB: Yes.
PCG: And you're not going to tell me what that is, probably?
EB: No, I won t tell you. [Laughs] I haven't told anyone.
PCG: Is it significant?
EB: It's not super significant, but it's kind of just so weird and obscure that I don't know if anyone will ever do it.
Thanks to Eric for chatting with us. For more on Stardew, check out our getting started tips and list of the best mods.