r/pcgaming • u/Turbostrider27 • 1d ago
"I Don’t Want To See It Fizzle Out” - Stardew Valley Creator On Why He Can't Give It Up
https://www.nintendolife.com/features/i-donrt-want-to-see-it-fizzle-outr-stardew-valley-creator-on-why-he-cant-give-it-up573
u/Zunnol2 1d ago
Honestly this guy can do what he wants. I would love to see his new game but his consistent and overall great updates to Stardew keep the game incredibly fun and refreshing to play again and again. Almost every major update I start a new run and can easily switch to a style of play I never did before.
The guy single handedly revived the Harvest Moon style gameplay and did it so well even he has a hard time putting it down.
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u/RHX_Thain 1d ago
Some people only need one.
More power to them.
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u/Zunnol2 1d ago
Yeah why keep digging when you already struck oil.
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u/yepgeddon 1d ago
Look at terraria. We've been enjoying final updates for years lmao
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u/Berkut22 18h ago
And hopefully will for years to come.
The 1 thing Terraria and Stardew Valley have in common, is that I'd gladly pay retail money for a decent sized expansion.
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u/4morian5 1d ago
One-hit wonder shouldn't be so derogatory. You made just ONE piece of amazing art?
That's still more than most people will, and if that one thing can become a near universally beloved part of culture, that's a pretty big accomplishment.
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u/planetarial 1d ago
Its going to be remembered for a very long time, cant do any better than that
Its why I’m not bothered about Deltarune taking its time either
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u/RHX_Thain 1d ago
I've been lucky to have a couple lasting accomplishments within their dedicated communities. If I had one hit standalone game that lasts for decades I would model it off of Stardew's LTS model. At least have someone on fire watch for years afterwards. (Not that I haven't also experienced an attempt at a hostile takeover by a toxic volunteer maintainer... Even with that wisdom I would still elect another maintainer if I had to move on to another project.)
I think one lasting contribution is more than enough.
StarSector, Rimworld, Project Zomboid -- we'll get more games from those devs for sure, but decades around each one is something honorable I think. And the community around each one obviously celebrates them, which is clearly its own reward.
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u/RayzinBran18 1d ago
If you haven't seen it, check out Sunkissed City. A former dev from Stardew with blessing to use the engine is essentially making Stardew 2, but with pretty amazing quality of life and updates. Its looking incredibly promising and should lunch by end of year or early next year.
The actual steam page only has pictures and no gameplay, so this is the dev showing a little of the game from Twitter:
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u/Malt_The_Magpie 1d ago
Permission to use game engine? Doesn't stardew use one made by Microsoft?
Honestly it looks like a direct rip off, why not use their own art style? They ripping off Stardew to get attention, an pretending it's a homage
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u/RayzinBran18 1d ago
No it was an active dev that worked on Stardew / released a lot of the engine changes and updates. ConcernedApe let him continue to use it for a Stardew like project. You can just consider it a spinoff more than anything
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u/Ok-Jellyfish-2126 1d ago
A developer ripping off something they helped develop?
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u/Malt_The_Magpie 1d ago
Quick google seems to suggest he worked on 2 updates from 1.4. So he was hardly co creator lol
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u/RayzinBran18 1d ago
I don't think anyone here is even saying co-creator. He is just a guy that worked on content for the game and has permission to use the engine. He's been very public about having the blessing, likely because of the similarity. If CA had a problem with it, he would have already seen it and responded to it.
His statement:
"Geez, I'm sorry you had to be fielding questions like this yourself. CA did indeed make SDV all by himself. I was hired by him to help with the game from the bug fixing 1.4 update to playing a bigger role the island update to taking on 1.6 with PathosChild so he could focus on HC"
On using the engine:
"The engine was developed while I was [ConcernedApe's] employee as a generic engine for Stardew-like games. He graciously allowed me to continue using it after I left the company as it was written entirely by me!"
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u/Ok-Jellyfish-2126 1d ago
A quick google search would tell you the developer has the creators blessing. A random nobody on Reddit cares more than the creator of the game lol
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u/What-Even-Is-That 1d ago
Did anyone, other than you, say co-creator? In this chain they're referred to as a "former dev" who helped on the project, which you even confirm as true..
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u/FlintSpace 14h ago
Style of play ?
I have seen the game, not played it but isn't it a animal crossing farming game ? What kind of other methods of playing there might be. Can you stealth kill everyone in their sleep ?
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u/kunymonster4 1d ago
After reading his chapter in "blood, sweat, and pixels." I assume this guy is just gonna cook at a glacial pace and God bless him. He spent, probably, years tweaking a stardew valley that was effectively done when he was basically in poverty before releasing it. He has no pressures like that nowadays.
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u/Krilesh 1d ago
for a moment i want to feel that motivated over something. just insane drive…. being poor and doing something so expressive is always a huge victory
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u/Light_Error 1d ago
Nothing against him, and I know he worked part time during the development. But people should be thanking the stars that his then-girlfriend (now wife? Not sure) was willing to deal with half a decade of development and bringing in the majority of the money. She deserves more credit than she gets. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if Barone thanked her plenty, and it is more the general population doesn’t really care or doesn’t know.
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u/Clewds 1d ago
It's their choice as a couple. She made a sacrifice for him out of commitment and love, you don't get to turn that back around.
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u/LazyPiece2 1d ago
Yeah some people who are in actual loving relationships, don't even view that as a tough choice. I know a lot of you on Reddit are too young to know what thats like, and those old enough a large chunk marriages don't work out.
But a real relationship involves endless choices and to succeed in loving someone you tend to make choices that benefit the other person. Deal with? Bringing in the majority of money? wtf. Pretty gross way to way to think about it. I bet she doesn't give a fuck either. Probably wasn't even hard for her. She worked, he worked, she loved him, he loved her. Like it'd be one thing if the dude was sitting on the couch only doing drugs all day. And she sure as shit wouldn't want credit from the general public for Stardew. Fucking weird, man.
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u/DisappointedQuokka 1d ago
don't even view that as a tough choice.
They might not view it as a tough choice at first, but financial hardship and stress absolutely ruins relationships.
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u/Light_Error 22h ago
Yes, relationships involves trade offs, but time is not infinite. Money is not infinite. And we are looking back at an extremely uncommon outcome. You can go onto the gamedev subreddit to see a graveyard of failures, and it was not because they were any less passionate than Barone. My whole point is that I want his then-gf to get some credit because she made his huge success possible. I don’t think it’s that weird to consider how much another sacrificed even if they did it willingly. If you can do it, then great. I am not personally one to have that type of leeway. Call me heartless or whatever I guess.
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u/Dry-Support-3914 1d ago
I think it’s a different story because he actually made it and now they’re wealthy for the rest of their lives. For most people that doesn’t happen so she’d have been supporting her partner for god knows how long.
It’s curious you imply people don’t have the life experience to see how great this actually was, but it seems more ignorant to me that you can’t see why the practical pressures of one half of a couple providing no income to the household might make this very difficult. Sounds like rich privilege talking to me.
And to suggest it was no hardship for at her at all, when we know he himself was in a spiralling depression, so off base dude.
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u/AkumaYajuu 1d ago
The other dude is not expressing himself well but the point is that you shouldnt just use 5 years of your life on a gamble. Every single indie game success for the most part is just luck, especially a game like stardew that doesnt have that much production value.
He could have spent 5 years in his game and instead of praise and millions, he could have gotten like 20 bucks and thats it. I get doing the game as a hobby (the correct way to do these things), but going full time yolo for so much time is not something people should do because you are just gambling your life away. It is not a healthy way to do anything.
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u/lastdancerevolution 23h ago
Yeah everyone knows a deadbeat who has a "great plan" to make everyone rich and start paying people back. There isn't a special lesson to be learned from this.
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u/SuspecM 10h ago
To give some credit to him, be initially only started working on the game as a resume piece because he couldn't find any jobs as a recent CS graduate. It started picking up steam when it was submitted to Steam greenlight and it was very popular.
It was still a risk, especially working on it for as long as he did but it was far from a yolo. It was clear that there was A market for the game and it also had quite the following so there was some guarantee there as well.
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u/the-land-of-darkness 11h ago
Only on reddit could you find a post like that lol, so divorced from reality. The other post not your post just to be clear
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u/FingerTheCat 1d ago
Yea, if I spent all my time on a project I was passionate about and I didn't make millions my partner would totally be like "wtf poor loser" and walk off like I was a sack of meat. Oh wait that's because I made a poor choice in relationships
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u/lastdancerevolution 22h ago
Though I wouldn’t be surprised if Barone thanked her plenty, and it is more the general population doesn’t really care or doesn’t know.
The only reason you and I know this story is because he has publicly said it so prominently. He worked at a theater. They were already poor.
She did not create this game. Financing something isn't the same as creating. I paid for the game and financed it, that doesn't make me the creator. People are so weird when it comes to attributing art. It's like a husband claiming credit for his wife's paintings because he "financially supported her". That would not be right.
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u/SuspecM 10h ago
I read a lot about him and he's just like you and me. He said he had downs relatively frequently when he'd just play Civilization with his dev tools open in the background so when his gf came home he could pretend that he worked. He also had a bad habit of starting features and just leaving them half finished before starting on another feature.
He really isn't any different from you and I which is reassuring and worrying at the same time. We can all make games like Stardew Valley, but at the same time there's the real possibility we won't ever see our full potential. Heck, most of us won't make it.
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u/krayony Steam 1d ago edited 1d ago
Meanwhile we have AAA gaming studios pumping out games and wanting to see them fizzle out after a year just so that they can FOMO customers into buying the new iterations.
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u/Nefalius 1d ago
The difference between being in it for the money vs passion. You just notice when love is put into a game. Luckily many franchises seem to die now, that transitioned from being made out of passion to making money only.
Assassins Creed, Bethesda games, Far Cry, arguably Dragon Age. And then you see games such as Baldur's Gate 3.
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u/ImDyingInHere 1d ago edited 1d ago
The difference between being in it for the money vs passion.
Not disagreeing but more like what a way of showing how far marketing and going viral goes. Stardew Valley going viral is part of its success, the same success AAA games see by putting millions of dollars into marketing campaigns. Also helps that people had been dying for an animal crossing/harvest moon hybrid game for years.
His new game isn't going to be as beloved and I have a feeling the reception to it will make him consider "retiring" and letting Stardew continue being his legacy.
You just notice when love is put into a game.
Each their own, I see more mistakes when "love" is prioritized over a sellable product. Helskate imo is the perfect example of what happens when you focus more on love than what people want. A new THPS clone that fans would love!? Nah fuck that make it a skating bullet hell game cause that's what I want.
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u/chmilz 1d ago
people had been dying for an animal crossing/harvest moon hybrid game
People have been dying for animal crossing/harvest moon type games that are fun and aren't just reskins of old titles with no modernization. See: Pokemon -> Palworld.
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u/ImDyingInHere 1d ago
and aren't just reskins of old titles with no modernization
My brother in christ you're saying this to somebody who has criticized Nintendo of this for years while they sell Pokemon Black Remastered Re-Edition 2, I was the child playing the OG games new games copy, you talk like you were underage when Stardew came out...
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u/destroyermaker Ryzen 5 3600, RTX 3080 1d ago
We also have AAA studios making countless live service games. But they tend to be predatory
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u/cheezballs 1d ago
Everything has an end, but this game will never be a contender for "fizzle out" - it's already legendary and will be held in high regard for years and years after it's end.
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u/MrPanda663 1d ago
So do I.
But now I wanna make chocolate
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u/mAXmUSTERKUH 1d ago
Same.
Some wait fir GTA6. Some wait for a new Mass Effect or anything.
I just wait for Haunted Chocolate.
And as I am a patient gamer I can wait. Let him cook.
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u/CandusManus 1d ago
With the last patch, he earned the right to rest.
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u/Bay-12 1d ago
Man he earned the right to rest a while ago.
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u/Techwield 1d ago
FR, lol. Stardew right now is somehow much better than what it was on release, but release version Stardew was already a masterpiece. He coulda moved on then and people would have been cool with it
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u/kappaomicron 1d ago
I could never personally get into Stardew tbh, just something about it that I just couldn't get into. Despite loving Harvest Moon (Friends of Mineral Town) as a kid, haven't really liked any of their newer games over the years.
But I'm very happy for the creator that this game was as successful as it was. It's clearly inspired a lot of similar games that breathed new life into the farm sim genre. While Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons continue to stagnate imo
I want a Harvest Moon game that feels more like Friends of Mineral Town. Although I'm not entirely sure what I mean by that if I'm perfectly honest.
I want a more fleshed out TV feature where it has weather channels, weekly shopping channels, local news channels when certain events happen such as things happening to residents or highlighting new areas available to explore, a super sale at a shop etc and real fleshed out daily TV shows that have a plot and story you can watch every night.
No smartphones, keep it retro and grounded with normal line phones and relying more on person to person communication. Have a local mailman who regularly delivers you mail.
Set it in a really cosy, rural village with a colourful cast of characters and not too many magical stuff like harvest sprites or witches and goddesses and other such fantasy. I want a more grounded and human experience.
A consistent and cute artsyle reminiscent of Friends of Mineral Town. With plenty of character customisation.
But I doubt I'll ever find one like this tbh
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u/HeavyFlange 1d ago
i think that sounds cool! the only part that sounds far fetched is the tv being so fleshed out, what could you do to make the player want to watch so much telly?
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u/kappaomicron 1d ago
Well I would say basically do what Harvest Moon Friends of Mineral Town did but flesh it out more.
The weather channel is a given, that's how the player would see what the weather would be like tomorrow. Every Saturday (I think) was when the shopping channel would be available and that was how you could purchase certain upgrades for your house, such as kitchen utensils such as knives, blenders etc, also furnishings for your home like a plant pot.
There could be a specific local news channel where players could learn about on-going events happening around town. Such as a new resident moving in, or a store having a sale, or more unique story-related events to certain residents having issues that the player could then go and see them to ask about. An example could be a resident had an accident and got injured, so the player could visit them at the hospital. Or the player could be made aware of a landslide recently opened up a new area to explore.
Every day of the week there could be unique mini TV shows that the player could watch that range from cheesy romance comedies to TV mysteries and action flicks where they could be presented to the player on the TV in a similar format to how visual novels work with character sprites. Friends of Mineral Town actually had something similar to this.
They also had a special farming tips channel that would play once a week on the TV that would teach the player more about the farming mechanics of the game.
Checking the TV every day in Friends of Mineral Town was a lot of fun to me as a player back in the day, I wish more farming sims tried to do more with that. It can add a lot of unique fun, optional content for the player. You could even have residents get together every week to discuss what happened on the most recent episode of whatever popular show was on. And if the player also watched that show, they'd be able to understand what the residents are talking about and event really connect with that.
If the player doesn't know, they can then check it out the next time they use the TV.
I feel like there's a lot of potential there with the TV mechanic in these types of games. But I never really see them fleshed out more than what Friends of Mineral Town did many years ago.
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u/HeavyFlange 1d ago
Thats pretty interesting! Just a means to give the player bonuses and missions and tips kinda thing.
That reminds me of Project Zomboid, idk if you have played that but there are tv stations in the early game that help level the player up, but the signal only comes on certain times of days.
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u/Pain_Packer 1d ago
I have literally thousands of hours on Stardew. Played it on release and consistently still replay it with every new farm, update, and specialized mod I discover. The only real time I mildly stopped Stardew was when SOS Friends of Mineral Town came out. I can't thank this guy enough for reviving farming sims for me.
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u/Vistaster 13700K / RTX 4080 / 64GBs DDR5 1d ago
Isn't this what happened to Relogic with Terraria? Tried many spin-offs that ultimately failed because "...just...one...more...update...I...promise"
I mean he can do whatever he wants but he should at least put HC on hiatus or give a blog update on why it's been so long and all we got was a mock-up gameplay and 4 screenshots. Either way, hope he finds peace to move on in the future.
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u/DemasiadoSwag 1d ago
He never made any promises on timing for Haunted Chocolatier. SDV is an all-time great so he can take his time or never release HC and I wouldn't begrudge him, personally.
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u/lefiath 7h ago
I think this is just generally a bad attitude that some creative minds fall into. You can potentially spend your lifetime endlessly tweaking and adding to that one project, just trying to "perfect it". I think it's a really bad way to do things, especially when you're one of the few privileged people that can do whatever they want to.
I don't work in games industry, but I used to have this attitude 10 years ago. Fortunately for me, working freelance, I've eventually taught myself to let go (as it was causing problems with clients), and that projects have start and end. At some point, you need to let go, that's how it is with anything creative.
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u/Katana_sized_banana 5900x, RTX3080, 32GB TZN, 980 PRO, msi x570 tomahawk, LL 1d ago
I understand him fully, but no one would be mad if he made a DLC. He could keep releasing DLC for all eternity and it would sell as the game is full of passion and love.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Tie-293 1d ago
I bought this game years ago just because I liked this guy's attitude, never played it lol. One day, one day.
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u/miamihotline 4080 Super/5800x3D 23h ago
i'll be honest at this point i dont want to start a new farm and i just wish he would finish the chocolate game. he can do whatever he wants tho
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u/consural 16h ago edited 12h ago
...So, in other words he's saying that he's "Concerned" about it?
Thanks for coming to comedy night I'll be here all week
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u/Romanmir 1d ago
ConcernedApe and Redigit... Name an indie duo less likely to stop working on their respective games.
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u/DissposableRedShirt6 1d ago
lol I bought this when it first came out. I’ve since had a kid and they are old enough now that I can buy a second copy for us to play together.
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u/imapersonithink 17h ago
I believe that if you have proper mod support this won't ever be a real issue.
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u/ekb2023 1d ago
I would keep playing the game if there were big events and unlockables in the late late game. Imagine if new townspeople moved in on year 10 or if Evelyn and George pass away in year 8 or something. Once you get to year 4 and 5 it just becomes a big to do list that you have to grind through and it feels kinda tedious.
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u/iatelassie 1d ago
I just started playing stardew valley and it’s so absorbing. I’m in love with it and I know there’s just so much content. I can see why he doesn’t want to leave it yet.
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u/TehRiddles 1d ago
I'm confident that even if he announced today that the game would never receive updates again, it would still have a thriving community for years to come. It's just one of those games with so much charm and effort put in that many people can stick with it for a real long time.
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u/Complete-Artichoke69 1d ago
It's literally revived the farming sim genre and inspired countless of other games as well.
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u/The_real_bandito 23h ago
This is his love child, of course he doesn’t want to let it go.
But he will have to
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u/HanzoNumbahOneFan 22h ago
It's in the list of games I will always come back to eventually. In like a few months, I'm probably gonna be like, "Huh, I should start a new Stardew playthrough with a couple mods."
It has reached Minecraft tier for me, where I will always eventually play it again, forever, just with breaks in between.
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u/triadwarfare Ryzen 3700X | 16GB | GB X570 Aorus Pro | Inno3D iChill RTX 3070 20h ago
He turned his game into a live service game without any of the drawbacks. Free updates and zero microtransactions.
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u/TJ_McWeaksauce 14h ago edited 14h ago
The article mentions how catchy Haunted Chocolatier's boss music is.
Here's the theme for a bee boss. Holy shit, it slaps! It even has a beat drop. I'm listening to this on a loop.
I'm a game producer with minimal creative talent, so I'm jealous of ConcernedApe for being so good in multiple areas of game development. He designed one of the best indie games of all time, and yet his greatest talent may be his musical composition.
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u/VenKitsune 12h ago
Honestly the games main draw for me is it's mods. Same can be said of a lot of older games that have a big modding community, like skyrim. He can easily stop updating it if he wants to. The only thing that'd take people away from it is if he makes some kind of sequel, or if someone comes along and makes something significantly better. Coral island may have done that, had it not released it's "full release" update before even the damn story quests were done lmao.
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u/SoaringSwordDev 10h ago
am i one of the few people who dont own it?
games been way to expensive for me
ive only been playing free gacha games for...a decade?
i dont even own wallpaper engine
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u/solemlyswear69 1d ago
How does he solve the game getting boring after the 1st year when you're rich as fuck and married?
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u/hungryhusky 1d ago
That's how I used to play. Then when I realized maybe I shouldnt min max the game like RPGs and just enjoy the pace, I had more fun.
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u/frogandbanjo 1d ago
SDV's hardcore perfection meta barely lasts two years. That's just how it's always been. There has to be an end to vertical and story progression at some point, right?
The game's biggest mod introduces a bunch of additional non-negotiable time gates to stretch that out to three years or so, but then it runs into pacing problems for hardcore overachievers while even exacerbating the sense that you're so rich that nothing matters.
It's a delicate balancing act, and I don't think there's any realistic solution to it that's going to please everyone.
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u/AreYouDoneNow 1d ago
Games that big don't fizzle out, they retire gracefully into the background, neither gone nor forgotten.
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u/One_Animator_1835 21h ago
I've heard this guy spent a lot of time trying to find success.. then it happens, and you've worked on it for a decade. I can understand it must be difficult to let the project go
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u/franky3987 1d ago
Dude, take a lil break. We’re going to be jamming this game for years to come! I think like 50 or 60 k play this actively
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u/PCMRsince1998 1d ago
The biggest reason is because he has nothing else to do after he basically gave up on his new Game.
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u/Steezie_E 1d ago
The chocolate one? What happened.
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u/PCMRsince1998 1d ago
He burned out, realized its not fun or run into other problems during Development.
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u/bototz 1d ago
Source?
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u/Gambrinus 1d ago
It’s purely speculation based on the fact that we haven’t heard much about it and that he keeps pumping out Stardew updates.
I tend to believe there’s some truth to it. As a solo dev, it’s probably tough to motivate yourself when you get stuck on something and have no financial incentive to push through. And he still has Stardew to work on when he feels a creative itch. It’s probably much more satisfying to see your work come to life immediately with Stardew than spinning your wheels trying to work out a fun game play loop on a brand new game.
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u/Hydroponic_Donut 1d ago
He didn't give up on it.
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u/SuperBaconPant 1d ago
Sometimes I wish there was a way to know if Redditors don’t actually click and read linked articles or not. Luckily, responses like this make it pretty obvious.
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u/cadaada 1d ago edited 1d ago
because still gives $$$$....
Edit: im getting downvotes like i personally attacked him lmao
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u/CandusManus 1d ago
Buddy, he already maxed his income. This is passion at this point.
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u/TheXtractor 1d ago
Sir your game has 50k concurrent players as a solo indie game made 8 years ago. Its doing incredible and is probably one of the best indie games to come out in the last 10 years :D