Stardew Valley is 10 years old this month.
The popular life/farming simulator made waves when it first dropped on February 26, 2016 on PC, quickly becoming beloved for its loving recreation of some of the best aspects of the old Harvest Moon games, while also determinedly following its own path with elements such as the mines, a much wider variety of crops and animals, and queer relationships.
Over the last 10 years, a series of updates have kept the energy alive, adding even more farming activities, more people to marry and befriend, more dungeoning adventures, more seasonal events, and just... more. Of everything. It remains wildly popular as a result, having sold nearly 50 million copies since its initial launch and still drawing hundreds of thousands of players on a daily basis on Steam alone, not to mention all the other platforms it's come out on.
Stardew is consistently among the most-played games on Steam, and retains a massive community of players, content creators, modders, and other artists all participating in its fandom. We re-reviewed it in 2024 and gave it a 10/10. There's a cookbook. And a symphony tour. My most normie, non-video game friends have played it. It's everywhere. And it's somehow not done. A planned 1.7 update is still in the works and (as you'll soon see) it seems unlikely creator Eric Barone (ConcernedApe) will be able to put the game away even after that.
The story of Stardew Valley's creation has been told and retold across numerous articles and interviews, so in celebration of its 10th anniversary, we took a different approach. We sat down with Barone for a lengthy interview not about the game's beginnings, but about its journey over the last 10 years, and its future. You can read some shorter highlights in our stories about new marriage candidates coming in 1.7, why there isn't a Stardew Valley TV show, the secret no one's found yet, and how Haunted Chocolatier, Barone's next game, is doing. We also spoke to a handful of Stardew Valley fans and creators about what the game has meant to them over the years, and you can read that here.
But for the fans who want everything, as we did, we've republished the full Q&A with Barone here, lightly edited for clarity:
IGN: Well, let's start off easy. You're about to enter year 10 of Stardew Valley. How do you feel?
Eric Barone: That's right. It's been so long. I just can't believe that 10 years has gone past. It was a blur, I would say. And it's 10 years since launch, but it's been almost 15 years since I started working on Stardew Valley. So for me, the majority of my adult life now has been basically dedicated to Stardew Valley. This is my entire life. So it's hard to even be objective about it, to be honest.
I've been blown away by how popular Stardew Valley is, how many people have played it, how it continues to be popular 10 years after launch. I think that's a crazy thing. It's not something I would've ever expected, but the amount of love for the game is one of the reasons I've continued to work on it for so long. It's difficult to stay locked into one project for 15 years. I definitely have urges to work on other things, but then Stardew Valley keeps drawing me back in, really just because there's so many people who love the game.
You've talked a lot about the development of the game in the past and that process. So I don't want to make you retell that story. But in these 10 years since it's released, I'm curious about your evolution as a developer. You've been working on this game for far longer than that, but what do you think are the biggest changes you've undergone as a game developer since Stardew Valley released?
Barone: I think the biggest thing was transitioning to working with other people. When Stardew Valley first came out in 2016, I literally did not work with anyone, not a soul. It was entirely my own project and I did everything. Since then, now I have a pretty good-sized team of people helping me with the updates and with the business side of things. Really with everything, managing the forums and all that stuff. So that's been a big change. I wasn't used to it. It took me a while to get used to working with other people.
I mean, it's been really great with my team that I have now. They do great work. They add their own unique sensibilities and ideas to the melting pot of Stardew Valley. There's just so many things that I couldn't have done on my own. For example, translating it into 12 different languages, adding multiplayer. There's some technical things that are just beyond my skill level. I'm a very amateur developer. I still feel that way. I'm just a total amateur. It's good to have some people who are more technically focused, for example, and can help me with some of those things. Really polish up the game, make sure it's running smoothly, that multiplayer works in a seamless way and all of that.
That's been the biggest thing is working with other people, but also just, I guess, getting used to the prominence of Stardew Valley. I think back to, I think it was September, I was at one of the Stardew Valley concert shows in LA and it was at this huge outdoor venue with 5,000 seats and it was sold out. It was this cool outdoor venue. I was standing there just looking at the audience and thinking, "This is crazy." I don't even know how to think about it. It's surreal, but I'm also used to it at this point, I guess. So I try not to take it too seriously, but it is surreal that this has all happened.
I do want to back up and poke at that a little bit because you said you still feel like an amateur. Are you just being deferential or do you really feel that you're still an amateur after working for 15 years?
Barone: No, I still definitely feel like an amateur.
Why?
Barone: I think it's because my approach to development is very scrappy. I've never really become super professional in the way I do things, but I think in a way it's part of what gives Stardew Valley and hopefully Haunted Chocolatier it's a, you might say indie soul, is that it's not too professional. There's a little bit of rough edges around it. Also, my mindset is that I never think of myself as a master of anything. Pixel art, I feel like I'm bad and I need to always get better. I feel that way about every aspect of the game. I'm not good enough. I need to improve.
To me, that's a helpful mindset because that inspires me to always want to strive to improve and not just think, "Yeah, I'm perfect. I don't need to do anything else." It's like I always need to be working to improve and get better at every aspect of development.
So in the 10 years since release, can you talk about a couple major moments in your life connected to Stardew Valley that stood out to you as really big or notable or joyful?
Barone: Well, I think the first one was just when the game launched, that was a very, I would say stressful day, but also just blew my mind that this was finally coming out, people were going to play it. I didn't have much time to really marinate in that feeling. I just had to lock in and start doing updates and everything. And that's been a blur ever since. When multiplayer came out, that was also a big deal. I think that really expanded the game and brought a lot more people into the game.
I guess another highlight would be the concert tours. The first time I was at one of these shows, these Stardew Valley shows, and it was 1,000 people in a room who were all mega-Stardew Valley fans, that made it sink in that there's a lot of real people that have been touched by Stardew Valley. Because a lot of my experience as a developer, from my perspective, I'm sitting here looking at a monitor all day. I'm seeing messages and things from real people, but there's a lack of a real physical human connection. So to actually bridge that gap and meet real players in the flesh and shake their hands, that was very touching.
It just reminded me of why I'm doing this. It's partly because I want to share my ideas with the world. What keeps me going after 10 years of still working on this. Because as an artist, I guess, I have a desire to just move on and do something else. I want to be always doing something new. Ideally, every month I'd be doing something totally new and different. Whatever whims I have.
There's so many people that say Stardew Valley changed my life or saved my life or helped me bond with my family members or all these things that makes me feel like there's a more important purpose that I have here than to just share my ideas. It's part of it, but I feel like a responsibility to all the players because I feel like I've been granted a very rare opportunity to be in this position. I have the capacity here to touch the lives of millions of people. That's a big responsibility and I want to do it as best I can and hopefully be a positive influence in people's lives in a real way, a real physical, real life way.
It's a heavy burden, then? The way you describe it.
Barone: Yeah, it is. Like I said, I just feel like I've been granted a special opportunity. This feels like it was my destiny and I just want to do the best I can to maximize that opportunity.
This might just be the same question, but I also wanted to ask if there's anything in the last 10 years that you can pinpoint as something that you're the most proud of, like an accomplishment, maybe not including the launch of the game?
Barone: I think the last update, the 1.6 update, I was pretty proud of that because it was a whole team effort. It felt like the apex of this transition from being a total solo developer to actually incorporating several different people and their ideas and their work all into a cohesive package. And I think it was very well received by the players as well. That was a fun moment. It was fun to be able to share that with my team and with the community. It felt like a little celebration when we launched it and then we're all working together. So it wasn't just me alone. For better or for worse, it's like if there was any stress, it was distributed among the team too, so that was helpful.
I'm sure you're aware of this, but you've been held up over the years as an example of a successful "solo developer." And you did make Stardew Valley largely by yourself with the support of family members and things like that, but it sounds like what you're saying now is you've discovered since release, is that it does take a village to keep it sustained. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Barone: It's true. People say, "No, it's just one developer." It's true and not true because it was true up to a point. I made a complete game that was successful completely by myself. So it does prove that it is possible to do that. There's so much that couldn't have happened post-launch without the help of other people. And I think that was crucial for making Stardew Valley as complete and as good as it is today. It's true. It's like both things are true, I would say. It just depends on how much you want to expand the game.
It's like the game became so popular that in order to meet the needs and demands of the player base, I feel like I did need to expand the team. There's been a lot of benefits of that. There's a certain thing where not every single thing in the game now is completely done by me, which does make it a little bit less of my personal baby, but I'm fine with that at this point. I feel like when it launched, it was like my baby that I was incubating and then it went out into the real world and Stardew Valley has become its own being that's external from me.
The best analogy would be, it feels like I was a parent and the child grew up and now it left the house and it's developed a life of its own that is beyond just me. And that's how I feel about Stardew Valley now. It's not my personal baby anymore. I'll always have a father connection to the game, but it's also become its own being. And that's not just me and the team, but also the entire Stardew Valley community and all the players, all the modders have really turned it into its own thing. So that's been, I guess, an evolution over the past 15 years as well.
So I asked you about big positive moments in the last 10 years. What about challenging times? Is there any moment in the last 10 years of Stardew that you recall as being exceptionally difficult or frustrating?
Barone: I think the hardest part is just staying totally high energy about it for 10 years. Like I've said, I've wanted to move on and work on other things and I've struggled with that and with thinking about, "What is my purpose? What is my life purpose? Is it going to be to just work on Stardew Valley forever, for the rest of my life?" That's been a little bit challenging. So I have to keep reminding myself of all the people that are affected by the updates and playing Stardew Valley to try to stay locked in for so long.
In terms of technical difficulties, it hasn't been too bad. There's been some issues and I've brought more people onto the team that have been able to help with that. It's true that managing a team and being the leader of a team is something that I wasn't really prepared for necessarily. I had to learn and grow in that regard too, but I just view it as one other aspect of being a game developer. There's a lot of things you don't think of. At first it's like, "Okay, I'm programming. I'm drawing pixel art, I'm making music." But then it's like, "Okay, I also have to have a public persona." I'm managing my social media, I'm doing business stuff, I'm doing taxes and all this stuff.
And then it's also, I'm managing a team. So there's so many different aspects to this, which have been a learning experience, I would say, but I'm trying to get better and try to always improve and increase my skills in that regard. And sometimes it's been difficult, but I think things have been getting better and better over the years.
You touched on this slightly earlier, but when you've been considering updates to Stardew over the last 10 years, how much of what you have done has been influenced by community requests or mods versus how much of it is just you coming up with stuff you think is cool?
Barone: Yeah, I mostly try to just do what I think is cool because I think that that will keep Stardew Valley, Stardew Valley. I don't want it to be developed by the public necessarily. It's like I do consider what people request and if it lines up with things that I agree with, then I might lean in that direction a little bit because I do want to make the players happy. But I think sometimes what will make the players happy is for Stardew Valley to still be my creative ideas ultimately, whether they realize it or not.
I try to do a mix, I guess. A few things that maybe the fans are asking for if it lines up, but then I also like to just do whatever. I mean, my favorite way to come up with ideas for the update is just play the game myself. And when I'm playing, I'm like, "Hmm, this would be cool." And then I'll just add it. I think that's always a crucial part of any new update is me playing the game. And usually what happens is, I or my team will work on the update for a while and then we'll play through some of the new stuff we've done. And then as we're playing through it, we're always thinking, "Oh. Okay, this would be cool to add." There's always things that come up.
My favorite thing to do is just whatever weird thing pops into my head, I'll just add that in. For example, 1.6, I added the family of raccoons that lives near your farm. That wasn't a player request. It was just something I had thought of and I was like, "This would be fun." I think those things are what gives Stardew Valley its authentic character.
Are there any particular mods or fan projects that you found super cool or super interesting or super inspiring?
Barone: I actually don't really play with mods, to be honest. I try not to look at mods too much because I actually don't want to be influenced by mods.
Yeah. That makes sense.
Barone: I know people think that I take ideas from mods, but it's probably just that there are natural ideas that make sense that would be added to the game. I end up adding those things, just because it naturally makes sense. Or maybe someone suggested it to me and it came from a mod, but I wasn't even aware that it came from a mod. I just thought, "Hey, that's a good idea."
Speaking of ideas, are there any updates on 1.7?
Barone: Yeah. I'm trying to not reveal too much because I like for it to be a surprise. What I will say without maybe being too specific is that with this update, one of the things we're trying to do is... Well, there is a popular fan request, which has to do with the children, trying to make the children a little more interesting. So I'm trying to do something with that, but there's a lot of other things in the update as well that no one's really asked for, but I think people will appreciate it.
I'm going to be adding two more marriage candidates, but I'll reveal who it is on the anniversary day.
This was a couple years ago, but I think you said there was still a secret or two that at the time fans hadn't yet found. Can we get an update on that? Is there anything in the game that people haven't seen?
Barone: There's still a secret that no one has ever found. I don't think they ever will. Maybe I'll reveal it someday, but the problem with the secret is that it's ... It's basically a secret message that's in the game and it reveals something that actually isn't even true anymore. It was revealing a thing about- Do I want to reveal it or not? Well, that's all I'll say. I'll say it was a secret message that was basically announcing something that I actually shifted gears and that thing wasn't even true anymore, but it's still in the game. I just don't know if anyone will ever discover it because it's so obscure.
It's really interesting that there is still something because, I mean, this game is on PC. It's been datamined all to heck. People have seen all the puzzle pieces of this game.
Barone: That's true. That's true. But the thing is, there's certain ways to hide messages that can't really be datamined. If you hide something in the code, it's going to all be found because people decompile the code and look at everything. If you say hide it in the art or something, if it's a secret message that's hidden in the artwork somehow, then people can't really discover that as easily. They have to see it.
This is going to drive people crazy. I'm going to write this and this is going to drive people crazy for months.
Barone: I feel like no one will ever find it, but I hope someone does. It'd be interesting.
So Stardew Valley in the last 10 years helped spark a new wave of, I guess we can call them cozy games in a similar tradition. Do you play any of those? What do you make of that trend?
Barone: I've played a few. The trend, I mean, I'm glad if Stardew Valley inspired people to make these games. The whole idea of cozy games, I feel like, I've never called Stardew Valley a cozy game. That's just a genre that formed, I guess, and people started calling it that and people started retroactively calling Stardew Valley a cozy game, which is fine. I don't really call it that, but I mean, I would say Stardew Valley is cozy. But a cozy game, I feel like there's certain aspects to this whole genre that have gone beyond or different than my conception, which is fine.
Well, it's not like Stardew Valley was the first. Harvest Moon obviously was the first farming game, the original so-called cozy game, but it's like if you're the first screamo band, you probably weren't calling your band a screamo band. It's just the music you made. And then people started calling it screamo, and then they retroactively call your band a screamo band. It's like, "Well, okay."
In terms of the genre itself, I think it's cool because I mean, the reason why I liked Harvest Moon was because it wasn't just about fighting and going on some big grand epic adventure. It was the opposite. Instead of going out on a huge adventure, you were at home, it was domestic. It was just one little area and just trying to go deep on that one area, which for some reason that just really appealed to me. I don't know why. Maybe I've always been a homebody, but I think that idea resonates with a lot of people. And maybe a lot of people that didn't classically like video games, but maybe because this whole thing where it's all about fighting and combat and competition and going on a big adventure, maybe that's not appealing to a lot of people. It's appealing to some, like a subset of the population, but Stardew Valley maybe brought this whole other idea. Which is part of the human experience, an important part of the human experience, and brought that to the mainstream in a way.
So people are like, "Hey, we could actually make games that are about cooking or running a household or running a small business." Things that are a lot more, I don't know. I guess I would call them domestic, but it doesn't really quite capture it because a lot of cozy games aren't just about being at home. They're just more, I would say, less about fighting and competition and they're more about the normal everyday things that people do.
There's a certain sense of growth in these games too. It's about acquiring resources and then developing those resources into something, a life that you want to live. And that's such a core part of being human that I think it just naturally appeals to people. It's like something we're all meant to do in a way.
When I was researching for this article, I saw that you had talked a lot for understandable reasons this year about how much you admire David Lynch. And I was wondering if you'd be willing to talk a little more specifically about what it is you love about him and how you feel he's influenced your work.
Barone: Yeah. I feel like David Lynch, he was... He just had a transcendental understanding of the world. And you could see it in his art. I never met the man, and unfortunately I never knew him, but I felt like in his art, I always felt a connection. There's something about David Lynch, he's connected to the spiritual world it almost feels like and that always appealed to me. And another thing I really admired about him is that he never seemed to really try to be popular. He always seemed to be authentic to himself and his artistic vision, for better or for worse, in terms of popularity.
Twin Peaks Season 2 was very abrasive. Not a lot of people, I think, would necessarily enjoy it, but I felt like David Lynch was just being true to himself and he didn't care about whether this was going to be a commercial success. He just stuck to his guns and I really admire that. I just think that in general, the world needs more artists who are pure and not necessarily trying to be popular. That's the stuff that I like best is when, you might call it Outsider Art almost, because it's just a random person's unique vision. And I feel like everyone has this capacity, but a lot of people will instead be influenced by what's popular or what might be successful.
And I would just hope that people would instead just stick to their true vision. I want to see everyone's unique perspective and vision. And David Lynch was the ultimate form of that, in my opinion. And I just liked his stuff. I mean, I loved Eraserhead, Twin Peaks, The Straight Story. Again, even in The Straight Story, which was not very avant-garde, it was his most wholesome, straightforward movie, but you could kind of still feel the David Lynch essence in it. And I always love that when you can just tell this is a certain artist's thing. No matter what they do, they just have this unique flare that you can always pick up on.
Are there any other people just across all different kinds of craft who have been big influences on you over the years?
Barone: I mean, I don't know about big influences. Obviously Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli has been pretty big. A lot of people have been influenced by that, me included. And I feel like he's [Miyazaki] another one of those artists who you can always feel the artist in whatever he does. There's just a certain thing and I really appreciate that. Obviously, Yasuhiro Wada, the Harvest Moon creator, has been a huge influence on me. You could say that he started it all. So I have to shout him out and point to him as the original farming game person. He made it all possible.
We've talked a little bit already about continually updating the game and why you feel it's so hard to step away from Stardew Valley and why you keep going back to it over and over. Do you see a future where it's ever done?
Barone: Yeah, I could see a future where it's done. Just to be realistic at this point, there's been many times where I was like, "All right, I think it's going to be done after this update." And then that never happens. So I think just realistically, it might not ever be done. I do want to release Haunted Chocolatier. I want to finish Haunted Chocolatier. That will require me to spend time working on Haunted Chocolatier. And it's like if I'm always working on Stardew Valley as well, it's going to probably take a long time. That's one worry I have.
Maybe if everyone stopped playing Stardew Valley, if it fell off, then maybe I wouldn't be as inspired to keep working on it. A big part of it is just because it's so popular. And like I mentioned earlier, it's like when there's so many people still playing it, I feel a responsibility and an inspiration to want to keep adding to the game because I just know that it's basically the best avenue for any ideas or any of my work to reach other people. And that's why I have always created things in my life is because, I guess I would say it's probably my way of connecting to the rest of humanity is through art or music. For me, it was always primarily music before Stardew Valley.
I created music and art and stuff always. Even I think if I was the last person alive on earth, I would do it because I want to get stuff out. I have ideas and I want to actualize those ideas. But I think in a way, it was also my way of trying to connect with the rest of humanity. So Stardew Valley has become by far the best avenue that I've ever had to do that. Before Stardew Valley, no one ever listened to my music or anything, which is fine.
As long as people are still playing it and it's still popular, I'll probably want to keep making updates for it. The only thing is, I don't want the game to become too bloated with content. I feel like at some point it might be too much actually. So I am very cautious about that. There's so many systems in the game now. I don't want to keep adding systems, but I do feel like all the things that exist could always be expanded upon more. Stardew Valley, as a game, you progress through these years in the game. Eventually things start looping.
So it's like there could always be a third year of festival variants, a fourth year of festival variants. There could be more dialogue. I could go deeper on all the characters. That's one of the things ... It's like why I'm not really too into adding new characters to the world because I feel like all the existing characters could use so much more depth and I could keep going deeper and deeper adding the third year of dialogue to everyone and adding more character cutscenes and all these things that open up as you keep playing the game.
Is there anything you've ever wanted to add to or change about Stardew Valley that for whatever reason you couldn't?
Barone: Well, I feel like some of the things are so established that it would be weird to change it now. There are some things that maybe I slightly regret. One thing I mentioned before was the spiral level in the mines. That level's awful.
It kinda sucks, yeah.
Barone: Yes, that level sucks. And I could maybe adjust it to make it suck a little bit less. I don't know about just taking it out completely because some of these things are part of- I guess I fear that if I retroactively change things in the game, it'll lose that classic Stardew Valley feel. Sometimes I wonder if some of these things that are slightly annoying do actually add to the game experience as a whole, because not everything in life is easy. There's got to be some things that are even annoying, I think sometimes, so that the things that are not annoying and are more comfy feel even comfier in comparison. I'm not sure about some of those things.
Well, one thing that I also, I wouldn't say regret, it was just that my skill level and understanding at the time was all the- For example, the New Desert Festival and the Winter Night Market, which are the two most recent festivals, they operate in a totally different way. They're not like an instance, where you're stuck on this map. You can come and go and it's very ambient. I really like that approach so much better, which I feel like is an evolution of the original idea I had with the festival.
I think it would be great maybe to retroactively turn all the festivals into that style, but that would be a huge change for the game. It might be controversial even because maybe some people like the instance festivals, I don't know. So I do sometimes struggle with like, "Should I change something and make it not classic Stardew Valley anymore, even if I think it's better or not?" So I struggle with that sometimes.
It is interesting because now this game is a decade old. There is a mystical "classic" Stardew Valley that people can remember that had much less and also had friction points that you maybe could have solved. You think back at the original Harvest Moon and it has that quality of, some things in that game were really frustrating, but that's what I remember fondly about them. So you might have reached that age.
Barone: True, true. I mean, maybe someday there'll be a Stardew Valley Classic.
Would you ever do it?
Barone: Maybe, maybe, but it'd be difficult because I feel like most of the updates have added meaningfully good things to the game. I think the game is better today than it was in 1.0. There was one thing I remember that I did change that was funny. When the game originally came out, when Grandpa came and evaluated your farm after two years, he was super harsh. It was really difficult and he was almost rude about it. He was like, "I should have bequeathed the farm to my other grandchild."
Oh, gosh.
Barone: And I don't think you could reevaluate either. So it was like, a lot of people were upset because they felt like it was contrary to the comfortable atmosphere of Stardew Valley. So I did adjust that. I made Grandpa a lot less harsh and I made it so that you could re-summon him at any time to reevaluate the farm. And I don't regret that. I think it was the right move. I don't know what I was thinking.
Has Stardew Valley ever surprised you?
Barone: I think so because, well, there's certain things that- It is a bit of a sandbox game a little bit. And so there's certain things that just happen that I didn't necessarily intend. One example is if you breed slimes in town, they'll speak to the villagers because the game treats- a slime and an NPC are both the same base entity in the game. They're just different offshoots of this base entity. And it was in that base entity in the code that I had this stuff where if one of these entities came close to a different one, they might have a chance of greeting them and saying something, which I put in because I thought it'd be fun if NPCs cross paths and they say hello to each other. But I never thought about the fact that slimes would talk.
That's one example. I thought that was funny, so it's still in the game. I didn't change that or anything. It added, I guess, a lore that I wouldn't have necessarily intended, which is that the slimes can talk, which is weird. There's some things like that in Stardew Valley where it's like, I almost view it as like, is this lore or is it just a funny, silly little thing?
It's like the Abigail eating amethysts thing.
Barone: Exactly. Yeah. That's another example of something that I didn't intend, but I left it in the game because these are the things where I would say it has an indie quirkiness to it where it's not exactly- If it was a totally professional operation, there would be QA testers that would've caught that and then they would've probably gotten rid of it because it's not intended behavior. But with Stardew Valley, it's like, "Eh, whatever. Just leave it in. It's fine." And there's a lot of stuff like that actually in the game.
Would you ever consider doing a Stardew Valley 2 instead of just continuing to update?
Barone: Yeah, I would. In fact, I would love to because it would just be fun to work on a whole new set of characters, a whole new world, maybe capture some of that original energy that I had back in 2012, when I started working with Stardew Valley. There's something fun about the number of possibilities in a whole new world, which I think would be fun for me. It'd be fun for my team. We'd be really excited about it. It's a bit difficult because people are so attached to Pelican Town and to the villagers in Pelican Town. I do fear a little bit that if it's a whole new cast of characters, people might feel put off by that.
I guess another approach to Stardew Valley 2 could be to use the existing cast, but it's like a new adventure in the world, but then I'm still stuck with the same thing. I'd have to think about that one. Yeah. There was a time where I was starting to work on a Stardew Valley 2, but, I don't know. For various reasons, I moved over to Haunted Chocolatier instead. Haunted Chocolatier you could say is like the Stardew Valley 2, but it's a bit different of a game, so we'll see.
A while back, you took a really uncommon step. You got a publisher and then later you removed that publisher and now you're publishing all the versions of Stardew Valley yourself. Are you happy with the results of that decision?
Barone: Yeah, I'm happy with that.
Yeah?
Barone: I'll just say that it's nice to be fully in charge of my own game. A lot of indie developers, well, I guess it begs the question of what is an indie developer? Was I an indie developer when I had a publisher? And that's obviously debatable, but I think an amateur developer, you might say, who created an IP would ultimately like to be fully in charge of their own IP. I mean, Stardew Valley always belonged to me as a intellectual property. It's just nice to be able to- It's all my decision now. If I want to do this or that or enter this market or make a port of the game, it's up to me. So I don't know. I just like doing that. I appreciate the help that I got from my publisher when they were helping me out.
So I have a question written in here that you've already kind of answered, which is, do you have any plans for the 10th anniversary? But I just want to ask that very directly. Is there anything else that I should mention here?
Barone: I don't think you need to mention anything, but I mean, I have some plans. I was thinking of maybe doing my own little retrospective video or something where I just have a message for the players and maybe go back through the timeline of all the different things that have happened during the last 15 years. Just to basically remind everyone of what all has transpired.
Some people are brand new to Stardew Valley. It's still selling a lot of copies every day. So those people may be brand new players. They might not know about the whole history of the game. I feel like it'd just be a good way to think back about everything that's happened. Just this whole grand adventure of Stardew Valley, the past 15 years.
Have you ever been approached to do a movie or a TV show for Stardew Valley?
Barone: Many times.
Why didn't it happen?
Barone: I think the main reason is that I would be worried that I wouldn't be happy with the final result. Stardew Valley is very much about the characters and the world and the tone of the game. So to take those characters, which, they don't have voices in the game. You have to use your imagination a bit to fill in the gaps, which I think makes the game more personal to every player. They're filling in the gaps. If it becomes a movie or a TV show, suddenly those gaps are all filled for you.
One example I'll use is Harry Potter. When I read the books, I had my own idea of what Harry looked like, what Ron looked like and everything. Then you see the movies. I can't remember what my own idea was anymore. It's all just now what the movies are. Same with Lord of the Rings or any of these IPs. With Stardew Valley, I'm a little bit wary of taking that step because I feel like it might- I care about Stardew Valley so much that I don't- Even though it would be cool to see Stardew Valley on the silver screen and drive by a movie theater and see Stardew Valley on the marquee, that would be cool, but it's like, "Is it really the best for Stardew Valley?" I guess that's my worry.
And I could potentially imagine it being cool. That's why I said once, that if David Lynch had wanted to make a Stardew Valley movie in the style of Twin Peaks or something, I would've been like, "Yeah, great. You can do whatever you want, Mr. Lynch." Honestly, I would've let him just do whatever. I think it would've been great. Especially if it's like this mainstream Hollywood Stardew Valley. It's like, "Is this really the heart and soul of what Stardew Valley is about?" And I'm sure someone could do a great job, but it feels like it's a bit of a roll of the dice.
You've said many times, including this interview, that you've had trouble balancing, doing updates to Stardew Valley with working on Haunted Chocolatier. Has that changed more recently? What's the balance in your life right now?
Barone: Well, part of the reason why I've expanded my team a little bit is so that hopefully I can spend more time working on Haunted Chocolatier. And it's worked out pretty well so far, I would say. On 1.7, the approach we're taking is that I am like, you might say the creative director and I'm involved with like, "Okay, here's what we're going to do. Here's some of the ideas." Then I let the team work on that. And then meanwhile, I'm working on Haunted Chocolatier.
At some point in 1.7's cycle, I will get heavily involved, because I feel like my hand needs to touch every part of the game, every aspect of the update. I need to go over it and adjust it or at least approve everything. So it will require a lot of my time anyway, but I think the balance has been a little bit more shifted, so that I can spend more time focused on Haunted Chocolatier. And I think it's been working out pretty good. That's been a big change from the 1.3 update or 1.1 or something where it's completely me. I had no time to work on a new game. So that has changed.
It is difficult because it's hard to shift gears, I guess. If I'm thinking about Haunted Chocolatier, it's difficult to be like, "Okay, I'm going to one day of the week or two days of the week work on Stardew Valley." That's not how my brain works. I'm all in one thing or the other. So I've been trying to work on that. I feel like it requires a lot of discipline, which I'm always working to improve on.
Any update on Haunted Chocolatier you want to share?
Barone: I would say it's coming along. The progress isn't as fast as I would like. Nothing is ever as fast as I would like. The main important thing about Haunted Chocolatier is I'm not going to release anything that I'm not happy with. If I don't think it's a great game, I'm not going to release it. So even if that takes years and years, so be it. That's just what I want to do. Fortunately, I don't feel like there's any real pressure. I haven't received funding from anyone or crowdfunding. There's not going to be any pre-orders.
I don't actually owe anyone the game. It's like when I want to do it and when I want to release it, it'll get done. I mean, it's true that I've announced the game, that does create a lot of pressure on me because I do feel like I don't want to disappoint the fans by taking too long, but there's no real physical obligation with it. It's more just mental constructs, you might say.
As far as pressure goes, I guess how do you perceive Haunted Chocolatier in relation to Stardew Valley? Because Stardew Valley was such a hit, does that make it harder to decide that Haunted Chocolatier is ready?
Barone: Absolutely. Yeah. It's been a huge struggle for me actually. See, what I want to do is just not care and just make the game however, just whatever, not worry about it. But it's basically impossible because I can't help but think about how this will be received. And I know that there's going to be a lot of people playing this game who are expecting it to be a Stardew Valley 2. And are they going to like it or not? And it's like, yes, I want to just make the game I want to make, but I also don't want a bunch of people to not like the game because they were expecting a certain thing. That's not going to feel good. I know that.
So that's been a constant struggle is like, "Do I just do whatever I want and not think about the existing player base or do I try to please the existing player base?" And I feel like there's just going to have to be a little bit of a balance between those things. It's been difficult. And also just the- I mean, I pretty much know that Haunted Chocolatier won't be as popular as Stardew Valley. I just feel like that's an extremely tall order. I mean, Stardew Valley was a once in a generation type of phenomenon. And part of that might've just been it was the right game at the right time. People were ready for this game.
As you mentioned before, there's been a whole cozy game burst. So it's like the market is saturated with cozy games. Maybe people are tired of cozy games by the time Haunted Chocolatier comes out, which is fine. I mean, I wouldn't even call Haunted Chocolatier a cozy game, but I'm just saying these games that are more focused on one town. Maybe people want to go on epic adventures again and they don't want to play Haunted Chocolatier. That's fine, but I got to still make the game I want to make.
Earlier, you mentioned that if you weren't working on Stardew Valley or Haunted Chocolatier, you'd just be making a new game every month. Do you have other things you want to make? Is there anything particular that you're yearning to get out there?
Barone: I mean, I would love to make small games and not worry about it. This goes back to me feeling like I have this rare opportunity. I've been granted a one in a billion opportunity to be in this position. It would almost feel like a waste of that to just make whatever I felt like doing. I feel like I need to do something big because I've been granted this opportunity. That being said, whenever I have an urge to make a small game, I might just do it and then make it as an arcade game in the cafe of Haunted Chocolatier. With Stardew Valley, I made Journey of the Prairie King and that could have been a little game on its own, but instead I made it an arcade game, so I integrated it into the world. So there's ways that I feel like anytime I feel like doing something, I can integrate it into the big game that I'm working on.
I tweeted a while ago about how, sometimes I start writing these stupid philosophical rant things. It's like, "Okay, instead of posting this online, I can just put this in a text document and then eventually put it in a book in the library of Haunted Chocolatier to add to the lore and just to the immersion." I feel like pretty much anything is like that. If I want to make music, which that's another thing, I've always been someone who likes to just make random music. It's like I can maybe take some of that and just put it into the game.
Even the most popular song in Stardew Valley, The Dance of the Moonlight Jellies was not a song that I made for Stardew Valley. I made that for just some random album on my secret Bandcamp. That just happened to be on some random album I made. And then I listened to it and I was like, "Hey, I like this song. I can take this and put this into Stardew Valley." And then that became the most popular song on Stardew Valley, according to Spotify. I think it's best if I, to some degree, follow my artistic whims and not force anything.
So Stardew Valley's still wildly popular after 10 years. That's really rare nowadays. Everybody's chasing that and nobody can have it except a couple of massive AAA live service games. I know you've been asked this a million times, but as you are now, what do you think it is about Stardew that keeps people coming back?
Barone: I think it's a few things. I think maybe most importantly is that Stardew and I guess myself, it's never been about trying to be as popular as possible and as widely played as possible, which I think people appreciate. It's almost like if you are chasing the money, then you don't get it because, people, that's not what they're looking for. They're looking for something authentic and real. And Stardew Valley I think has always remained like that because it's never turned into a big business. It's never been a business. It's always been about the game and about the players and about just making Stardew Valley the best it can be. And I think people can feel that in the game. And that's one of the reasons why they like it. It sticks out because a lot of stuff is corporate.
And I'm not saying anything bad about those games. I like a lot of AAA, corporate games myself, but at the end of the day, those games, they have investors. The companies have investors, they have to make money, they have to make profit. And so that I think, can cloud the- It can mar the pure love and passion that a true indie game can capture. I think that's part of what makes Stardew Valley stick out. And as a game itself, it feels very scrappy, I think still. Which is more relatable to people. It feels personal.
Everyone who plays Stardew Valley, it feels like their own personal game. So that's heartwarming to people, I think. I think another aspect to it is the multiplayer has been huge because it just brings people together. It's a fun and unique way to spend time with other people. And I'm saying this, trying to be as objective as possible as a gamer. I feel like there's not enough games that you can play cooperatively with your friends and it doesn't require a graphics card. Anyone can play it on their laptop.
I think that's part of what makes Stardew Valley stick out. And as a game itself, it feels very scrappy, which is more relatable to people. It feels personal.I have a group of friends, they're not gamers per se. They don't have high-end graphics cards. We can't go and play 3D games really together and have it run well. Stardew Valley though, it's like it runs on anyone's potato and we can all play together. So I think that is big. And there's actually not a lot of games like that, to be honest. There's Terraria, which is great, and Minecraft works on most people's computers, but I think that makes it unique. And just the fact that it's chill, you don't have to lock in too hard. You can just play and chat and hang out, but you're still doing a fun activity together, which can be very rewarding.
It all goes back to human nature and what we're meant to do as humans. We were naturally meant to live in small communities and work together to gather resources, hunter-gatherers, forage roots and berries and all that stuff. That's what Stardew Valley is in a way. And in this modern world, we don't really get to do that anymore. And so Stardew Valley gives us a way to live, I think, our natural lives together. And I feel like that's why it feels so meaningful and good to people.
Last one. What does Stardew Valley look like in 10 years?
Barone: Whoa, that's crazy. In 10 years there'll be a few more updates, which just make the game even more what it's supposed to be. I feel like with every update, I'm trying to make Stardew Valley its ultimate form, fully self-actualized. So hopefully in 10 years, Stardew Valley is fully self-actualized. Maybe there's new things added to the game to make it even more future-proof, in terms of creative content or things that players can be almost a part of the process.
One idea that we were toying with for 1.7, I don't know if this will happen or not, but was adding a farm map editor for the public. So you could basically make your own. Because with every update, it's traditional to add a new farm type. When the game first came out, there was just standard farm, that was it. And then 1.1, I added four different farms or something. And then with every update, there's been one added. What if we opened this up to the community and it was like now you could press an extra button, go into a browser and look at everyone's farm creation? That now adds almost infinite replayability to Stardew Valley. So I'm interested in ways to make the game more just infinitely replayable without the use of AI. That's never going to happen.
Yeah, in 10 years, who knows? That's crazy. Hopefully Haunted Chocolatier will be out and maybe by then there'll be some new Stardew Valley IP stuff going on too. Stardew Valley is such a gold mine, I think, of potential things you could do with Stardew Valley. I have plenty of ideas. It's just a matter of basically bandwidth because in order for it to maintain what I feel like is Stardew Valley's soul. Well, I feel like I need to be heavily involved in it. And I'm not saying that to throw any shade on anyone else. My team is great. I love them. They're great, but I still feel like I need to be heavily involved or else it's not going to feel like Stardew Valley.
It's your baby.
Barone: Exactly. So if there's going to be a Stardew Valley 2 or a spinoff game or some related thing with Stardew Valley, then that's going to require my full attention. So maybe this would be after Haunted Chocolatier comes out, which will hopefully- In 10 years, Haunted Chocolatier will be out. Maybe there'll be some new Stardew Valley project that's out even in 10 years.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
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