Did you know that Stardew Valley, which was released in 2016 and managed to sell millions of copies in a short time, was developed by a single person for years? We will take a look at the challenging development story of Stardew Valley, which has sold more than 10 million copies as of today and has made a big impact in the game world.
Developing games is a much more challenging task than it seems. The huge brands that we come across today, thousands of employees It is developed by large companies over a period of years. These thousands of employees are also divided into different groups within themselves. In the form of character designers, environment designers, software experts, voice actors, mission designers, and many other professions we can think of.
While these huge companies, which have so many employees and enough money, develop their games in a process that takes years; although it is not possible for a project like Grand Theft Auto V to emerge from a single person; Minecraft, Undertale or Stardew Valley such games are possible. Let’s take a closer look at Stardew Valley’s development story over the years.
Stardew Valley’s challenging journey:
For those who’ve never heard of it: What is Stardew Valley?
Stardew Valley is a highly open-ended rural life role-playing game. Stardew Valley, a game where we take over our grandfather’s old farm and set sail for a new life with very limited opportunities, besides farming simulator; as if a life simulator we can say.
In the game, you can develop your farm, do agriculture, deal with livestock, fish, fight monsters and even get married and have children. inside hundreds of hours of content and this production, which is full of adventure; Available on Microsoft Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, iOS and Android.
The beginning of the legend: the birth of Stardew Valley
We can say that Stardew Valley, which has continued to increase its popularity in the game world since its release about six years ago, has made an impact that even its developer, Eric Barone, could not predict. Not aiming to be a video game maker in any way, Barone joined the Stardew Valley project with just one programming language. practice He told me he started it.
Eric Barone, who was essentially a Harvest Moon fan, became attached to this project as the days went by and decided to create his own game. Barone started developing Stardew Valley in a standard apartment. Working on his passion project for at least 10 – 12 hours every day, the developer, during this period; from your girlfriend, from his family and from friends It also received great support.
The development phase of Stardew Valley continued for about five years. This process was really challenging for Eric Barone. Barone, who sometimes doubts himself and hates his job, in the psychological sense also took part in a difficult process. The uncertainty of spending 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week for five years, on a project that you didn’t know what the end would be, was eating away at Eric Barone. Making great progress on the project, Barone said, “I’ve come this far. I have to complete this game,’ he thought.
Emotional support from his girlfriend, family and friends to keep your faith helped. Convincing himself that the project would be worth it when completed, the young developer learned to deal with this difficult psychological process and devoted all his strength to Stardew Valley. Barone and his girlfriend, Amber, were at times in financial trouble. During this time, Amber had worked outside and played a major role in providing for the house. Receiving support from their families from time to time, the duo put up a really tough fight for five years.
In all this time greatly improved himself Eric Barone learned many things that he could not do before by taking various trainings. Believing from time to time that the game is almost ready and will be completed in a few months, Barone worked for years for this remaining process. The developer, who was not satisfied with some of the things he designed with tens of hours of effort, knew how to throw them all away when appropriate and started again.
Not long before the game’s release, Stardew Valley’s own player base had already begun to form. Barone, who took care to share these development logs with the players as the game progressed, also cared about the opinions of the players waiting for Stardew Valley. On its own even after the game was released a great responsibility the feeling developer has been fixing technical issues for months; evaluated the feedback made by the players. Thus, Stardew Valley, which managed to endear itself to the players in a short time, was born.
Big surprise: Stardew Valley’s sales success
Stardew Valley is on Steam and GOG nearly two weeks after its release on February 26, 2016. more than 400,000 managed to sell more copies. Eric Barone, who did not expect the game to have such a successful release process, signed an independent production that managed to make a real impact on the game world.
Stardew Valley; in the first two months one millionat the end of 2017 three and a half million exceeded the sales figure. In January 2020, it was announced that the game has sold more than 10 million copies in total across all platforms. Today, it is stated that it has left behind 20 million copies. Well, have you ever played Stardew Valley before?
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