Stardew Valley: One Man, One Game, $300 Million
By Josh Bobrowsky
Eric Barone a 30-year-old developer
Stardew Valley was created by one man, Eric Barone. Most gaming companies have 100+ person teams.
Eric was able to create a game that grew to an empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars with limited help.
No large team, no VC funding.
He did this by controlling all aspects of the development and finding strategic partners (Chucklefish) to help with publishing. His partners also helped with non-english speaking aspects of the game for international players.
In 2011 Eric began working full time on Stardew Valley.
The game was inspired in part by the Harvest Moon video game.
After nearly 5 years of work Eric launched the game in 2016 selling 1m copies in the first 2 months of operation ($30 million in revenue).
Today the company has sold over 20 million copies and has generated over $300 million in revenue.
All of this was done with basic graphics and one of the few video games at the time that didn’t involve violence.
What is Stardew Valley
Stardew Valley is a simple but fun video game with a premise of inheriting a small plot of land after the death of your Grandmother. From there you build a farm, make relationships and play an incredibly fun game.
The website received over 20 million visitors per month and the reddit channel currently has 1.3 million subscribers.
The game is so enjoyable that it was named as one of the “Greatest games of all time” as well as earning a rare 10 out of 10 on steam.
An amazing accomplishment that is nearly impossible for even the best of teams, and unheard of for a single creator.
As a fun side note Stardew Valley comes installed on new Teslas.
Great execution, community and social amplification
Stardew Valley grew exponentially because of a few factors:
A great community formed via reddit: 1.3 million people
Twitter has large following of over 800,000 people
Discord has 150,000 members
But the largest factor that likely led to the growth of Stardew Valley was building an exceptional game.
Eric was said to be incredibly dedicated to the smallest details of the game. This level of attention to detail is often seen in making truly great products.
The power of simplicity
Games don’t need great graphics or massive worlds to be successful, they need to be fun.
Here is a list powerful games that have launched gaming empires without being overly complex
Poker
Super Mario
Chess
Zelda (early editions)
Go
Tetris
Lemmings
Stardew Valley
Angry Birds
Animal Crossing
The key is they need to be novel, enjoyable and able to be played or shared socially.
How this relates to web 3
The next wave of NFTs will likely be gaming. But, I don’t think the first breakout game will be a blockbuster from a AAA studio.
I believe it will be a game that is fun, addicting and social. It will have similar components to games like Stardew Valley.
Stardew Valley highlights how an underdog can punch far above their weight class.
What Web 3 developers should take away from Stardew:
Creating a game that is fun is not easy (even if it looks easy)
Build a community
Find something that will resonate with your audience
Build a game you would want to play
Sweat the details
Don’t sweat the graphics
Build a game that resonates with an international audience
Amplify your game with social media
Iterate your game but trust your gut
Conclusion
On the surface Stardew Valley is a simple game. At a deeper level it taps into psychological dynamics of losing a loved one, starting from nothing and crafting a life and home you are proud of. This makes the game enjoyable at a far deeper level than most would realize.
Building a great game is all about emotion, challenge, storytelling and brand. This game nails every aspect without fancy graphics or complex AI.
Every Web 3 gaming company should be taking notes.
There is real power to simplicity paired with great gameplay.
Web 3 will put a new spin on gaming but that doesn’t mean the best games need to be fancy.
We are just at the start of a great adventure and I’m looking forward to seeing what is next.
Here is an interview with Eric and the creators of Harvest Moon (the inspiration for Stardew Valley).
Cheers
Josh Bobrowsky