Gaming: 10 Years Later, I Still Can't Believe Eric Barone Thought Harvest...

"I still didn't think it was going to be super popular," Barone said of the days leading up to Stardew Valley's launch in 2016.

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If there's one thing I'm always saying as a PC gamer, it's "I really hope nobody takes a console-exclusive series I loved as a kid that's rarely if ever been replicated on the platform I now predominantly use as an adult and creates a modern homage to it." You know, like we said about Final Fantasy Tactics for years. More stuff like that formative thing I loved? No thank you!

That's basically the reaction Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone expected from Harvest Moon fans back in 2016 when he released his indie farm sim. Thank goodness he was wrong.

Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone sat down to chat with PC Gamer at last year's Game Developer's conference, nine years after Stardew Valley launched. Now Stardew Valley is celebrating its first decade—on February 26, specifically—and I still can't believe that Barone thought that farm sim players weren't going to like his farm sim.

"I still didn't think it was going to be super popular," Barone said of the lead up to launch. "I thought it would be maybe a niche game for Harvest Moon lovers—and I even thought a lot of them would probably hate it because they'd be like 'this isn't as good as my favorite Harvest Moon game' you know?"

We actually interviewed Barone back in March 2016, too, right as he was realizing Stardew Valley was on its way from "success" to "phenomenon." He basically said the same thing then: "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 do understand Barone's suspicion that a farm sim on PC would be a bit niche. Before Stardew, people just weren't making them, not on PC anyhow. Harvest Moon had always been a console series, had recently gotten split into Harvest Moon and Story of Seasons brands, and the adults who wanted chill farm games were still rocking FarmVille on Facebook. (This is the part of the story that makes a decade feel like a lifetime ago.)

As someone who did love Harvest Moon as a kid—though admittedly my experience was with the single Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life game that I owned and not broadly across the series at that time—I loved Stardew Valley on day one. Well, close to day one. My Steam library informs me that I bought it on March 8, 2016. I loved it on

Source: PC Gamer