More than 10 million players have taken part in the fantasy farming sim that is Stardew Valley. That’s a lot of digital parsnips coming through one quaint small town. Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone has announced that the surprise hit has managed to blow past expectations. The game has now sold more than 10 million units all platforms, as announced in a press release on publisher Chuckfish’s website.
The game was initially released on PC in early 2016 and sold a million copies within the first two months of release. Since then though, it’s basically followed the Minecraft approach, being ported to essentially every other major console and platform. If you want to grow some digital crops, there’s an option every common platform. The developer, ConcernedApe, continues to patch the various versions as well.
This constant stream of updates has translated to pretty extreme levels of success. With more than 10 million sales over it’s lifetime, Stardew Valley has sold more copies than one of last year’s best and biggest games, Borderlands 3. A big part of that success was partially due to the hotly anticipated multiplayer update that came out recently. Finally, friends could farm together.
Of course the real winner with this game was the charming story. The player is a discontent office worker who ends up receiving a special inheritance from his grandfather, and that inheritance is a rundown farm. This simple idea turns into a rather complex mixture of relationship management and adventure game as the player takes on various side activities and expands their farm.
I won’t spoil much here for those of you who haven’t played it. But I will say this, Stardew Valley is one of the best casual games out right now, and it’s a darn good farming sim too.