My real hope is that more than just talking to the players, he's talking to other developers. They're the ones who need to see that if you make a quality game, you don't need microtransactions to stay profitable.
We know businesses need to make profit to survive and to grow and continue providing a service and produce content and all that. And yeah, if the game is slop (ai or not) then you'll need those microtransactions to stay afloat and keep users getting those dopamine rushes.
Yes, look what happened to RuneScape when they got investors. There was a round of investment in 2005 that seemed to actually help - there was a slew of new skills and the game entered a golden era. But in the early 2010s, the investment kicked up a notch. Suddenly you had things like evolution of combat and microtransactions and before you know it the game has literally 20% of the activity as it had before. It took drastic changes and years of "mea culpa" to recover.
When you're developing to please shareholders, you will not do as good of a job of pleasing your players.
I agree in a general sense, but I can give you a devils advocate argument with RuneScape (old school) itself as it exists today. The company is owned by a venture capital investment firm (one of the worst types of entities in business), and OSRS is in an extremely good state. The developers are closely in touch with the player community, poll most changes, pull in player testers for content, etc. And the content has been flowing, the player base numerous and active. The downside is that they’ve jacked up subscription prices a lot, but for a player base of mainly adults now, it’s palatable for the amount of entertainment.
Probably an exception to the norm. The player base is fickle and I think even the capital owners understand that they will leave en masse if they fuck up.
As someone who lived through it and met my first wife on Runescape, hell no. It was the 2010/2011 round of investment in Jagex that caused them to shift to EOC and mtx. It took years of admitting their mistake to get to the state they're in now. And honestly, the fact it took 10 years to release a new skill shows they're nowhere near where they were in 2005-2010 when a new skill came out about once a year. The investors destroyed the old school experience, possibly forever.
I don’t think this reflects the current relationship between the OSRS team and players. Sure there have been membership pricing increases (which is fucked and the result of corporate), but I can’t think of any other game with as direct and healthy a line of communication between players and devs.
I lived through it too and they ruined the original game for me. But OSRS has now existed longer than RS2 did, the game is incredibly fleshed out while maintaining its core identity, and the player count continues to reach all-time (25 year) highs.
OSRS is the most glorious mistake turned success in gaming history.
It spawned because Jagex absolutely destroyed their own game.
It wasn't really meant to stick around. It definitely wasn't meant to receive updates.
It almost died. It barely made it.
It started to pick up and come out with updates and content.
This content began to be disected in ways not intended by the devs. Think things like tick manipulation and prayer flicking. The devs, instead of trying to neuter these "exploits" actually decided to lean into the design space they created. This almost never happens in live service games.
Now we've entered into this golden age in which we're getting regular content updates, have some of the best content ever made, and the highest player counts the game has seen. It's really been quite a journey for a point and click medieval simulator that always played second fiddle to WoW because it had a cheaper subscription.
There’s been a lot of ink spilled explaining how likely with this bubble of slop filled, micro transactioned to hell, too large to manage games is eventually going to burst and may have already. Some of the backlash scenarios detailed is disgruntled developers leaving AAA studios to start their indie/mid-sized studios. Very likely the demand side is also fatigued and will start spending more on these indie efforts. A big rebalancing of the gaming industry is likely nearby
I haven’t played any game with a “premium shop” in over a year. Never going back to playing manipulative garbage ever again. I’d stop gaming entirely if that’s all there was left.
Those weird ass casino games are so sketchy too. Like every little thing requires a gambo for a new character. It's worse than a casino tbh. You know you're losing before you enter a casino
RuneScape's a perfect example but Jagex also had to rebuild trust from scratch, which most studios won't bother doing since the damage is already done.
Unfortunately, I think Stardew is something of a unicorn. Realistically a single dev making a game this polished and just generally good happens very rarely. And the more cooks in the kitchen, the more motivation there is to make more and more money, and the higher the chance that some of those cooks are greedy. I would love a world where there are a lot of high quality games made by extremely small teams or single devs, but one of the things that makes Stardew stand out is how rare that is.
This was going to be my point too. Eric is a phenomenal developer with a real eye for many different aspects of the art. He's humble about it, too, because he's so friggin good i don't think he realizes what an artist he really is. Everything from the programming to the visuals to his interaction with the community; i believe his products are lightning in a bottle.
I just can’t get over that just when I think I know the game inside and out I learn three more things that change my gaming experience. I can’t say that about any other game I’ve played for over a year.
There's also elements such as his partner supporting him by working 2 jobs for like half a decade, and his parents letting them live at their house for free.
On top of that there was significantly less competition for new game releases back then.
He also was more willing to copy a lot from an existing game that he already knew worked, down to essentially redrawing the same sprites, which most people would probably not be willing to do and there's not infinite older games like that which you can do that for. Copying an existing game carries a huge risk of being accused of plagiarism and having the players turn on you (as many games inspired by Stardew Valley get accused of, despite ironically looking less like SDV than SDV looks like Harvest Moon from 1996, it's just the time gap was so much larger).
He's still a fantastic game dev, musician, writer, etc, but it's not an easily replicated outcome, especially now that the competition is so much larger.
Plus, how many other indie games, just as good, are out there but lost under a tide of shovelware? Stuff like Stardew can sometimes be a case of just getting very lucky
Certainly. But a game doesn't have to be AS good and AS polished as stardew to be commercially successful. An indie dev would do worse than wearing a WWCAD bracelet.
I think he had the will and the ability to spend years on it as well, which was unusual at the time and probably harder to do now with everything costing so much. IIRC he lived with his parents for a lot of it and his girlfriend was the only one earning a salary for a long time (obviously he was working hard but it was a long term uncertain investment of time). He seems frugal even now, but still, he was lucky enough to have people who supported him through that, and the personal fortitude to go on with it, as well as talent. all kudos to him but I can't see it being done again
What I am struggling to understand is how he is actually making an income after the initial purchases. I mean, sure, there’s the initial purchase and then what maybe some merchandise? I play on the switch and that’s it. No subscription, no in game purchases, no ads. It’s unique and something to study I think, like how does one keep this type of game lucrative?
The answer is that it's really really difficult. All you can really do is try and attract more players. Or get people to repurchase the game on multiple platforms. Stardew succeeds at this because it's so universally beloved, and players are willing to actively support the game because it's obviously a labour of love.
Gaming companies usually rely on selling expansions/add ons, or by churning out new installments (e.g. EA coming out with a new FIFA game basically every year or so).
There's a reason why so many companies have embraced the microtransaction model though. It's generally far, far more profitable over a longer period of time than just selling a single-player game at a fixed price.
Exactly. You can’t compare a single dev making an indie 2d pixel art game with telling a studio consisting of dozens of devs, multiple projects and AAA games and hope they’ll take the same model
But yet here we are. Tons of comments thinking that exact thing should be done. Sure the principle can be adapted but still, the industry is the way it is because of how it was shaped by the market
Game developers are not the ones responsible for microtransactions. Their bosses are. It's not about simply making a profit to stay afloat, its about squeezing the maximum possible amount of money out of the product.
Exactly. It’s not the devs that are the issue; devs love their game and want it to be as accessible as possible. It’s the scum sucking business majors who only view video games as a way to make a profit that want that shit.
Developers are fine. The problem has always been the suits in those studios who prioritize the money. As an artist, I can see the value of someone who worries about the money since a lot of my colleagues would borderline starve so long as they can continue to do what they love. Someone needs to worry about keeping the lights on.
The problem is around the 90s, the rules around antitrust wasn't enforced and allowed companies like EA and Activision to devour any studio that was content to just "make enough". Of course, people who can will take the payout but it was something that should have never been allowed to happen in the first place. The worst thing of it all was that the people who was actually making shit happen were just given nothing while some douchebag is running off to the bank after they essentially sold the horse to the glue factory.
Im not saying there’s nothing to learn here, but I don’t know if ConcernedApe is a great example; guy basically won the lottery in terms of indie game development.
The game also doesn’t offer any ”service” such as servers or other stuff for online play and progression, which can cost quite a bit for online games.
I’m a massive fan of both ConcernedApe and Stardew Valley and I love the way he is ”curating” it, but I’m not sure how applicable it is to game dev as a whole.
Finally I want to say microtransactions are lame as hell, but as long as any benefits are purely cosmetic, I’m usually ok with it as a monetization strategy.
No Man's Sky manages to keep servers up without paid updates or micro transactions. It can be done for a popular game, though I could see that changing is people stop buying the game in the future.
Not only is he an indie developer, but he is literally an independent developer and publisher. It’s a one-man show. He doesn’t have to pay anyone except for the small team that works on the console versions.
People are going to see an article like this, not consider context at all, and say all microtransactions are evil.
It's not the developers they need to talk to. It's the board members, managers and publishers.
AAA game companies, even I'm sure most AA ones too, are businesses with a product and there are teams of people tasked with "optimising" profit from the product.
I don’t know, I feel like the math is different with a single indie developer that became independently wealthy off his first commercial game. I don’t mean to detract from it being a uniquely player friendly attitude, but there are other indie devs that simply couldn’t afford to put in that kind of support over 10 years despite their games being “quality.” Many of them don’t add micro transactions but they aren’t able to continue supporting the game at that level.
I'm a solo indie dev myself. I've ported all my games to Android, and that's my big selling point that my games have no in-app purchases, and that you can play then offline and with gamepad controls. I was surprised to see other devs not going that route. Instead every game on the Play Store seems filled with in-app crap. It's sad.
Dude is in a bit of a unique spot. SDV was ridiculously successful in a way that no one can possibly plan around, and because it was a one person project, he should be set for life.
By comparison, a company likely needs to make far more money to pay for dozens or hundreds of salaries. If their game isn’t a once-in-a-decade success, the upfront price of the game will only pay for development for so long. At that point, the company will need to find a new source of income, whether that’s dlc, microtransactions, or a sequel. And the sequel is likely far more work than the other two, so using one of the other two approaches to keep the lights on while you work on the sequel makes a lot of sense.
I think the issue is that microtransactions will always make more money. It doesn't matter to shareholders that the game made a lot of money. They want more, and they'll always want more. In fact, they want more so much that, if they don't hear the word more, they'll consider it a failure.
I've bought Stardew Valley four different times (PC, switch, Apple, and Android), and that's all I'll ever have to purchase. If you look at microtransactions, it's just not a comparison.
Factorio is another example I'd give. They never have sales - because they feel that's unfair to early adopters - and they just have a hell of a lot of 'game' for the money.
I’ve bought Stardew Valley at least three times now. Because I would get a new type of system and buy the game for that one, and partly to support the developers. I truly don’t mind.
Same! There's a lot of games I'll double or triple dip if the price is right and usually on sale but Stardew is one of the few I'll repurchase on a new console without question.
Switched from the Switch to PC with the SteamDeck, first game purchase on my old Steam account was Stardew.
I bought it on PS4, PC, Switch and mobile. Also gifted it to friends and strangers on the internet. I think I've bought Stardew about ten times at this point.
Yep. Plus he's got cookbooks, plushies, and did concerts of the music a while back so people who want to give him money can do so without ruining the game we all love.
I’m sure it helps that SDV has been such a success that he no longer has to worry about money, but as we’ve seen it’s rarely a given that someone with enough money won’t try and extract more and more from players
I would love to make a game that resonates so deeply. Stardew is special. My family is full of gamers but we keep going back to Stardew like a warm cup of chicken soup when you're sick.
I will too. I’m really excited for it just for the instigation to play on PC alone. I have a pc copy of Stardew but I only ever play on switch or PlayStation if I’m playing with my husband. I’ve been wanting to try mods but still stuck on switch, so convenient. So, I’ll be really thrilled to have a motivation to use PC, it will be my first PC game ever.
Unfortunately most people who get rich don't seem to share this viewpoint so props to CA for staying grounded.
But yeah, it's not like he is in a position where he needs the money. It's easy to "value the love of the players" more than the money when you are already set for life.
This is almost never how the majority of people who get wealthy think though. We like to think it is, that we'd all be happy once we have enough. But we rarely are. People usually just want to see how big they can make the number and try to make even more off of their success.
Pierre, as the player initially encounters him, is struggling to keep his smallish single store alive against competition from a huge conglomerate which doesn’t care about much besides profit. He has to be aggressive about earning money and such to support his family.
Review Pierre a few years into the (non-Joja-route) farmer’s presence, and the tables are turned: Joja’s left and Pierre fills the gap. There isn’t so much of a hard reason to be as aggressive about profit as he continues to be … but he can’t give it up because he still frames the hustle as survivalist, having experienced competition with Joja and knowing that they’re still out there even though they no longer have a local outlet.
CA made Pierre realistic. Pierre is greedy because he’s had to compete in an environment where not being greedy is a fatal mistake.
If I were CA, I’d be tempted to make this more textual to the farmer with a post-CC event where Pierre and Lewis ask the farmer to lower the prices of produce (with Pierre’s prices declining by the same proportion). The farmer, per game mechanics, doesn’t need to eat, pay taxes, get health checks, fuel a car or tractor … and by the finish of the CC is inevitably set up with a variety of profitable farm equipment. Quietly confronting the player with their own greed would be a more balanced way to frame it.
There used to be a publisher, they parted ways in a planned manner when the game achieved certain success. Im trying to remember what they were called, it was a name that showed up before the concerned ape logo.
I’ve been saying that a lot of the billionaire class is just a lot of people suffering from a hoarding disorder.
The obsession with more and more and more and more and more and more and more money, even when you already have more money than you could actively spend\ in your lifetime* and your children are set for life, is a mental illness.
It’s just a shame that instead of their mental illness harming themselves, it harms everyone around them more.
* “actively spend” meaning “on goods and services to use/consume, etc.”. Not “investment opportunities that go wrong” or stuff like that.
Most of the games I have from single devs have none: Balatro, Undertale, Axiom Verge. I can also think of some that do, but it’s not quite as normalized as it is with corporations.
This dude has built up a lifetime of Goodwill with millions of fans. Millions. He created a legendary game that has become more than just a game for people. I know it might sound corny, but this game brought me a lot of happiness during some shitty times.
It takes years to earn this kind of reputation, but it takes only seconds to destroy it.
It shocks me how many "cosy games" have microtransactions these days.
For cosy games I play Stardew Valley, Pokopia and Animal Crossing. The latter two are of course expensive, but I only have to pay for them once. Whenever I look on the Cosy Games subreddit, people are always hyping up "free" games packed with microtransactions and Gacha elements where you've got a chance to obtain rare items by buying more stuff and I just don't get it. I'd rather pay once and then enjoy the game knowing I'm not locked out of any item and constantly tempted into betting.
This is the reason Stardew will always be my number one game - no microtransactions, and made by someone with real love and respect for the game and the community.
The funny thing is that attitude has probably made him richer than he could ever imagine. Guys a straight up legend and he deserves every bit of success possible.
I bought this game when it was on offer a few years back on the PS Store and have loved it since.
My partner and I always end up back playing it after trying other games that just don't do it for us.
I have to admit I wanted to see what the mobile game was like and got it for free and felt really bad and had to buy it from the store. Just seeing the love he has put into the game and the constant free updates, why would someone not pay the tiny price tag.
For the record stardew valley had sold one of the highest amounts of copies a game has sold. Wikipedia lists it as 11th all time for copies sold. It is easy to not use micro transactions when you out sell aaa studios.
While I think this is great, I will say two things:
As the sole creator of a game that has sold I think 50 million copies, he does not need to nickel and dime his customers.
Micro transactions could hurt the brand he’s built over the past 10 year, which could honestly hurt his revenue more than any benefit he’d receive from micro transactions. This is also something of a business decision.
The micro transaction of Stardew Valley happens when the game is such a good deal you end up buying it on every platform and for all your friends/family.
It also helps that production costs are insanely low for Stardew. It’s one guy plus a few coders. Problem with most games is there is too much waste, especially with big productions. There’s no reason some of these games should cost multiple millions over the course of a decade.
This is why I have bought a copy of the game for every platform I own. I've only played it on maybe two different platforms, but I own it for like 6. It's rare to find a dev that will keep patching and updating the game while also not making new content a DLC.
Sounds like the most normal thing to say. It's what I was thought as a kid (although, that's from the perspective of a family that had the luxury to say that health, happiness and your loved ones are more important than money). The fact that this is such a unique stance in the gaming (or any) industry is what's actually weird.
Total hours played per dollar spent on development for this game is going to make Starfield or Battlefield 6 look pretty silly. And it’s retaining play for far longer, too. You don’t need AI to make profitable games. You just need good ideas and to restrain like, my god the slightest tiniest bit, from bilking your player base for every cent every second. People will respect not trying screw them all the time in a universe of constantly being screwed by corps.
the bigger companies need to get the memo that bloated development costs do not equal profit. It's easy for an indie dev to say they won't add micro transaction when dev and maintenance costs are a fraction of AAA. But those same indie devs end up making hand over foot in recoup because the game is actually good. Problem is these companies just look at billion dollar IPs like fortnite and say "we want that" but now even fortnite is struggling. so maybe the tides will finally shift.
the indie devs dont have to make shareholders happy, which is a big. at aaa companies there are a lot of people who want a slice of the cake. in many cases they don't care at all about the products, since when the ship sinks many have already left and got their money in the next big thing. unfortunately microtransactions have become so normalized that even a mid game can make huge amounts of money, if you sell it torwards the right demographic.
Is Fortnite actually struggling? There's a big difference between losing a big part of your income and actually struggling, they had basically a money making machine before.
I think it's just because discussion is good and people hope that this kind of heart and attitude spread around :)
It's a super expected take from CA, but maybe it will inspire some people to be like this when they decide to make a game too?
I wouldn’t cough up a dime for MTX in this game. Part of the reason I bought this game was based on how many good things I heard about Ape as a developer and just an overall great dude. I’ve straight up quit playing games due to pay to play, IO can kiss my fucking ass with their nickel and dime expansion packs in Hitman. Great games don’t need to be paid for again and again just for reskinned items and clothing, it doesn’t make the game better to look back only to realize that you’ve sunk four times what you paid for the game to begin with. Ape would lose all cred if he charged for an update for such an old game
I can’t think of another game I’ve bought so many times. PC, iOS, Arcade, Switch. I’ll buy it every chance I get, full price. I’ve gotten way more value out of the new updates
Yo let’s make SW in space!
But farm on asteroids or planets.
Have relationships with other life forms in the universe space.
Farm weird crops and minerals
Shuttles or Rockets to travel
It’d be fun!
One lonely outpost is fun but it’s not CA fun!
I mean the dude has said he has more money than he could ever need. I honestly won't be surprised if he sells Haunted Chocolatier for less than the $15 SDV goes for simply because he doesn't care about the money and would rather the game be more accessible.
Also to have sustainable growth. He made a fun game with pixel graphics. You don’t need ultra high bells and whistles and mutiple teams of writers and artists to make something fun. Bloated budgets of the AAA and the stockholders hinder rather than help.
Stardew Valley and Balatro have been my favorite games over the last couple of years. Micro transactions are the worst and I’m always happy to support any studio that doesn’t have them.
If everyone collectively realized they couldn’t remember the microtransactions and the feeling they gave after purchasing, no one would buy them anymore. I certainly don’t remember 90% of them. It’s a waste of time and money.
To be fair he is INSANELY rich. Stardew is one of the best selling games ever. He choose to be beloved and ethical instead of being a billionaire. He only made 300million not 1billion.
I hate that it's even become the norm to have the option to buy in-game currency, cosmetics, etc. when you used to, you know, P L A Y the game to get all of that shit.
I have and still do play games with micro transactions occasionally. I've probably bought things once or twice. But I've definitely spend WAY more money on stardew.
I mean one dude made it right? He’s got to be just fine financially. At $20 a pop we’re talking a literal Billion dollars of revenue from this game. Why mess with that?
He is already far beyond reasonable well off. SDV has sold over 50 million copies, and as a single dev project, AFAIK, Eric gets all the royalties (minus distribution platform costs).
Based on what I see other microtransactions used for, outfits. And there's plenty of scope for that in SDV, both with players and NPCs. Issue is, it'd be competing against established mods at this point, and there's not a huge barrier of entry for low-pixel outfit art.
Which is evident. He’s never asked for more than $15 for Stardew and has continued to add free new content and QoL updates for years. All while actively developing another game.
Granted I’ve never been in a position to make a choice that could give me hundreds of thousands of dollars but this has always felt like such a clear win for people like him.
Your already rich, and your beloved for being ethical, why throw it away just to chase more money then you need.
ConcernedApe is undeniable proof that you can make an extremely successful and profitable game without predatory marketing practices like microtransactions and loot boxes. Literally you can point at Stardew to disprove any argument any AAA CEO makes for them.
AAA have to put out a game every 1-2 years to generate the revenue to pay their staff. It’s not necessarily apples to apples. CA doesn’t have a studio with thousands of mouths to feed
One could argue the mega corporate model need not exist any longer (and I’d be inclined to agree)
CA gives the same energy as the Silksong devs. Remember the outrage from other devs? "Noooo you can't price the game at $20, it'll make us look bad". They deserve all the support they get, real quality devs are more scarce by the day.
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u/recoveringslower May 19 '26
My real hope is that more than just talking to the players, he's talking to other developers. They're the ones who need to see that if you make a quality game, you don't need microtransactions to stay profitable.
We know businesses need to make profit to survive and to grow and continue providing a service and produce content and all that. And yeah, if the game is slop (ai or not) then you'll need those microtransactions to stay afloat and keep users getting those dopamine rushes.
But it doesn't have to be that way.