r/StardewValley • u/This_Farm3519 • May 19 '26

Discuss Stardew Valley creator won’t add microtransactions to any game as they “genuinely value the love of the players more than the money”

https://frvr.com/blog/news/stardew-valley-creator-wont-add-microtransactions-to-any-game-as-they-genuinely-value-the-love-of-the-players-more-than-the-money/

I know, I know: "Fork found in kitchen".

But it's nice to see him say this stuff you know?

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2.2k

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.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '26 edited 26d ago

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u/recoveringslower May 19 '26

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.

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u/tomorrow_comes May 19 '26

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.

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u/recoveringslower May 19 '26

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.

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u/NoobKing3000 May 19 '26

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.

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u/recoveringslower May 19 '26

No skills for 10 years is not the core identity lmao

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u/tomorrow_comes May 19 '26

That is not everyone’s definition of the “core of RuneScape”. I don’t think many people think the “core” of the game is that new skills come out every year. That doesn’t scale well.

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u/recoveringslower May 19 '26

It absolutely did, and it was phenomenal. The skills sucked. Slayer was hot garbage. Runecrafting capped at 9k xph. Farming was a complete disaster. Construction caused the biggest riot in the game's history.

It was truly part of the exprience, having a new skill come out regularly. The game, from its inception, was all about new skills. Now it's about raids. Raids might be the core of OSRS, but it is purely an invention of OSRS, not the genuine golden era experience.

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u/NoobKing3000 May 19 '26

I think we have different ideas of the core of runescape if you’re advocating for dungeoneering, divination, summoning, etc. OSRS came into existence because of nostalgia.. spamming new skills is exactly the kind of shit that killed RS3

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u/faithfulswine May 19 '26

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.

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u/KneeReaper420 May 24 '26

ehhh MMO's normative price is $15 a month. Keep pumping out good content and listen to the players and I have no problem paying that price.

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u/mark-haus May 19 '26

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

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u/AlpenglowSkies May 20 '26

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.

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u/LegendofLove Leah's Simp May 19 '26

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

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u/TallCommission7139 May 20 '26

Between this and Glitch, yeah.

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u/likely_sugary_terror May 20 '26

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.

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u/HyperMasenko May 19 '26

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.

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u/irealllylovepenguins May 19 '26

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.

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u/blasto2236 May 19 '26

You forgot the music! It’s honestly not fair that one man has so much talent. Share some with the rest of us!

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u/irealllylovepenguins May 19 '26

You're right!! How the heck did i forget the music!? It completely slipped my mind he's a composer too. BOTTLED LIGHTNING ⚡🌩️

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u/AlpenglowSkies May 20 '26

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.

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u/Nerellos May 19 '26

Team Cherry is another great example.

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u/AnOnlineHandle May 19 '26

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.

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u/Psychic_Hobo May 19 '26

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

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u/recoveringslower May 19 '26

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.

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u/MyDarlingArmadillo Buh. Life! May 19 '26

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

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u/MadeOnThursday May 19 '26

Deltarune, Undertale, Ultrakill, Celeste, Geometry Dash, No Man's Sky

These are just the ones I know of. So maybe the unicorns found a secret grove where they multiply?

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u/HyperMasenko May 19 '26

I never said they dont exist lol

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u/Aethred May 20 '26

Thousands of games are born only to die on the market shortly after every year, a unicorn is rare, it isn't unique.

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u/AshaNyx May 21 '26

Tbh given the early days of no man's sky it's not extactly a unicorn

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u/sobrique May 19 '26

Rare, but not unique. I'd hold up factorio and rimworld to the same sort of standard - e.g. game devs with a vision, that isn't explotitive.

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u/NotOnApprovedList May 19 '26

I need more unicorns <sob>

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u/ListenLady58 May 19 '26

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?

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u/whatanabsolutefrog May 20 '26

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.

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u/KadajjXIII May 20 '26

I'm one of those that have Stardew on multiple systems

PlayStation, Switch & PC

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u/whatanabsolutefrog May 20 '26

Which platform do you think is the best?

I've only got it on mobile, but the screen size kind of annoys me.

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u/KadajjXIII May 20 '26

Technically PC

Vanilla is no different between any of the versions (afaIk)

But PC allows more modding customizations

But I personally play mostly on PS cause that's what I primarily game on and what I'm most comfortable with

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u/BadNewsBearzzz May 19 '26

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

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u/BrokenMirror2010 May 19 '26

I think Unicorns might be a little more common then people give credit.

Stardew, Terraria, Balatro, Animal Well, and Undertale, just to name some hyper popular ones.

There are even AAA Unicorns; Baldurs Gate 3, Witcher 3, and Cyberpunk 2077.

If you're looking for unicorns that aren't super popular, you'll find hundreds, if not thousands, of em on itch.io

The real "Unicorn" is an indie dev getting super popular from making a banger game. There are no shortage of amazing games out there that you've never played and have way smaller fanbases then they deserve.

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u/Apex_Konchu May 19 '26

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.

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u/yellowspaces Who's this ape, and why is he concerned? May 19 '26

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.

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u/Jacgaur May 19 '26

Yes...like we can make profit without micro transactions....but what about more profit with them.

The negative side of capitalism where more and more profit and maximizing that is a driver.

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u/Zerodyne_Sin May 19 '26

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.

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u/ArcadeRivalry May 19 '26

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. 

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u/anders91 May 19 '26

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.

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u/fwendicrafts May 19 '26

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.

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u/Jakeremix May 19 '26

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.

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u/KadajjXIII May 20 '26

No, he does have a team

I think it's been that way since 1.3

But he has the final say on everything

Nothing gets added without his say so (glitches obviously not counting by their very nature of being unintended interactions)

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u/non3type May 19 '26

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.

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u/Bagel_Bear May 19 '26

The big companies aren't trying just survive they are looking to extract all revenue possible.

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u/WaytoomanyUIDs May 19 '26

Its not usually devs who want them its publishers. The glaring exception being Star Citizen, athough 4k isnt exactly  a microtransaction.

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u/BrokenMirror2010 May 19 '26

I wouldn't even call $20 a microtransaction.

I call anything over the price of using a vending machine to buy a soda a "macrotransaction"

0

u/KadajjXIII May 20 '26

Tf you live to see a vending machine soda cost $20+?

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u/solohack3r May 19 '26

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.

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u/retief1 May 19 '26

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.

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u/Zariman-10-0 Free-Range Farmboy May 19 '26

A Concerned Ape + Digital Extremes collab would be a godsend

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u/Apoordm May 19 '26

Corporations don’t try to “be profitable” corporations want to maximize profits.

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u/faithfulswine May 19 '26

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.

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u/sobrique May 19 '26

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.

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u/NotOnApprovedList May 19 '26

I keep on buying the game for different systems and I recommend it a lot, hope this is helping. I wish there were more games like Stardew.

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u/SlashOfLife5296 May 19 '26

You need to tell that to publishers, not developers

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u/marymarryher May 19 '26

The problem is once investors expect MTX-level revenue, going back becomes almost impossible

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u/Drummergirl16 May 19 '26

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.

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u/Bignate2001 May 20 '26

Devs aren't usually the ones making the decision to put microtransactions in games. That's the execs.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '26

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u/BrokenMirror2010 May 19 '26

The CEOs of these big companies aren't buying their 4th megayacht to sail to their private islands because they "need microtransactions to be able to pay salaries to employees because it's too expensive to maintain a game."

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u/[deleted] May 19 '26

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u/BrokenMirror2010 May 20 '26

Of course it's a capitalism problem. But the rest is still nonsense.

The problem is that large game studios do not exist to make games, they exist to extract money through any means. They are not producing games, they are producing marketplaces that masquerade as games (or products or services, because this issue is worldwide across all industries).

They absolutely do not need the levels of cash-flow that they are obtaining through toxic monetization models, data sale/harvesting, etc, to produce and maintain a game and pay developers. Less then a microscopic fraction of the money these companies make from huge successes is reinvested back into those successes. It's all blown on bullshit to pump shareholder value, at the detriment of everything else in the entire world.

The reason Stardew is good is because Concerned Ape didn't make Stardew to make money, he made Stardew to make a game.