Over 10 Million Farmers Have Buried Their Hoes in Stardew Valley

Though lots of us fancy ourselves as dedicated city folk, the enormous popularity of Stardew Valley proves few of us can truly resist the call of the farm. To date, the popular fantasy farming sim has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.

The official Stardew Valley press page recently updated with the impressive figure (via Dualshockers). Stardew Valley's developer, Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone, hasn't issued an official statement on the sales, though he might have his hands full squashing stray bugs left behind by the recent (and massive) 1.4 content patch.

Said patch offers one example why Stardew Valley managed to pass the 10 million mark since its February 2016 release: Barone keeps the game fresh with new content and features, like 2018's multiplayer update. Barone also worked with indie publisher Chucklefish to bring Stardew Valley to consoles and mobile. Stardew Valley proved to be an especially huge hit on the Switch, where it was the top downloaded game on the eShop for some time.

Stardew Valley's latest milestone isn't owed simply to its accessibility and novel content, though. It's a warm game that builds on a unique genre that started in 1996 with Harvest Moon for the SNES.Stardew Valley may not be a "real" farming sim—that's what the Farming Simulator series is for, God bless its enthusiastic fans—but if you like your cows to express their contentment via cartoon hearts, there's no better farming sim out there.

Last year, Barone took over publishing duties for Stardew Valley on all platforms save mobile. We talked to him about the challenges of being a solo developer, and what he has planned for future projects.