Concerned Ape, the developer of hit pixel farming simulator, Stardew Valley, is moving on to a new game, but it's a good time to do so, as his super success story has only gone from strength to strength. It's just sold its 15 millionth copy, with two million of those coming in the last year alone. Lockdowns love a farmer, it seems.
Stardew Valley was released as a single player experience on Windows in 2016. It quickly launched on other platforms in subsequent updates, and multiplayer in 2018 gave it a substantial boost across all platforms. It's enjoyed massive popularity for the once-lone-developer, but now it may be that the game doesn't receive much in the way of further updates, as after selling 15 million copies, Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone is moving on to a new game he's been working on for a while.
"I'm not saying there's going to be another Stardew Valley update," Barone said in response to a fan about future marriage options in the game. "I don't even know at this point. Right now I am focused on my next game. So, we'll see."
"What it is, no one knows at this point," he said of the new game. "What I will say is it's another pixel art game, a top-down perspective similar to Stardew Valley. And in some ways it is kind of similar to Stardew Valley, but it's not a farming game. It's something different."
Following another strong year of sales, Stardew Valley is still enjoyed by hundreds of thousands every day, with its daily peak player numbers still hitting nearly 50,000 concurrent farmers.