10 years later, I still can't believe Eric Barone thought Harvest Moon fans would hate Stardew Valley

10 years later, I still can’t believe Eric Barone thought Harvest Moon fans would hate Stardew Valley | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these RPG Avowed was always great, but now that it costs what it should have at launch and nobody’s being weird about it online, it’s kinda perfect RPG ‘We lost things such as physics in games:’ The dev behind my most anticipated RPG thinks players are craving more interactive games, not just ‘moving around in a static 3D environment’ Horror ‘Art and science and procreation, that’s about all life is good for:’ Two former freeware developers are still trying to keep it weird in an era when companies ‘sell games to people in 5-second clips’ Life Sim Stardew Valley 1.7: The farmer’s almanac for key details and news on the next big update Life Sim Stardew Valley fan left their Switch running for ‘over 3 weeks straight’ to sleep for 1,000 years, waking up to immortal villagers, giant mushrooms and debris everywhere Roguelike To celebrate 2 years of Balatro, creator LocalThunk reflected on dropping out of an engineering program to make games: ‘Even if I could warn myself I’m not sure what I could have said to prepare for the insanity’ Survival & Crafting Valheim’s creative director is still ‘dedicated on Valheim every day’ in addition to his new co-op dungeon crawler: ‘We love making games so much that we want to make more games’ Gaming Industry Nightdive Studios’ Stephen Kick has 8,544 hours in Dota 2, and just clocked his 5,000th win: ‘I think it’s made me a better leader’ RPG The dev behind my top upcoming RPG is a Hungarian chef who thought ‘if not now, then when?’ and learned coding from scratch to make his dream ‘eurojank’ masterpiece Life Sim A beginner’s guide to installing Stardew Valley mods: SMAPI, Stardrop, and more Life Sim Starsand Island is the first can’t-miss cozy game of 2026 and it’s already taken over 20 hours from me Fallout ‘It took about 5 years’ for people to start liking Fallout: New Vegas, says Josh Sawyer, and even longer for Obsidian to see that ‘players actually liked the design choices we had made’ Games I played 31 new cozy games this year, and my top 6 picks are all completely different Adventure ‘We never had plans to update Peak at all’: Aggro Crab reveals that it doesn’t want ‘to be a studio that works on one game forever’ Fallout Fallout was a ‘B-tier product’ that lost both the licenses it was banking on and had its lead dev joking, ‘In a week, we’re going to be asking whether people want fries with their meal,’ but now he thinks those trials ‘turned out to be positives’ PopularNEW: PC Gamer Clips!Arc RaidersBest PC gearFalloutGame Quizzes Games Life Sim Stardew Valley 10 years later, I still can’t believe Eric Barone thought Harvest Moon fans would hate Stardew Valley Features By Lauren Morton published 25 February 2026 “I still didn’t think it was going to be super popular,” Barone said of the days leading up to Stardew Valley’s launch in 2016. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: ConcernedApe) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer Get the PC Gamer Newsletter Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? Every Friday GamesRadar+ Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you’re going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them. 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From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we’ve got you covered. Signup + Once a month SFX Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month! Signup + An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter If there’s one thing I’m always saying as a PC gamer, it’s “I really hope nobody takes a console-exclusive series I loved as a kid that’s rarely if ever been replicated on the platform I now predominantly use as an adult and creates a modern homage to it.” You know, like we said about Final Fantasy Tactics for years. More stuff like that formative thing I loved? No thank you!That’s basically the reaction Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone expected from Harvest Moon fans back in 2016 when he released his indie farm sim. Thank goodness he was wrong. Eric Barone talks Stardew Valley & Haunted Chocolatier | ConcernedApe Interview – YouTube Watch On Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone sat down to chat with PC Gamer at last year’s Game Developer’s conference, nine years after Stardew Valley launched. Now Stardew Valley is celebrating its first decade—on February 26, specifically—and I still can’t believe that Barone thought that farm sim players weren’t going to like his farm sim. Related articles ‘I’m a total amateur’ says Stardew Valley creator and developer of one of the most iconic farming sims of the 21st century Eric Barone says he’d ‘love to’ make Stardew Valley 2 someday: ‘A whole new set of ch