A decade after Stardew Valley, Eric Barone is still going it alone | Hacker News Reader

A decade after Stardew Valley, Eric Barone is still going it alone

gq-magazine.co.uk

52 pointsHelloUsername15 comments

I love that game, I got it on my PC and handheld. I believe he is still supporting it with updates (Content updates too, not only fixes).

I think there's quite a few amateur video documentaries about how it was a super-iterative process - the first sprites in the game looked janky and simplistic, and everything - the gameplay, music and art got better over time. I find it really inspiring.

I have gotten so much value out of that one game over the years. if he decided to just cut a new expansion pack of new content for an extra fee, I'd happily drop money for it

I want to have a project like that someday too.

It's not really possible. Eric Barone was an unemployed bum working on the game full time while his girlfriend worked double shifts to support both of them financially, that alone means what took him years to finish, would take you a decade. Another thing is that during the time SV released, there were maybe around 50-80 of releases weekly on Steam, now it's in the upper hundreds - there's no organic discoverability anymore, what matters is having a good marketing campaign that requires high budget. And last but not least, with each passing year, the content requirement for games keeps going up - what could pass as a fully featured game a decade ago, would be called a boring game with no content today. All other games that blew up was mostly through sheer luck (look at Among Us being a <4k people game for 2 years before becoming one of the biggest games).

>It's not really possible.

It's almost certainly possible, just not very likely. You have to understand that there were probably thousands of devs working on solo passion game projects during the same timeframe that are not widely known. This one hit a social percolation cluster and became wildly successful. Making a good game is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success.

"there's no organic discoverability anymore"

This would imply that there have not been a large number of indie games that have rocketed in popularity which is just patently false. The so called "friendslop games" have been in and out of rotation now for about 2 years generating millions of dollars each.

Statistically, you're right. But still, party-game-focused games have a chance of succeeding. In other words, it feels like the trend cycle has gotten faster than the "super jackpot" works. Rather than impossible, you could say it's become harder... and in fact, games themselves are statistically few... but even so, everyone wants a miracle.

I mean I agree with you, if your goal is to turn ANY game into potential profit then the best way to tackle the problem is to vibecode quick friendslop/incremental titles (or whatever the flavor-of-the-game genre may be in the future) and proverbially keep throwing shit at the wall until something sticks. I was more hinting at the fact that passion-project-turned-retirement-money pipeline is almost entirely closed unless you get lucky.

With AI assistance - another Eric Barone could conceivably create a similar game in a fraction of the time

I think achieving that specific kind and level of success had only been possible during that specific period of time.

Everything is luck and timing. Look at a game like Mecha Chameleon. That game is a vibe coding game, but it's very fun, isn't it? What about Vampire Survivors? I think a lot of every success and failure depends on luck. But separately from that, I want to become the developer of some great project. Right now I mainly deliver programs that go into factories, but someday I have a small dream of making a project that everyone can recall when they hear my name. In that sense, I envy ConcernedApe. With my talent and ability, it's probably hard, but life is long.

Everybody always says that. People who have been popular on Youtube for a year say nobody can get popular on Youtube anymore, nobody can make a game like that until somebody does it, etc. Yes, it's hard and the odds are against you but I bet a dollar somebody told him that it would be impossible to make his game before he started.

Also the OP didn't say he wanted the same level of success, he said he wanted a project like that. I'd love to work on a project like that, having fun building it out over time, even if it didn't make a gazillion dollars. There are different levels of success.

I always love when Bobby Lee is excitedly showing Eric his farm, a bug happens and you can see Eric's eyes go wide.

This one? [0]

6:13 is whet the bug occurs but that's it..

0 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AlmgR0TSzvY

He made like half a billion out of that. Why would he invite somebody else and/or have a rush in life?

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