I sometimes still cannot believe that we have worked together with ConcernedApe for so many years!
It was 2014 when we first discovered Stardew Valley. Chucklefish’s director Finn found an early version of the game on Steam Greenlight, and reached out to Eric to discuss how we could help support it. Our team fell in love with the game instantly, but even when we agreed to work together in 2015, none of us knew just how big the game would become!
Stardew Valley has come a long way since we first saw the early version, but even back then everyone on our team was hooked by the gameplay and were incredibly excited to work on the project. When Eric shared a near final build, we spent hours playing the game, and knew instantly it was something special. There were a few people in the office who played enough to declare it was their favourite game ever – even before it was released.
It wasn’t long before players around the world realised what a special game it is too. Very quickly the community started to grow and fall in love with the game. Business, press, influencers, partners, platform holders, distributors emails and requests started pouring in thick and fast, and we became even busier, our priority being to handle all the extraneous things while Eric focused on the development itself.
We loved and still love every minute of the experience. Our small team worked hard and we are so proud of our joint achievements with ConcernedApe:
- New Languages
- Development of the wiki
- Multiplayer
- Console releases
- Physical releases & merchandise
- Mobile version
We originally entered into our agreement with Eric for a two-year term – with a plan of transitioning publishing duties and responsibilities after release. Today we handed over responsibility for Stardew mobile, which was the final platform we were acting as publisher for – now ConcernedApe is set up to self-publish for all platforms!
I want to say thank you to Eric for working with us and trusting us to help build the Stardew Valley experience to what it is today! Eric built one of the best games in the last decade and we are grateful for the opportunity to be a part of its story.
I also want to thank our partners Secret Police for all the tech support and for building Stardew Valley mobile, and Tom Spillman at Sickhead Games for all of the console porting work!!! A massive thank you to our internal team for taking every bit of it and delivering the best publishing and community support possible.
Last but not least I want to thank the Stardew community. You all are amazing and your commitment and love for the game has been incredible – the community love is one of the biggest parts of what makes the game so special!
We wish the team at ConcernedApe all the best, and as fans ourselves we’re looking forward to your next project!