What's the News Around the Valley? Stardew Valley and the Success of Earned Media

Have you ever been asked to rate how likely you are to recommend a product to others? I’ve always found that to be one of the more ridiculous questions on customer satisfaction surveys. “How likely are you to rate Brand’s Paper to your friends or coworkers?” Honestly, not likely at all, since ‘preferred brand of printer paper' is not something I often discuss. To me, questions like that generally don’t work as an indicator of the quality of the product or service. However, when Steam (a PC gaming platform) asked me how likely I was to recommend Stardew Valley? I had to be honest – I was very likely to recommend it to others. In fact, I had already done so several times.

Stardew Valley is a farming simulator game with a pixelated art style, developed entirely by one man, Eric Barone, better known as @ConcernedApe on Twitter. It’s also one of the most popular indie games of the last decade, with over 15 million downloads. And it has gained such massive popularity almost entirely through word-of-mouth advertising and earned media.

While Stardew valley has been around for over 6 years, it remains incredibly popular. The draw for the game includes its existence as a ‘cozy game’ – one in which there exists only limited tension, and you have the freedom to take the game at your own pace. A huge draw for the game is its message about stepping away from the hustle and bustle of our busy modern lives, and embracing the little things; friendship, hard work, and beating the dart game in the pirate cove. The low-fi pixelated art is charming and lends a quaint air to the entire game.

Since its release in February of 2016, fans of the game have spent thousands of hours making content on social media, including content about Stardew Valley, the upcoming game Haunted Chocolatier (estimated release date in 2023), and the creator himself. Most critiques are fairly minor, such as this post by TikTok user @rowenripley, which criticizes a humorous aspect of the game design, and this post from TikTok user @flyingchips, which expresses a dislike for the game’s laid-back tutorial structure.

Imgaes via @flyingchips and @rowenripley on TikTok

Though I have spent hundreds of hours playing the game, I have to agree with both users about their criticisms. Some aspects of the game design are interesting choices made by the developer, and the tutorial structure for Stardew Valley leaves much to be desired. Yet most of the issues with Stardew Valley are consequences of its development by only one person. The design critiques are mostly due to simplification of the animations to reduce the sheer number of separate drawings and sprites needed – why make 20 separate drinking animations when one could suffice? The lack of a set tutorial is also likely due to a lack of player testing prior to release. While an improved tutorial could be added now, the extent of the wiki and player attachment to the original start to the game means that a new tutorial would most likely be met with hostility.

In addition to the generally minor criticism, there exists a plethora of fan content, including fan-edits and thirst-posts (via @_._otaku_._edits_._ on TikTok) of the romanceable characters, and dozens of theories about the backstories of characters that we never get shown in-game. There’s also an ever-increasing buzz regarding @ConcernedApe’s upcoming game, Haunted Chocolatier.

Image via @acnh.dyme on TikTok

The Haunted Chocolatier seems to be a game with similar and yet more fantastical gameplay elements than Stardew Valley. Fans of Stardew Valley have been assured by the creator that there will be similar romance and gameplay options, as well as new and yet-untold gameplay elements. There’s little speculation on social media about what, specifically, will be in the game, which I think is due to the great trust that fans of ConcernedApe have in him. We know that the Haunted Chocolatier is being developed in a similar manner to Stardew Valley – by ConcernedApe alone.

For all the buzz that ConcernedApe’s game(s) generate, he’s spent nothing on traditional advertising and marketing techniques. All of the hype generated by the game has been generated organically, through either word-of-mouth or earned media.

Hats on Sea Urchins, via my save file

There’s been an absolutely massive amount of engagement for as small a team as ConcernedApe is working with. News releases about game patches, updates, and new games are released almost exclusively to his Twitter, which has over 700k followers. ConcerenedApe does a truly commendable job of engaging with fans of the game on Twitter, personally replying to people about anything from gameplay to new release dates or suggestions of new features. In the early days of the game, he would even manually fix players' save files if they got corrupted. In the 1.5 update of the game (the largest update ever released for this game, including hours of new playable content), he included a much-requested feature: the ability to put hats on pet sea urchins kept in tanks.

Image via @ConcernedApe's Twitter

I first found out about Stardew Valley through TikToks thirsting over one of the romanceable characters (Sebastian, an emo boy), and decided that I wanted to know how his romance arc played out. My roommate, on the other hand, was encouraged to buy the game from a long-time friend who wanted to play it with her. While Stardew Valley got its start from Indie game blogs spreading the word, its immense popularity is due almost entirely to word-of-mouth advertising, and earned media attention in-game magazines such as PCGamer.com, OldSchoolGamerMagzine.com, and GamerZYMag.com.

If I were the brand manager for ConcernedApe, I would encourage him to continue to respond to fans on Twitter, as it encourages fans to ask questions and further participate in the game and any upcoming games. It allows fans to feel connected to the game and its creator, making them feel as if they had/have a part in building the game itself. I would also encourage ConcernedApe to release short videos of him talking about the development of Stardew Valley – what exactly went into it, and what encouraged him to start game development. I feel like there’s great potential for a The Toys That Made Us - style documentary about the development of Stardew Valley and ConcernedApe’s game development career. With such a devoted following, there’s a great market for advertising that helps fans of the game feel closer and more connected with the creator. I know that I would be fascinated by an in-depth look at how and why Eric Barone began such a daunting task as developing an entire game from start to finish, and what prompted him to keep going. Such a documentary would be a great use of storytelling.

Doing research on this assignment really drove home to me how powerful word-of-mouth is in today’s world of advertising. With social media platforms such as TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram showing algorithm-based feeds instead of chronological ones, having interests in similar “Cozy Games” will prompt content for Stardew Valley. And the more people that make content, the more people will see that content and gain interest in the game.