Stardew Valley Dev Breaks Up with ChuckleFish

Stardew Valley was one of those indie gems that managed to remain relevant past the release year, which is about the highest peak of success an indie game can hope to achieve. And with its relevancy, it was able to release a number of patches and updates, port onto just about every system imaginable, and even introduce multiplayer, a long-demanded feature.

And we’re not quite done with it yet: as developer ConcernedApe just announced through their spokesman/sole employee, Eric Barone, that they were going to be parting ways with their long-time publisher, Chucklefish, and pursue independent publishing.

"When I first released Stardew Valley, I was a complete novice to the video game industry. Chucklefish, as my publisher, oversaw the distribution, console ports and translations of the game. They set up the official wiki and helped me redesign the website, to great effect. And of course, Tom Coxon did amazing work adding network code to the game, making multiplayer a reality. But I’m at a point now where I’m ready to move forward on my own. I think self-publishing is the end-goal of most indie developers, and I’m happy to be in a place where that’s possible!"

By splitting up, it means that CorneredApe gets the rights back to almost every version of the game, except the Switch and Mobile versions, which ChuckleFish still control. Practically, this means that Eric Barone will make more money on most sales, which is swell for him, but it’s unknown exactly how this affects the gamers themselves. We already know ol’ Eric is working on a new game, and the multiplayer version is going to come out on the Switch soon anyway, so… it seems likely this won’t have any real impact on the gaming public.

In that case, hopefully, it works well for Eric, but if he finds himself in trouble, he can relax knowing it’s unlikely he’d have any problems finding someone to publish him again.