Eric Barone developed Stardew Valley alone for 4 years; sold over 35 million copies.

After graduating from college, Eric Barone kept looking for work but never found an ideal place. He decided to make a game himself: inspired by farm games he had played in childhood, he wanted to recreate the sense of magic of 'stepping into another world'. The project started as practice, but it ended up taking more than 4 years.

He independently completed everything under the name ConcernedApe — NPR's report specifically noted that the game's programming, pixel art, and music were all created by one person. On February 26, 2016, Stardew Valley launched on Steam, telling the story of a protagonist tired of city life who inherits his grandfather's farm and moves to the countryside to start over.

Sales immediately showed that the market had waited a long time for this genre: less than two weeks after launch, it sold more than 400,000 copies; within two months, publisher Chucklefish confirmed sales reached 1,007,000 copies, putting it alongside ARK and XCOM 2 on the 2016 annual bestseller list compiled by SteamSpy — yet behind it there was no major company, no marketing budget, only one person.

After that, Barone did not stop: he and the small team he later formed continued adding new content to the game, and the everyday gameplay jokingly called by players 'Chores: The Game (家务模拟器)' instead became its most enduring appeal. By December 2024, during NPR's interview, the game's cumulative sales had exceeded 35 million copies — 8 years later, people were still playing, and he was still updating.