Stardew Valley Might Be The Most Played Indie Game Ever

Article by Lachlan Miller
Published August 8, 2025

I remember when Stardew Valley was first released, just like it was yesterday. I instantly fell in love with the warm yellow and green visuals, and the relaxing gameplay. The colors were so inviting, and so was the gameplay. Most games seek to give you a good time by stressing you out and making you earn a brief but good feeling once you complete something very difficult. Stardew Valley did the opposite. From the start, you were in awe and delight until you finally had to put the game down because of real life calling.

In the indie hit, you enjoy farming, mining, fishing, and socializing with the locals. Stardew Valley has a way of keeping you focused and working on the virtual mission, without even realizing you've been staring at your screen for three hours. It's inexplicably fun playing with Grandpa's hand-me-down tools, and learning to live off the land. Everytime you dig up a treasure, there's a great sense of satisfaction.

There's almost nothing that Stardew Valley requires from you as a player. You just enjoy this beautiful world, doing as you please. It's like a 2D minecraft with charming and fun local village farming to do, and gamers have responded by giving vast amounts of their time to Stardew Valley. When you talk to an average Stardew Valley fan, they're virtually all clocking 100+ hours.



Stardew Valley has since become one of Steam's absolute top 100 all-time best sellers. It's primary competition on the coveted Steam charts are all triple-A studios with floors full of people who specialize in art, game design, programming, or marketing.

It's really quite surprising once you realize Stardew Valley was created by just one guy, Eric Barone. He has to be some kind of super genius, right, or does his sheer love and passion + 4 years of his life explain it? It's a hotly debated topic amongst us at Indie Game Magazine. The consensus is a bit of both.

Stardew Valley has generated over half a billion dollars in revenue, $518 million to be more precise. Any triple-A studio would envy numbers like that, and the designer didn't even need to lease out an expensive building or pay teams of developers. It's all quite remarkable. It's basically a mini-Minecraft. After carefully studying the game and its market statistics, we believe there isn't a more played indie game.

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