this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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And then you've got absolute mad men like Concerned Ape making stardew valley 10 times better with free updates for years and years. Showing these money hungry companies how it's done.
The scale is just a little bit different here, isn't it. One guy (maybe a few more) and an indie sensation that makes a ridiculous amount of sales vs. a company that needs to pay wages for 30 people.
We can have a discussion here, but comparing standard run rates vs. a massive exception isn't a great starting point.
Yeah it’s also one guy who got so rich off it he never has to work again if he doesn’t want to. Haunted Chocolatier isn’t because concerned ape is a game dev now and needs money, it’s concerned ape wants to make a new game. He clearly loves stardew valley and that’s part of why he keeps updating it.
Terraria is a better exception to use but still an exception. I’m not asking for every game to give free unplanned massive expansions, though I will continue praising those who do such things and absolutely add them to my list of “buy their next game if I’m remotely interested”.
What I want is games that feel like they’re trying to give everyone a fair deal. A base game that’s good on its own and doesn’t feel like a downgrade from the previous game. A few expansions that are good, reasonably priced, and make the game further into its best version of that iteration of the series. And a reasonable number of non expansion dlc that add something and ideally don’t leave me trying to decide what ones I want to get. And by the end of life the game can be not quite the cheapest but full, good, and complete. That way when the next iteration of the series is dropped I’m not left thinking it was because they just wanted to sell me the same things over again. Civilization does this excellently.
Yes, companies with 30 employees are, in fact, money hungry because that's how the employees fucking eat. One person's recurring costs are nowhere near the recurring costs of dozens of people. WEIRD HOW MATH.
Stardew Valley, Undertale, Braid, all of these one-man (mostly) shows generated enough revenue to effectively retire their creators overnight but if they had to pay 30 motherfuckers with the proceeds... yeah, not so much.
I've worked for those (sized) companies and employee pay is not as much as you'd think. Not to mention higher sales don't equal more pay (for the actual workers.)
Source: just shy of 20 years in gaming.
None of that has anything to do with my post.
At the expense of: No Stardew Valley 2.
Honestly, why would we need a Stardew Valley 2? There's so many harvest moon games but are they really anything more than small iterations? Not to mention those have been garbage since the IP was basically stolen from the original developers.
He's working on the haunted chocolatier while isn't a sequel looks like a great spiritual successor
Oh nice
Not Stardew Valley 2 but CA is making a new game about a chocolateer who has ghost friends
Fun fact, we basically had stellaris 2 for free
I feel like Stellaris is a measurably different game than release. I bought the game on steam like 10 years ago and while it looks largely the same, the mechanics have seemingly had complete makeovers or renovations every few years. As far as I can tell most of the modified mechanics have been introduced to the base game as well, so those without DLC aren't completely left out.
The game used to be some weird rock-paper-scissors game of either wormholes, gateways, and jump drives with corvette death columns. There was an optimal way to play and everything else was a handicap