ConcernedApe is the one-person studio of Eric Barone, the solo developer behind Stardew Valley — one of the most successful indie games ever made. Barone started working on the game in 2012 as a personal project to improve his programming and art skills, drawing heavy inspiration from Harvest Moon. He did everything himself: programming, pixel art, music composition, sound design, and writing.
Stardew Valley launched in February 2016 and sold over a million copies in its first two months. By 2024, the game had surpassed 30 million copies sold across PC, consoles, and mobile. What started as a farming simulator revealed layers of depth — relationship systems, dungeon crawling, fishing minigames, community events, and seasonal storytelling that kept players hooked for hundreds of hours.
Barone continued supporting Stardew Valley for years after launch with massive free updates. The 1.5 update in late 2020 added an entire new island, split-screen co-op on consoles, and dozens of hours of new content. Update 1.6 in 2024 added even more, including new festivals, items, and a farm type. All of this came at no extra cost to players.
Despite being worth tens of millions of dollars from Stardew Valley’s sales alone, Barone has maintained an extraordinarily modest operation. He self-publishes the game (with ConcernedApe as his publisher label), has hired only a tiny handful of contractors for specific tasks like porting, and continues to develop his next game, Haunted Chocolatier, largely by himself. His story is arguably the most inspiring solo-developer success in gaming history.
