The Million Dollar Dream

Estimated Reading Time: 5-Minutes

Happy Friday!!

Can farming make you a millionaire?
It surely can but today we are not talking about regular farming but a farming-related game called Stardew Valley that made millions of dollars.

The crazy part is that it was created by one single person Eric Barone. It is not even the most crazy part there are more. But first, let’s talk about the founder who made his dream a million-dollar project.

The Million Dollar Dream

Eric Barone Aka ConcernedApe (On Twitter) graduated from the University of Washington Tacoma with a Computer Science Degree. Eric was an eager learner and wanted to perfect his coding skills.

How do we learn new skills?

Usually, by reading books or taking courses, or YouTube. But that was not the case for Eric. Eric decided that he would learn and practice coding by creating a game!!!
Well, that will be the last thing that will come into people’s minds.

Eric used to love a game called Harvest Moon which is a popular simulation game but as time went by the content of the game was getting boring and there were other problems related to the game.
Eric searched for other alternatives to the game but did not find any suitable ones.

What did Eric do?
He decided to create a version of Harvest Moon by himself which will solve the problems that Harvest Moon had.

Why The Idea Was Crazy?

Eric started building Stardew Valley in 2011 and it was a pixelated game (Like Minecraft).

If you are familiar with gaming and a gaming nerd like me you already know that by that time popular games like Dota 2, Counter-Strike, League of Legends, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto were dominating the market.

Those games had huge budgets and were very popularized among regulars and competitive players. The gaming scene was evolving towards more competitiveness. At that time Eric was developing a pixelated farming simulator game as an independent developer.

If you asked anyone they would have said it would not work but for Eric, it was not even a concern. He kept doing what he loved and worked really hard.

When I say worked really hard I mean it. The art, design, music, and game development all was done by this man alone. Can you even imagine that?

Did The Crazy Idea Work?

It took 4 years for Stardew Valley to complete. On 26, February 2016 the single-player version of Stardew Valley was released and it was a huge hit.

Some popular gaming influencers played that game and they loved it and it helped Stardew Valley to reach a good number of gamers.

Within the first year, it sold over $1 Million copies and it was just the beginning.

Let’s Talk About Business

Stardew Valleys’ majority of the sales come from PC but Eric did not just stop there. Now Stardew Valley is available on Nintendo Switch, Mac OS, Xbox, IOS, Android, Linux, and even on Tesla Cars.

Why Stardew Valley Is A Hit Despite All The Odds?

• The game had a wholesome vibe where you could relate many things of Stardew Valley to real life which grabbed many gamers’ attention.

• Promoting via Gaming influencers was a huge hit which reached a broad audience very easily.

• Eric was always proactive and listened to the community. What the community asked Eric delivered.

• Patch updates frequently. New content was added to the game so that people did not get bored of the game.

• It was an improved version of Harvest Moon, which already had a good player base. Stardew Valley was able to cultivate that player base and made its own.

• The game has the vibe of freedom. You can do almost everything farming-related. From raising 300 rabbits to naming your pet, there is pretty much no limitation.

• It had a really strong community and it even got stronger when the multiplayer version of Stardew Valley was released.

Business
3 Business Ideas Of The Day

1. Build a community of a topic you are passionate about or interested in and then provide them updates via a Newsletter. You can open a free newsletter from “beehiiv” I recommend beehiiv as it will take care of the monetization from ads and boost for you so you can focus more on the content.

2. You can create a Print on demand store for free. You will provide a product design and if you gather orders. All the production and distribution will be taken care of by the Print on demand site. I would recommend “Printify” for that.

3. Become an affiliate of any popular product or service and promote it. When someone buys from the link you will get a commission. However, do not promote anything you do not believe in. One of the best ways to promote is to create reels or TikTok videos and publish 2/3 short videos each day related to the product/service and provide your affiliate link on the post.