Stardew Valley approaching half a million sales

Steam’s current surprise hit is on the cusp of a big sales milestone.

PC Gamer reports that Stardew Valley has to date sold around 425k copies. That’s in just 12 days since its launch at the end of February.

The game, which has been likened to Harvest Moon, came out of nowhere and has quickly gained a hugely devoted fanbase and large amounts of Twitch and streaming coverage. And creator Eric Barone readily admits the scale of its success was far beyond his expectations.

"I thought it would be popular with people who were fans of Harvest Moon or Rune Factory, and I thought that would pretty much be it,” he said. "I never expected it to have such wide appeal.

I mean, I’m super happy about it and I’m blown away by the reaction, but I’m surprised too. I don’t want it to affect my life in any way. My lifestyle isn’t going to change."

Barone has personally won himself a following for the way in which he as approached his fanbase, personally responding to requests and complaints and rapidly fixing and altering his title as and when issues are raised.

Indeed, Kotaku reports that some fans were so keen to support the developer that they have been buying legitimate kes for some of those who had pirated the game.