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Stardew Valley creator gains self-publishing rights

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Stardew Valley creator Eric Barone has announced plans to self-publish the country-life RPG on all platforms, starting with Android. The announcement comes straight from the creator’s Twitter page following the announcement of developer Chucklefish returning the final Stardew Valley publishing rights to ConcernedApe.

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Chucklefish announced its departure from Stardew Valley in a blog post detailing its business ventures with Barone, who goes by the alias ConcernedApe, and giving thanks to other partners and everyone involved with the game and its various ports. The blog also shares the amount of content that has come from the joint effort of Chucklefish and ConcernedApe, such as new language support, wiki development, multiplayer mode, content releases, physical releases, and the mobile version.

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This exit of Chucklefish comes three years after Barone distanced himself from Chucklefish in the wake of allegations that the publisher exploited workers on 2016’s Starbound. During this time, Barone stated that he was the only person to work on Stardew Valley, with Chucklefish only acting as publisher.

The dsparture of Chucklefish from the series leaves ConcernedApe as the sole developer and publisher of the series on all digital platforms, including Android. This development left fans with questions such as whether the 1.5 mobile update is still coming to the title, to which ConcernedApe responded with a “yes.”

“I will never abandon the 1.5 mobile update,” ConcernedApe states. “Even though it’s taken way too long (I freely admit this), I will see it through. I have not forgotten it. I think about it every day. It’s a somewhat complicated situation.”

It’s not clear what the future of Stardew Valley holds with ConcernedApe self-publishing it and the upcoming Haunted Chocolatier, but fans of the title seem to have a bit to look forward to with further Android updates and a new game coming.

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DeAngelo Epps
DeAngelo Epps
Former Digital Trends Contributor
De'Angelo Epps is a gaming writer passionate about the culture, communities, and industry surrounding gaming. His work ranges…
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