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[Grief.exe]

Oh gosh, I forgot about that entirely.
(volume alert) Harvest Moon: Seeds of Memories Gameplay @ E3 2015.

So bad it destroyed my memories of it.

That's rough.

 

[Urthor]

This just demonstrates how many of the articles at sites like PCGamer and Kotaku are taken from Neogaf headlines tbh.

Nirolak makes a thread, thread gets reposted, it's like clockwork.

 

[Trouble]

Wow, good for him.

 

[JohnCYQ]

To begin with, SDV is only released in a single language compared to having English and Japanese, so even if we got Harvest Moon's total sales for comparison, it still wouldn't be a fair one.

 

[Durante]

Going by Steamspy, it sold about 380k on Steam alone.
http://steamspy.com/app/413150

So that'd be about 45k on GoG, not bad.

This is probably not correct, SteamSpy numbers lag behind by 2-3 days and the game is still selling well.

Anyway, I'm always amazed what can happen when streamers pick up on a game. I'm sure marketing departments of huge publishers all over the world would love to know how to make that happen reliably.

 

[BocoDragon]

I love hearing success stories like this.

 

[Hoo-doo]

Release it on OSX and i'll buy likely buy it again if necessary. Release it for PS4 and i'll triple dip. This game is amazing.

 

[GhostTrick]

I just hope either Natsume or Marvelous will see as an opportunity to release A Wonderful Life on Steam :")

 

[slash3584]

I just hope either Natsume or Marvelous will see as an opportunity to release A Wonderful Life on Steam :")

Thiiis!

I only managed to play a bit of the PS2 version, but that sucked hard.

 

[bede-x]

The iOS version is a $10 purchase with no microtransactions.

Oh, so it's actually a game. Silly me, I gave it one look and thought it was just exploitation based on the art style. I'll read up on it later

 

[Cerity]

Great word of mouth + great revival of tired formula + a platform that was thirsty for such a game = great success

Not so much tired, moreso natsume constantly putting out mediocre renditions of it.

 

[Santar]

And that is a game that has no form of DRM on it.
See publishers? Games can sell without DRM.

 

[Mivey]

I just hope either Natsume or Marvelous will see as an opportunity to release A Wonderful Life on Steam :")

Maybe they have just given up on the HM franchise. Why preserve the games by making a Steam release, when they want it to be forgotten, no longer reminding them of how great and successful they used to be.

 

[Spacecowboy77]

Well deserved!

Really happy for the dev

 

[Producer]

Maybe they have just given up on the HM franchise. Why preserve the games by making a Steam release, when they want it to be forgotten, no longer reminding them of how great and successful they used to be.

Story of Seasons just recently sold very well in the US.

 

[Pennywise83]

Maybe they have just given up on the HM franchise. Why preserve the games by making a Steam release, when they want it to be forgotten, no longer reminding them of how great and successful they used to be.

Latest HM game, now Story of Seasons, is the fastest-selling XSeed game in the US.

 

[JaseC]

He's too busy supporting the game to be fooling around with money from what I understand.

Plus I wouldn't think he's seen a cent just yet. Valve pays out monthly.

 

[Dictator93]

The dude who made this deserves the success

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/2675...osed_crunch_that_went_into_Stardew_Valley.php

Read this yesterday, sounds like a cool guy.

 

[Inspector Jones]

I'm so glad to see this game succeed, and it doesn't look like sales are slowing down. The right price, the right game, the right time, word of mouth, I bet this breaks 1 million soon.

 

[kurahador]

Oh gosh, I forgot about that entirely.
(volume alert) Harvest Moon: Seeds of Memories Gameplay @ E3 2015.

So bad it destroyed my memories of it.

Damn. Natsume should call this guy already.
Their recent attempts at the Harvest Moon IP has proven to be such a waste of money.

 

[mnz]

Oh hey, another western indie developer using the lack of popular Japanese franchise on PC to achieve great success. And they'll never learn.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

Jeezus that game looks awful. I would much rather play a port of one of their older classic Harvest Moon titles.

We all would. Not just PC gamers. Harvest moon peaked at fomt and its been downhill since.

 

[Weetrick]

Stardew Valley is also real ugly and that doesn't hurt it. Most of the HM games aren't lookers either.

You're joking right?

 

[Shizuka]

It's better than nothing I can add it to the OP if you have the numbers.

Here you go:

Xseed’s more high-profile Nintendo 3DS titles have been selling well—specifically the farming RPGs that they take on from their parent company, Marvelous.

Story of Seasons, which was released on March 31st, has sold over 100,000 units in North America to date. Meanwhile, Rune Factory 4, which was released in October 2013, has sold over 160,000 units in North America.

Xseed’s next farming game is Return to PopoloCrois: A Story of Seasons Fairytale. Additionally, the company will also release Senran Kagura 2 later this year on 3DS.

 

[bomblord1]

Here you go:

Thanks

 

[The Lamonster]

This game isn't for me, but I'm glad it exists and is so successful. I've heard good things about the developer, so I'm happy for him. This can only mean good things for retro gaming and PC gaming in general.



edit: Well said, Falk. Totally agree.

 

[Falk]

retro gaming

This is a tangent probably worthy of splitting off into its own discussion, but that's another thing that's done so right w.r.t Stardew Valley.

The art all conforms to a single pixel size, which maintains a very coherent aesthetic (especially the fonts Praise the Lord) and yet the game itself renders at a higher resolution, meaning those sprites don't all strictly conform to the exact same grid. Some elements, where absolutely necessary, also are rendered completely separate of the pixel size, like fishing lines, etc.

It's a really, really refreshing thing to see where pixel art is used for its own sake and to pay homage to an aesthetic rather than to conform to the pretense of an arbitrary and completely unnecessary technical limitation.

Many other games that do this either fail from not understanding what makes the aesthetic work, or jank themselves by having mismatched pixel sizes, non-integer nearest-neighbour scaling, etc.

Spoiler

 

[Roland1979]

That's four hundred twenty five thousand and one very soon.

 

[dubq]

I don't know where the thread for getting this on PS4/Vita went, but I tweeted at Gio Corsi and he "liked" it, so it's good to know that this is on his radar. I'm so hopeful that I'll get to double-dip on this in the near future!

 

[roytheone]

So this guy is basically now a millionaire because of a passion project he did? It's always great when people get rewarded for following their dreams! Very happy for him!

 

[Urthor]

Always remember that there's probably 5-10k devs who didn't get there. Remember those guys and feel for them.


He's a millionaire many times over as well. Thing is I wouldn't expect too much content from this guy. At the end of the day Stardew is 4 years of effort, the amount of stuff that he can rip out with a single human being's worth of man hours is only so much.

 

[SlasherJPC]

Totally want this game but my budget is slim at this point. It's on my to do list.

 

[Crash55118]

Have to imagine the price being low helped immensely. Easily has the scope of a 30 dollar+ indie game.

I realize it is comparing apples to bathtubs, but the fact that this was cheaper then Firewatch (My last full price purchase on PC) and has already provided me 3x the playing time is pretty crazy.

 

[exmachina64]

So this guy is basically now a millionaire because of a passion project he did? It's always great when people get rewarded for following their dreams! Very happy for him!

It depends on how you define passion project:

"On average, I probably worked on it 10 hours a day every day of the week during development," says Eric Barone. "Now that the game is out, I'm probably spending more like 15 hours a day on it."

...

"It does help if you can absolutely convince yourself that you're destined for greatness," says Barone. "It's not even an ego thing--it's just a way to prevent doubt and insecurity from hindering you."

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/2675...osed_crunch_that_went_into_Stardew_Valley.php

I love the end result and can appreciate how much work he put into SV, but it was and remains a full-time (previously unpaid) job.

 

[AusRoachman]

Gameinformers podcast today as an excellent interview with the creator

http://www.gameinformer.com/themes/...-division-stardew-valley-interview&GroupKeys=

Some small bullet points

- The game had very little playtests before release which I find pretty amazing
- It took about a week but the big guys (ms/sony) have contacted him
- 4 player coop is in the pipeline as well as possible steamworks support e.t.c

 

[Mr_Moogle]

I'm on the cusp of buying this game. It just looks so damned charming. I literally haven't played a farming game since SimFarm on my old 386 SX. I had some good times with that game.

 

[GreatNumber]

Oh wow, this is the first time hearing about this game. For a single guy to make this project and then probably getting pretty good compensation for his work and time investment is nice to hear. Good for him.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

I hope it sends the bigger developers a message about their formulas.

 

[roytheone]

It depends on how you define passion project:



http://gamasutra.com/view/news/2675...osed_crunch_that_went_into_Stardew_Valley.php

I love the end result and can appreciate how much work he put into SV, but it was and remains a full-time (previously unpaid) job.

I would still define this as a passion project, even if it was a lot of work. Likewise, I would classify something like The witness for Jonathan blow as a passion project , even though that game was a multi-million, multi-team project.

 

[Rinさとり]

Thats awesome glad it sells well.

 

[kiguel182]

Man, I so need this to be ported to OSX. I need to play it!

 

[exmachina64]

I would still define this as a passion project, even if it was a lot of work. Likewise, I would classify something like The witness for Jonathan blow as a passion project , even though that game was a multi-million, multi-team project.

I can see where you're coming from.

 

[heringer]

Oh, so it's actually a game. Silly me, I gave it one look and thought it was just exploitation based on the art style. I'll read up on it later

It's fairly decent and a good way to get your HM fix on the go. I wouldn't get it on PC though, since Stardew Valley is vastly better.