why is there so many people playing

[REALiNSaNgAMingGODPrODIgY]

its not even dying down after the update?

[BirbNotBird]

Good game. Good modding support. Life-long interest at least for a few months at worst.

[REALiNSaNgAMingGODPrODIgY]

Originally posted by BirbNotBird:

Good game. Good modding support. Life-long interest at least for a few months at worst.

no i mean now, its top 5 on steam. the update did not seem that big to me?

[JVC]

Originally posted by REALiNSaNgAMingGODPrODIgY:

Originally posted by BirbNotBird:

Good game. Good modding support. Life-long interest at least for a few months at worst.

no i mean now, its top 5 on steam. the update did not seem that big to me?

It is quite a big update. And noone says that everyone that plays now had completed the previous 1.5. update first

[*Razor]

Originally posted by REALiNSaNgAMingGODPrODIgY:

Originally posted by BirbNotBird:

Good game. Good modding support. Life-long interest at least for a few months at worst.

no i mean now, its top 5 on steam. the update did not seem that big to me?

For some people its being used as anxiety relief.Bobby lee a famous comedian gave the game high praise on a podcast and im sure other famous people have as well. I am sure you know its a great game it can be challenging if you want it to be or a smooth ride the whole way through.Way better than starfield lmao

[Phirestar]

Most people have likely not finished exploring all of the update’s content, just yet. Stardew Valley is a pretty big game, after all. You can spend well over a hundred hours on one save file completing everything there is to do. And now there’s a ton more to do with 1.6.

[REALiNSaNgAMingGODPrODIgY]

Originally posted by *Razor:

Originally posted by REALiNSaNgAMingGODPrODIgY:

no i mean now, its top 5 on steam. the update did not seem that big to me?

For some people its being used as anxiety relief.Bobby lee a famous comedian gave the game high praise on a podcast and im sure other famous people have as well. I am sure you know its a great game it can be challenging if you want it to be or a smooth ride the whole way through.Way better than starfield lmao

did not know people cared that much about the game. i use slime rancher to relax and don't hear so much praise to that game xd

[NBOX21]

Originally posted by REALiNSaNgAMingGODPrODIgY:

did not know people cared that much about the game. i use slime rancher to relax and don't hear so much praise to that game xd

Well, consider it done on my part!

Although, I think the reason that game's not getting nearly as much attention is because there's a sequel in Early Access, whereas this game has not gotten a sequel of any sort. Closest thing we've gotten is an announcement of the creator's next game, and I'm pretty sure it'll play nothing like this.

[KUNTCOBAIN]

update ruined my 100% achievement. need to sink in another 200 hours

[CringePotato]

A lot of people took breaks from the game before the update came out, and now people are putting many hours into new saves to experience all the new content. The game also generally has a high playercount.

[Snowy Sprout]

It's strange you'd think the excitement for the update could die down after so few days. It's a MAJOR update, with lots of new content, and the game takes maybe 100-200 hours of play time to reach "perfection" at the very end (though really there is no actual end to this game).

Add to that the fact that new players are joining all the time, and I'd expect hype for this game to continue for several months at least. Given that the original game was made eight years ago and folks were still passionate about playing it even before the update, you should recognize that there's more to this game than you may have realized.

[Včelí medvídek]

I would say msot people started new game and is still in mid of it...
9and once I complete vanilla game, I am looking forward play another 1.6. with mods once all will be updated)

[BirbNotBird]

Originally posted by REALiNSaNgAMingGODPrODIgY:

no i mean now, its top 5 on steam. the update did not seem that big to me?

Steam posts are just limited. But overall it's a huge patch note which add plenty of things in many aspects from early to late game.

[maestro]

Originally posted by REALiNSaNgAMingGODPrODIgY:

its not even dying down after the update?

The update added quite a lot of stuff to do.

That, and some people might not have played the previous update, like myself. I started a beach farm when it came out, and got sidetracked and distracted by other games.

Came back for 1.6 and well, Ginger Island and its related content is all new to me, and I've put like 65h into my newest save and still have a decent ways to go to get Perfection (which I've never done before obviously).

[Phirestar]

Originally posted by Snowy Sprout:

It's strange you'd think the excitement for the update could die down after so few days. It's a MAJOR update, with lots of new content, and the game takes maybe 100-200 hours of play time to reach "perfection" at the very end (though really there is no actual end to this game).

Add to that the fact that new players are joining all the time, and I'd expect hype for this game to continue for several months at least. Given that the original game was made eight years ago and folks were still passionate about playing it even before the update, you should recognize that there's more to this game than you may have realized.

It’s also the first major update in a long while.

Prior to 1.6, the game was receiving a new major version about once a year. There was a five year period from the game’s launch to 1.5, so each one came out relatively soon after the last one.

That’s not the case for 1.6; it’s been three years since the last time Stardew Valley had new content introduced. A lot of the people playing now probably hadn’t touched the game since 2020, when 1.5 released, so many of them have probably been very eager to finally get back into it, and thus aren’t putting the game down after a couple days of exploring the new patch.

[emmagineif]

Stardew kind of revitalized an entire genre. Every cozy game is either compared to it, or listed as a direct inspiration. 19 million people own copies of it on PC, most of which is probably through Steam.

You can look at the Global Achievement rates. 1.7% of players have the Distant Shore Achievement, as of writing this (This is a new achievement as of the update). This means 323000 people have played enough since the update to get this specific achievement. For reference, 3.4% of people already have Master Angler (most of which got it before the update)... which requires A Distant Shore to achieve. This means 323000 people still need to get the Distant Shore Achievement before the percentages even make sense.

Personally, I only just achieved Perfection today because I (Like a lot of people) started a totally new save. 0.1% of people have the achievement, which is still 19000 people.

Point is, when you're dealing with that high a number, even small percentages of people coming back to play the game with the update is a massive amount of people, and you're mixing
1. People replaying the entire game + the update
2. People who are just playing the update, but didn't start Day 1
3. People who never "finished" the game to begin with, but got sucked back in with the update.
4. People who waited for mods to update