Stardew Valley is one of many beloved indie games that are currently available to play. Eric Barone also known as ConcernedApe is the sole developer of the game and has now spoken out to clarify some misunderstandings among the community in regards to his relationship with publisher Chucklefish.

Chucklefish is a British company that used to publish Stardew Valley, and is now working on Witchbrook which is considered the Stardew Valley of magic. Eric has since parted ways with them and taken over self publishing once again. Eric states in his latest blog post “Throughout the 4.5 years of development, I was the only person to work on Stardew Valley. Neither Chucklefish nor any contributors working with Chucklefish were involved in creating the game, in any capacity.”

Making clear once again that Chucklefish had no impact on Stardew Valleys 4.5 years of development, other than writing the net code for the multiplayer update that was released for the PC and Nintendo Switch console last year.

Chucklefish has recently been accused of underpaying their employees, a sensitive topic that is very important to Eric who recently formed a small team to help him focus on future development for Stardew Valley. Eric said “I can also say that, both personally and in my capacity as the recent founder of a small team, I believe in compensating developers for their contributions in working on games.”

You can check out his full statement on the official Stardew Valley Development Blog. Eric also recently teased fans with Fish ponds that will be coming to Stardew Valley with the next major update. The long awaited multiplayer update for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are also only weeks away from release according to Eric.