Why are Farming Games called Stardew Valley 'Ripoffs'?

Every time a new farming game with social simulator mechanics comes out, the comparisons are inevitable. Just another Stardew Valley clone. Is this true, or are people just fed up with farming games? What could be causing this vitriol towards the genre? Let's take a look at these games a little closer!

Farming Games shown off:
- Fields of Mistria (0:00)
- Stardew Valley (0:09)
- Sun Haven (0:13)
- Harvest Moon: Winds of Anthos (0:23)
- Harvest Moon (0:10)
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2:14)
- Farming Simulator (2:27)
- The Sims 4 (3:18)
- Moonstone Island (4:04)
- Roots of Pacha (5:51)
- Little Known Galaxy (6:20)
- Dinkum (6:29)
- Disney Dreamlight Valley (7:05)
- Fae Farm (7:11)
- Coral Island (8:02)
- Farmville 3 (8:43)
- Harvest Moon: One World (11:13)
- Harvest Moon: Light of Hope (11:25)
- Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life (11:45)
- Rune Factory 3 Special (11:50)
- Atelier Ryza 3 (11:51)
- Harvestella (11:53)

Sections:
0:00 - Intro
0:26 - The Stardew Valley Killer
1:10 - What about Harvest Moon?
1:55 - What is a Farming Game?
3:52 - Neighbor-vanias
5:50 - What should be Different?
8:30 - The True Ripoffs
11:37 - The Farming Game Avalanche
13:11 - Every Game is Someone's Favorite Game

_____________________
Here's the lofi Stardew Valley music I use a lot:

[NinjaWaluigi]

I’ll finish the video, but this conversation just feels like a rehash or rediscovery of older conversations. We used to call every shooter “Doom clones” and we used to call every MOBA “Dota Clones” before we developed the names and nuances for the genre. I think people just forget that genres are forged by reinterpretations and remixes of what came before it.

All genres have the prototype, the archetype, and then the stereotype, and that’s a sign of good health.

[loki]

Stardew revitalized the farming Sim genre. It's not different than any other hit bringing a genre back into focus

[itsmechara]

Bro Fields of Mistria is to Stardew what Stardew is to Harvest Moon. I love both games!

[jaffidaguy]

I feel that Fields of Mistria is more of a love letter to farming games such as Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley than a rip off. Its 80s anime aesthetic and different mechanics (such as bug hunting, archaeology and levelling up system), along with a really well designed dialogue system and NPC functions are so unique in its own way and really make the game feel special.

[MaddieThePancake]

Good video, but I'd argue pixel art is a medium, not a style. Compare the original XCOM to Super Metroid, or those to modern games like Octopath Traveler, Celeste, or Carrion. These all have wildly different art styles, despite all being pixel art.

[LunarAnimeAngel]

I feel like while there are some clear rip offs but things like Fields of Mystria and Moonstone Island each bring something new, adding to what stardew valley added to Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons. I consider ripoffs things that directly copy but don't add to the game they are trying to imitate.

[GlizzyAssassin]

Lmao that thumbnail is gonna grab so many rage bait viewers

[mahbeans]

Perhaps someone said this already, but Dreamland Village Life didn't take kickstarter money and run. They cancelled the project (during the funding period) and nobody got charged, there was no money lost.

[kcspace]

My only point of contention is that there are so many fantastic Harvest Moon, and then, Story of Seasons games between the first game and Stardew! Animal Parade, Magical Melody, Trio of Towns (just to name a few great ones!). They're real gems that really improved upon the farming sim genre and are still worth playing today imo.

[embyrr]

I tend to call the genre "new in town" games, because to me, more important than and other single mechanic is the fact that you're building up from nothing in terms of skills and relationships. I also think the genre relies very heavily on vibes. More than any other kind of game, I'm inclined to write off new in town titles on art style alone. The story and mechanics aren't likely to win me over if I don't fundamentally enjoy just being in the world.

[ryninja]

I don’t count what animal crossing added to new horizons as something stardew valley inspired. I see the crops being added as an extension to the crafting system new to this series they implemented into this game. They wanted to get more things to craft but in new ways so it didn’t seem the same as other ways already in the game. And besides, the crops themselves are kind of an extension of how trees and flowers work in AC already, which have been there since the beginning decades ago.

[hitchicker]

New gaming vocabulary has been added to my lexicon, Neighborvania, thank you Salmence

[eraeI]

In the end, calling (the majority of) these games ripoffs is the re4l rip-off in the end

[lapniappe]

I guess for me it doesn't matter. I just want to go and farm and romance people. I have noticed a lot of people say X is Stardew because they've Stardew'ed first. (which is me. I remember my best friend gushing about it and I said and i quote "Why would I want to waste my time doing that?" (enter covid, and a very long illness where all i could mentally handle is farming games and 1180 hours and counting.lll because i love it LOL).

There are times where i say "I wish the farming was ala stardew" but there are a lot of times i say I wish stardew was like this game." there is no perfect game, (stardew included) and that's why there are so many versions. beacuse people want. something to scratch that itch. I am still surprised no one has made a farming sim where all the romancable people are 30++ because that's a HUGE chunk of the market.. that's a BIG backlash on games (like stardew, SoS and Rune Factory etc. the fact that they are older now and the marriagables are so young - or seem young are just immature). so. yeah I am happy for all the ripoffs for there is more land to till!

[kateb]

Honestly while I do love both games, as a longtime Harvest moon/SOS fan who's had to deal with Stardew fans dismissing all new releases from the series as "ripoffs" (including the remake of AWL, a game which originally released in 2003), watching Stardew fans freak over people praising Fields of Mistria has been great schadenfreude. Like damn there's a group of fans of a new game who are unfairly dismissing an earlier series you really love? That sucks, I can't imagine what that's like.

[Mienarrr]

As someone who has loved cozy farming sims ever since I was a child, I love the fact that there are so many new ones coming out! Pardon my language but who gives a crap if not all of them are as „good“ as the ones hailed to be the best in the genre. As long as they are unique in some ways they can still be enjoyable. I dont like all this nitpicky comparing that the gaming community does to farming sims. Edit: I also firmly believe saying Stardew Valley is the blueprint is false. If not for the harvest moon series, stardew valley wouldnt exist as it was a huge inspiration. Game devs only picked up on it because of the huge hype it (deservedly) got at the time and how people seemed to be more open to the genre, but its not the number 1 just for that. That feels wrong imo.

[kit]

tbh I think modern copyright law has done terrible things to the way we perceive ideas and ownership of those ideas. Think of how we related to fairytales 200 years ago. No-one was going to call you a rip-off hack for telling your own version of a fairy story with your own embellishments to suit how you liked it. No-one claimed they told a fairytale first. In practice, that's not how ideas work.

Originally, copyright laws were supposed to maintain that idea, while giving creators enough time to profit fairly from their work before it was released to the public domain. Now, ownership of an idea is ZEALOUS. Bodies fight tooth and nail to hold onto creative control of a work for decades, and though artists absolutely should profit fairly from their works, even in circumstances where neither money nor reknown are on the line, people are still just as possessive against potential copycats.

It's a deeply unhealthy and anti-creative mentality, and the system itself does far more for large corporations than it does for smaller independent creators. We have got to find new ways to suitably compensate artists for their work, in order to facilitate a move away from the ownership of ideas.

[shannonreed]

You know, I'm going to admit that while I love the rest of the video, I absolutely disagree on harvestella being a stardew valley clone. I do think it was an attempt to ride the wave of farming games, but I don't think it was *just* that. As someone who finished all but the epilogue dungeon and the well dungeon, you can tell there was genuinely a lot of passion in this game. You can tell care and effort were put in!

But you can also tell that no one on the team with any power had played a farming game since the original rune factory.

Harvestella genuinely has its own identity and clear vision, but it also feels like they gave it to in-house devs who only knew how to do the RPG part of making games, but not the farming part.

I can't say that for some of the genuinely awful or cash-grabby games I've played in the past. If there had been some special 20 dollar DLC content I'd be more likely to agree with you that this was more cash grab than not, but instead I think that it was Square Enix genuinely trying to dip its toes into the water of farming games to find out if it's worth their time to invest in something even bigger. Especially when you look at it compared to all the rest of the non-rpg (and even some of those) games coming out by them.

That said? I love literally all of the rest of the video. And I am going to see if I can get neighbourvania to proliferate among my friends because "Cosy farming game" is less fun to say.

[SirSmuggler]

Nice summary of the "problem", but I have to ask, what does Atelier Ryza have to do with it? That can hardly be likened with a neighbuorvania? And the Atelier series goes back as long as Harvest moon if I not misstaken.

[Stephoulinou-]

Harvest moon is the OG farming game and ConcernedApe never hide the fact that he got inspired by harvest moon and Minecraft