"Farming, gathering, mining, fishing, preparing for festivals, even getting married and having children—most people would probably be confused seeing this list. But what would you think if I told you these are all features within a single game?"
"You'd probably be just as doubtful as I was when I first encountered this game. What's fun about that? My real life is already like this—why would I want to experience the same thing in a game? It just doesn't make sense."
"Aren't video games supposed to be filled with fantasy, or flashy action with guns, cars, and sports? What fun is there in an ordinary, everyday life?"
"It's true. At first glance, this content seems incredibly boring. Even The Sims is just a disguised role-playing game. If I had to do actual farm work, mining, fishing, or gathering, I'd definitely pass."
"But I want to tell everyone reading this review: if you think that way, it's completely normal—but you'd also be missing out on an absolutely brilliant game. And that game's name is Stardew Valley."
"This is a game that looks rough in terms of visuals, has clunky animations, and doesn't leave a strong first impression in any area. But that's just the surface. The real core of this game will absolutely surprise you. Only by actually playing it can you understand how re-experiencing these everyday tasks can be so enjoyable."
"Farming, gathering, mining, fishing, preparing festivals, even getting married and having children—it's all so similar to real life, yet also very different. In the world of Stardew Valley, you can feel a special kind of warmth. It lets you forget life's worries for a while, just like the letter from the protagonist's grandfather at the start of the game, hoping his grandchild could find peace of mind. Anyone who's played this game will understand that feeling…"
Murakami Kazuo racked his brain to come up with every bit of praise he could to compliment this game.
...
...
It was one of the rare games that truly moved him.
So he willingly promoted it, hoping more people would discover it.
After publishing the review, Murakami Kazuo dove back into the world of Stardew Valley. He was already on his third save file, striving for a perfect playthrough from the very beginning—flawless and optimized.
About two or three days passed after he posted the article, which also marked one full week since the game's release.
And in just that short week, Stardew Valley had already logged an average playtime of over six hours per user on the Battle.net platform.
For a student or working adult, with roughly 8 hours of work and 8 hours of sleep, that leaves only 8 hours for daily life.
Now this game was taking up 6 of those 8 hours—nearly 80% of users' free time. That alone proved how deeply addictive the game had become in such a short time.
And that's not all. After a week of word-of-mouth, the game had sold 50,000 copies in its first week.
That number might not mean much to Gamestar Electronic Entertainment—some of their titles hit a million in the first week. But this game was different.
It had no marketing halo, looked incredibly rough compared to its contemporaries, wasn't on any major console or handheld platform, and instead launched on the least popular one: PC.
Everything about it screamed "unlikely to succeed."
Takayuki had predicted maybe 10,000–20,000 copies in the first week, so hitting 50,000 already exceeded his expectations.
Soon he learned that part of the credit belonged to Murakami Kazuo.
He had essentially become the game's number one hype-man, voluntarily writing multiple glowing reviews. If Takayuki didn't know Murakami was a man of principle—and the game was his own creation—he might have suspected Murakami was being paid to promote it.
With Murakami's recommendation—and his growing popularity—came a ripple effect, and the 50,000 sales figure quickly made sense.
Naturally, Takayuki didn't let the publicity go to waste.
Seeing Murakami voluntarily become a one-man PR team, Takayuki officially announced the first-week sales of Stardew Valley under his company's name.
The meme that Battle.net was just a StarCraft launcher began to fade, as Stardew Valley climbed to the top of the Battle.net bestsellers list.
At this stage, Battle.net was still a very young digital platform, with only StarCraft and Doom as its pillars. No one expected a small, unknown indie title to emerge as a dark horse.
Priced at just ¥1,700—cheaper than a decent steak—the only complaint was that it didn't have a physical edition, disappointing some collectors.
But that didn't stop the game's rising popularity.
Thanks to Murakami's active promotion and Gamestar's own push through official channels, more and more people started getting curious about Stardew Valley—especially young professionals in their early 20s who had just entered the workforce.
One of them was a man named Chiaki Suzuki, who, after trying the game once, couldn't put it down.
His day job had nearly broken him. Mentally exhausted from relentless work, he had fallen into a temporary state of burnout and confusion.
That's when Stardew Valley entered his life.
He was originally a StarCraft player—the kind who wasn't very good but was addicted nonetheless, constantly getting steamrolled by better players.
Losing in competitive games every day felt no different from being scolded by his boss—after a while, it became exhausting.
Then he saw Murakami Kazuo's review for Stardew Valley, which awarded it a perfect five-star rating.
A five-star rating—Murakami's first for any game not made by Gamestar. No matter what, Chiaki decided he had to give it a try.
And he too fell head over heels.
But his reaction was a little different than others.
When he started playing, the first thing that came to mind was his parents back in the countryside.