The creator of Stardew Valley faced a wave of backlash online after he announced a collaboration with Infinity Nikki. The harassment got so bad that Infold Games issued a public apology to Eric Barone over the toxicity.
Infinity Nikki Studio Apologizes to Stardew Valley Creator Over Backlash
The Infinity Nikki x Stardew Valley collaboration was recently revealed in a surprise announcement on August 21. However, excitement around the crossover quickly turned sour when online users began to harass Stardew Valley creator ConcernedApe. On social media sites like X and Reddit, users flooded the indie developer with criticism over the collaboration. The backlash largely stems from the negative reputation Infinity Nikki has garnered over the past few months with its own fandom.
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Criticism surrounding the Infinity Nikki Stardew Valley crossover became so widespread that Eric Barone himself addressed the situation in an August 21 post on X. “There have been a few collaborations between Stardew Valley and other games over the years. To be clear, I never receive any money from these collabs. I’ve only done them because I was a fan of the other games, or because I genuinely thought the players would like it.”
Soon after Barone made his statement addressing the backlash, Infinity Nikki studio Infold Games issued a direct apology to him. “We really appreciate you sharing your feelings on this. Any unintended stress was the last thing we wanted. It was our way of saying thanks, a free love letter to Stardew Valley from our team and for the community. Working on it felt like we were all tending a little farm together. The care and detail you pour into your world is exactly why we want to make cozy games too. We’re still learning from you every day.”
Why Is the Stardew Valley Collaboration Getting Backlash?
To understand why the Stardew Valley collaboration is getting criticism, we have to go back a few months. In April, Infold Games found itself in a series of controversies that have lasted for months. Players were particularly outraged when the Infinity Nikki 1.5 update added an 11-piece dress to the game, which cost a lot of money to unlock. Users were further angered when the developer retconned the game’s entire story with the Sea of Stars update.
However, the Infinity Nikki drama completely spiraled out of control when the developer banned the word “boycott” from the game’s official socials, such as Discord and Reddit. This caused the fandom to organize a “girlcott” campaign instead to voice their frustrations with the game’s current updates. However, Infold Games quickly stamped this out by also censoring the term girlcott as well. From there, Infinity Nikki was flooded with negative reviews on Steam, iOS, and the Google Play Store.
Incredibly, the game has stumbled into yet another controversy just this past week! Players were angered when Infold Games wrote a letter to the community about going after anyone who shares “leaks.” Of course, none of this has anything to do with Stardew Valley. Eric Barone likely didn’t realize how negative the player base has become around Infinity Nikki. But of course, it goes without saying: don’t harass developers. It’s not cool. You can be critical of the Gacha RPG without targeting the creator of Stardew Valley.
