Stardew Valley was released on 26 February 2016 for Windows PC after almost four years of closed development. Linux and macOS compatibility was released in a free update on 29 July 2016.
I think the developer is just smart, he knows he has a golden goose. E.g. a co-worker and I started playing the game after a sale just a few months ago. It is one of my top all time games now, and I tell people about it = potential revenue that some games can't hope to ever achieve years into their release. I do hope he takes time off more often now for anything else since it seems like he has burnt out a few times during development, hopefully he enjoys the fruits of the labor.
I read through the changelog and physically groaned.
Stardew Valley is my favorite game and every time this happens I lose another 200 hours to it! Minimum! When we get another free update, half of me is screaming in delight and the other half is resignedly rescheduling things.
Wow I was not expecting 1.6 to be this big, I thought a few new features and the modding stuff but wow this is worthy of starting a new playthrough before doing mods