They did some great fan service before. In Borderlands 2, there is the NPC Michael Mamaril in Sanctuary who can randomly give out guns when talked to. That NPC is a tribute to the real Michael Mamaril, a fan that passed before Borderlands 2 was released
The difference is, that you could just continue using XP until Win7 was released or continue using Win7 until Win10 was released. Win10 will reach end of life next year and then the only supported Windows will be Windows 11. Vista or Win8 were never as forced as Win11 is now.
Three words are absolutely sufficient:
You wanna fight?
Minecraft was just the example they used in the post but I agree. Minecraft is no indie game studio anymore atleast since Microsoft took over. But at least the free update policy hasn’t changed since the takeover
The Factorio Devs made this Blogpost some time ago about how to go forward with development. It basically boiled down to developing a big (paid) expansion pack. I would be totally fine with Stardew Valley doing the same. However, going for free updates was discarded for Factorio because they have a “smaller but more dedicated audience [compared to Terraria and Minecraft]”. I don’t think that applies to Stardew Valley so free updates might be the way to go.
The Egyptians most certainly didn’t use the Latin alphabet 5000 years ago, in fact noone used the Latin alphabet until more than 2000 years later. So how on earth do you come up with the transcription “aaa” and is it supposed to be pronounced a-a-a or what?