Creator of drug lord hit Schedule 1 had a backup plan so that "if Steam wouldn't take it for whatever reason, I could just pivot it to be a farming game" and "strip all the drug stuff out"
Of all the Golden Joystick Awards 2025 winners, Schedule 1 arguably stood out as one of the most unique – after all, it is about running your own drug empire… but, what if it wasn't?
After launching into Early Access on Steam, Schedule 1 took the web by storm and currently sits with "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews eight months on. Players praise it as a fun management game, with many spending over 100 hours in-game. At the Golden Joystick Awards, Schedule 1 further proved itself with a win and a nomination, bagging the Breakthrough Award and going up as a Best Early Access Game contender.
https://www.gamesradar.com/games/simulation/creator-of-drug-lord-hit-schedule-1-had-a-backup-plan-so-that-if-steam-wouldnt-take-it-for-whatever-reason-i-could-just-pivot-it-to-be-a-farming-game-and-strip-all-the-drug-stuff-out/Open linkView original on toast.ooo252
Comments28
Fucking Australia with bullshit censorship again
Yeah, that’s not ████ ███████. I’d like to ████ ████ █████.
Sell it on GOG
I enjoyed the demo but had no idea it was doing this good. I'm glad to hear it! It's on my wishlist but I'm just not sure I want to get into a management game atm
Works flawlessly on proton
In the future, you just need to make sure the game is running on Proton. You might need to change the Proton version.
Just clicking those drop-down options will be the majority of "troubleshooting" you'll have to do to get games working.
I did get the early access and quite enjoyed It up until the production lines got a little complex. A few bugs here and there like employees not doing what they needed to do and the production chain breaking.
I gave it a break after that but maybe I will pick it up again to see if those issues have been fixed.
There was also a small annoyance where something's could not be automated and it was tedious having to do it manually all the time less the production break down again. Like ordering supplies and restocking the shelves. Hopefully they add a subscription service to phone orders if they haven't already.
I mean steam has no problem with Grand Theft Auto and I'm pretty sure you're a meth dealer in that one.
I mean, Steam has no issue with Weed Shop 3 😅
And let modders add the weed afterwards. Brilliant!
leave the drug version in the game files but don't put any focus on it, modders will get to it in less than a day
That didn't work out for GTA back in the day
I want the farming version.
But weed has medical uses, hasn't it?
the game also includes other drugs, but it really is just a fun title imo
Not according to the US federal government. Biden was in the process of rescheduling but the current guy stopped that. Iirc it was expected to be schedule 3 afterwards
So have morphines. Your point is mood to me.
It’s actually “moot”, as in “your point is moot”, just a specifically funny word to misspell while being a little snarky fella
Great carch
Morphine is schedule 2, as are meth, heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine.
No it doesn't make sense
Thats not how this works. Once game is rejected, youre done and cannot re-submit it with changes.
Another prime example of why Steam has an absolute Monopoly on the market.
A single distributor should not have that kind of influence over game development
The real problem are the payment networks. If VISA and Mastercard put limits on porn and drugs in games ( as they have already done) no shop can sell it
This kind of game becoming successful would have been impossible before Steam. In the old days the brick-and-mortar stores would refuse to stock any game that was even remotely controversial in content or age rating. Steam has been hands-off regarding what they allow outside of things that are illegal (or, recently, that their payment processors disapprove of - if you want to talk about influential monopolies that shouldn't exist...).
San Andreas and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion were even pulled off of store shelves temporarily due to their age ratings being adjusted. Places like Walmart are a hundred times worse gatekeepers than Valve has proven to be.
That's the thing. Steam didn't do ANYTHING to traditional distribution channels. They all put themselves out of business, or out to pasture.
https://dosgames.com/game/crime-fighter/
In this, you play your way to become a crime lord. You make money by pickpocketing, pimping, dealing drugs, stealing car stereos, breaking into banks, kidnapping children for ransom money and killing cops to get their guns.
Back then, you didn't buy games from Walmart (the gaming market wasn't big enough for that), you bought them via mail order.
We had a game like that in graphing calculators we passed around at school.
Either you're too young to have experienced "the old days" or you live in a very conservative area.
There was absolutely a mature section for nearly every store I went to, they either had sleeves to cover the games with printed/handwritten titles, or were collected and kept in their own area that was in view of an employee to tell kids to stay away.
Oh, you meant department stores, not actual local game stores.