this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2025
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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" (www.gamesradar.com)
submitted 17 hours ago by cm0002@toast.ooo to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
25 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

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[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 26 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] cardfire@sh.itjust.works 20 points 14 hours ago

That's the thing. Steam didn't do ANYTHING to traditional distribution channels. They all put themselves out of business, or out to pasture.

[–] mech@feddit.org 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 hours ago

We had a game like that in graphing calculators we passed around at school.

[–] SARGE@startrek.website -5 points 12 hours ago

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.

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.

Places like Walmart

Oh, you meant department stores, not actual local game stores.