Why are there 100 times more buyers than for games in the same genre?

[Runner]

This not an anti Schedule 1 post, but a "Please also support these other cool indies in the same genre" kind of post. I am also open as to why this one got so much more exposure(did it go viral thanks to some streamers or such?), as these other folks would have lifelong salvation if they had half as much success and I am sure they would love to know.

Now my main pitch:
Personally, I have loved these game since the text based "Dope Wars" from ancient times ago. I have bought and played:

Drug Dealer Simulator (now also has a part 2 out)
Definitely Not Fried Chicken (released and now back in active development/update mode)
The Dope Game
Weed Store 2 (3 now out, 4 coming soon)

And some of these (DNF: peaked at 700ish concurrent players!) have abysmal sales figures, but really deserve more love.
Half the time, it is literally 1 main dev just trying to give it his all.
Does that mean things tend to be more buggy and less polished? Yes. Are these games notorious for fairly repetitive core loops and grind ? Sure.
But you also get whacky and uncensored ideas, fun, no DRM bs and you know the money goes to "real" people and not some stock price pushers.

I have wishlisted Schedule 1 and I intend to buy it after it comes out.

I just figure those other ones are worth to at least mention, since Steam is atrocious in putting them in the "More like this" list (except DDS2).
I recommend checking them out.

[malogoss]

Exactly what I was looking for, someone who'll tell me what to spend my money on.

[Havok]

Games in the same genre do not have the the appeal and addiction of this game.

Also, DDS devs are suing S1. So I would never buy their product since they can't handle competition. Regardless of their grounds, unless Tyler stole their assets, they are making a baseless claim and don't hold the IP of drug dealing games. If games were sued for using similar concepts as others, and won, 70% of games would cease to exist.

Screw DDS and their devs. They want to cash in because Tylers game blew up and theirs no one even knew about until they started an investigation.

[Tyrannoserious]

Because its well done.

[Mr.Cabbagewank]

maybe schedule 1 got as popular as it got because it's somewhat finished and polished even in its early access stage. There's plenty of stuff to do and stuff to be added so the gameplay loop doesn't get stale after 2 hours. Having more competitors and choice in in any genre is good but having more choice purely because there has to be more options without them actually being good or competitive is not good either.

[Paul]

I hadn't heard about it at all, but it has a demo which I tried out of curiosity and enjoyed enough to buy the game, do the other titles you mention have demos?

[Kid Named Finger]

Originally posted by Paul:

I hadn't heard about it at all, but it has a demo which I tried out of curiosity and enjoyed enough to buy the game, do the other titles you mention have demos?

The demo was definitely a strong point in buying this game for me. I got a good taste of what the game is like and ended up playing the demo for at least 5 hours in a day. I was sold since I enjoyed my time with the demo and understood what the gameplay loop was like

Most other drug dealing sims ask for money upfront, with little to go off outside of the store page, so those other games never enticed me.

[Dex]

Originally posted by Runner:

This not an anti Schedule 1 post, but a "Please also support these other cool indies in the same genre" kind of post. I am also open as to why this one got so much more exposure(did it go viral thanks to some streamers or such?), as these other folks would have lifelong salvation if they had half as much success and I am sure they would love to know.

Now my main pitch:
Personally, I have loved these game since the text based "Dope Wars" from ancient times ago. I have bought and played:

Drug Dealer Simulator (now also has a part 2 out)
Definitely Not Fried Chicken (released and now back in active development/update mode)
The Dope Game
Weed Store 2 (3 now out, 4 coming soon)

And some of these (DNF: peaked at 700ish concurrent players!) have abysmal sales figures, but really deserve more love.
Half the time, it is literally 1 main dev just trying to give it his all.
Does that mean things tend to be more buggy and less polished? Yes. Are these games notorious for fairly repetitive core loops and grind ? Sure.
But you also get whacky and uncensored ideas, fun, no DRM bs and you know the money goes to "real" people and not some stock price pushers.

I have wishlisted Schedule 1 and I intend to buy it after it comes out.

I just figure those other ones are worth to at least mention, since Steam is atrocious in putting them in the "More like this" list (except DDS2).
I recommend checking them out.

Thank-you for your recommendations.

DDS looks like another generic simulator game with nothing interesting for my nugget sized brain. Schedule one lets me drug the entire town with lighting spouting zombie cyclops inducing drugs.

And honestly as though the map looks really basic with its design such as Roads being too small and the map feeling as though it was quickly put together and all its other flaws, its still a really funny game to play with the boy's for a few hours EVEN in its limited state.

And yeah having to buy a whole other game every time they decide to add some new feature or content to their current existing build only to resell it rather than update their first game is a big throw off for me.

[Mask1992]

Thanks for the recommendations. But ♥♥♥♥ Drug Dealer Simulator dev, they are being nasty.

[Elegant Caveman]

Good question. I also wonder why this game exploded as much as it did.

It's a good game, but ~400k peak is insane.

I don't have an answer, but I can share what led me here (or you can skip to a TL;DR at the bottom).

I first wishlisted this game... some time ago. Don't remember when, don't remember how I found out about it.

I'm not specifically interested in the premise, but I enjoy life sims and management games in general. I also enjoyed Dope Wars back in the day.

I'd forgotten about this game after wishlisting it, but something I saw recently (maybe a youtube video? maybe an article? I'm not sure) brought it back to my attention, which let me know it was finally out in Early Access, and that it was hugely popular already, for some reason. This made me curious.

For what it's worth, I have more games than I'll ever have the time to play, and I very rarely buy things at launch/full price.

If this game didn't have a demo, I would have waited until it was in a bundle, or had a deep sale.

It does have a demo, though, so I tried it, and I got hooked.

I also appreciate that it's a labor of love from a single dev; I'd much rather give my money to someone like that than some predatory big corporation.

Of the games you've mentioned, I played Weed Shop 2 for about 18h. It was alright, but got tired of the grind, and the experience felt kind of hollow, IIRC. Been a while since I played. I just lost interest and moved on to something else... I do that a lot. It's not like I consciously decided "I'm done with this game", I just didn't go back.

I've had Drug Dealer Simulator on my wishlist for some time, but I never cared enough to try it. Was waiting for a bundle/deep sale, I guess. I see now that it has a demo... don't know if it had one last time I looked at it, but I guess I just didn't care enough if it did, maybe. I've removed it from my wishlist now, because the publishers are apparently planning to sue this game's dev. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. ♥♥♥♥ them.

I'd seen Definitely Not Fried Chicken, but apparently hadn't even bothered to wishlist it (I thought I had? but I guess not). It looks... alright? But I'm not especially interested in the whole "drug theme", and I've got plenty of other management games in my backlog I'd rather play, so this one just doesn't look that interesting to me. Also, as much as I like strategy/management games in a general sense, they also often stress me out. I won't claim to have OCD (I'm not diagnosed), but I definitely have some OCD-like tendencies, which gets in the way of enjoying such games.

Never heard of The Dope Game before. Might be interesting? Not really up for a deep dive/my usual research into an unknown game/dev right now. At a quick glance, though, I find the artwork offputting, and consider the fact that the linked website is broken to be a red flag.

Another game in the genre which you haven't mentioned is Weedcraft Inc.. I played that one about 16h, and enjoyed my time with it. I think about it every now and then and keep meaning to go back to it, but I'm just never quite in the right mood for it, I guess? It's been a while, but I think I stopped because it became a mix of overwhelming and boring? Like, there was more and more stuff to juggle, but none of it felt fresh enough to feel worth my time. Could be wrong. Like I said, been a while.

Now, where does Schedule I fit in with all of this?

I like the open world aspect. The gameplay loop is grindy, but just on the right side of not too annoying. IIRC, both Weed Shop 2 and Weedcraft Inc. were just a bit on the other side of that line. There's something really satisfying about Schedule I's grind... something I didn't feel with those other games.

Maybe it's just a question of time and I haven't gotten bored/annoyed with Schedule I yet? That's also possible. I kind of feel like this one will have more staying power, though.

I'll see how things go, but I tend to lose interesting in games when things become too repetitive with nothing of note on the horizon, and/or when I get overwhelmed by systems.

With this one, it looks like I'll progressively have new toys to play with (new drugs, new equipment, employees, businesses, vehicles, etc.) for a while, and though it can probably get overwhelming with automation/a big drug empire, I can always just slow down a bit and pick up some trash.

I don't know why, but I really like that you can pick up trash and get a bit of cash for it.

I assume that for a lot of people, the fact that you can play this game co-op is a big factor; all those other games are just singleplayer.

I don't do multiplayer, though, so that doesn't apply to me, but I guess that's probably one of the big reasons why this one is that much more popular.

TL;DR -

At a guess, a mix of word of mouth, influencer hype, being a solid game all around, having a good demo, and having multiplayer.

I'm not surprised that it's doing well. But I am surprised that it's doing this well.

[CrazyGoblin]

I feel that DDS is a different enough game (more "gritty" and with different mechanics focus) to warrant separate attention aside from Schedule 1, and I got into it way later than the old controversies regarding false advertisement...

...but yeah. The way the DDS devs are acting around Schedule 1 is awful. I've lost what little respect I had for them.

[LEET RAGE]

Originally posted by malogoss:

Exactly what I was looking for, someone who'll tell me what to spend my money on.

/slowclap
On target.

[ConMan]

play the game

[Pixie]

Thought about getting DDS or 2, but they so generic like an asset flip and seen a stream of DDS2 and was janky. After finding out they jelly pouty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and trying to sue, I'm so glad i didn't buy either and no way ever will.

Obensuer pretty good tho and played a lot, but even tho made in Finland it has the Eastern Europe pain simulator feel with extra depression. So totally different to SC1 which is so much fun. So i don't know if there much audience overlap here

[An0myn]

As someone who played dds I can say their gameplay loop becomes real boring real fast

[nicks husband coach]

ngl i played dds and dds 2 demo
i found dds uninteresting for some reason
dds 2 demo mechanics left me very confused so i gave up