The forces behind the astonishing success of drug dealing simulator Schedule I

Schedule I is one of the most surprising success stories of 2025. TVGS’ drug manufacturing and dealing simulator rocketed to the top of Steam’s Global Top Sellers when it released in late March, and has remained among the bestselling games on the platform ever since.

More remarkable still, Schedule I was created by a solo developer with minimal marketing budget.

How, then, did Schedule I navigate a fiercely competitive Steam market, which in March saw major releases like Split Fiction and Assassin’s Creed Shadows alongside dozens of indie games, to become one of 2025’s biggest hits? The answer is a combination of an appealing theme, a potent mix of mechanics that appeal to numerous audiences, broader shifts in player tastes, and good old-fashioned luck.

The most obvious contributing factor to Schedule I’s success is its subject matter. A game about building a criminal empire through the manufacture and distribution of drugs, Schedule I blends business management, open world exploration, driving, and combat all linked together through the theme of criminality.

“[Crime] is a subject matter that many major publishers steer clear of, despite Grand Theft Auto proving that there is a massive opportunity for more gritty gameplay experiences.”

Katie Holt, Ampete Analysis

In this manner, Schedule I bears many surface similarities to Grand Theft Auto, which likely played into its appeal. “With Grand Theft Auto 6 on the horizon – albeit delayed until May 2026 – players are eager for something to fill that space, and indie developers are much faster at responding to trends than larger gaming companies,” says Katie Holt, senior research analyst at Ampere Analysis.

Indeed, players have been waiting for a new Grand Theft Auto for more than a decade, and few games have attempted to fill the gap left by Rockstar across that period. This is very different from twenty years ago, when GTA had numerous imitators (like the Saints Row and True Crime series) that aspired to carve a slice of its criminal empire.

“[Crime] is a subject matter that many major publishers steer clear of, despite Grand Theft Auto proving that there is a massive opportunity for more gritty gameplay experiences,” Holt observes.

Yet while Schedule I shares a theme and some broader systems with GTA that may have attracted some fans of Rockstar’s games, it’s built upon different foundations. Schedule I is all about the process of drug dealing, featuring detailed systems for manufacturing various narcotics and a comprehensive management layer for controlling the day-to-day operation of your business.

Part GTA, part sim

This enabled Schedule I to capture another significant Steam audience, simulation enthusiasts. “Schedule I has a great twist on the ‘first-person levelling-up’ simulator grind,” says Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo. “Since Supermarket Simulator unlocked a perfect combo of resource management and small business grind in February 2024, there’s been a series of ‘simulator’ games that are easy and intuitive to control, and have the gameplay loop dialled-in. Schedule I is really a continuation of this.”

Crucially, Schedule I’s simulation is rich enough to appeal to sim lovers, but it isn’t so interactively detailed as to put off players who come to it for GTA-style criminal shenanigans. Its drug manufacturing process is presented as a sequence of fun, highly tactile minigames, while its art-style is cartoonish and lighthearted.

“PlayWay-adjacent hit Drug Dealer Simulator always felt more grim and fiddlier than Schedule I, which has South Park-ish characters and wit. So there’s just something that’s a bit more intuitive and mass market about it,” Carless adds.

Alongside the underlying quality of the game and the overlapping audiences it is able to court, Schedule I may also have benefited from a broader shift in gaming tastes. “Over the past couple of years, we have seen viral hits made by smaller developers pop up all over. Balatro, Content Warning, Lethal Company, Chained Together, etc,” says Michael Wagner, Senior Market Analyst at Newzoo.

“There have also been notably fewer AAA titles (outside of the annual release titles like Call of Duty and EA FC) that have been showing up since 2023. This may be creating more breathing room for these types of titles to get in front of more players.”

All three analysts agree that a key element in Schedule I’s success is the inclusion of cooperative play. “Having a robust co-op mode can aid in the longevity of a title, particularly when a strong community is built around it,” Holt explains. Wagner further points out that like many co-op games, Schedule I has a relatively low price point. “These titles are often more accessible from a price perspective ($20 and less), particularly for co-op games, making it easier for entire friend groups to pick up copies and play together.”

Carless, meanwhile, notes that Schedule I has been “getting a lot of added juice and influencer reach from super-entertaining co-op gameplay. Your favorite streamers hiding in a dumpster from the cops? It’s a big multiplier of interest.” Indeed, without any coordinated marketing, Schedule I has relied on viral sharing to attract its huge audience.

“The significance of virality cannot be overstated, it has the potential to put a title in front of millions of players, something that is simply out of budget for many indie developers,” Holt says.

She points out that several large streamers played the title, with a CaseOh stream peaking at over 78k views on Twitch [according to Twitch Tracker] and a Penguinz0 video reaching over 1.7m views on YouTube. Tiktok was also a significant source of attention for Schedule I. As of May 12, 82,000 posts were made using the hashtag ‘schedule1’.

Schedule I bears many surface similarities to Grand Theft Auto, which likely played into its appeal

Of course, there are no guarantees as to whether or not a game will go viral. “It often takes an incredible amount of luck for a game like Schedule I to make a pop like it has,” Wagner notes. “A big streamer happens upon it and gives it reach. Maybe it gets picked up by the TikTok algorithm.

But sometimes, it is just the right game at the right time.” Holt, though, points out that viral success is “part luck and part skill: Schedule I would not have gone viral without its unique combination of mechanics and solid gameplay loop.”

There is one other key element to Schedule I’s viral spread: its demo. In December 2024, roughly four months before Schedule I released into Steam early access, TVGS offered a ‘Free Sample’ demo that exploded in popularity prior to the game’s launch.

“Schedule I’s ‘Free Sample’ demo started blowing up with influencers at the beginning of March,” Carless explains. “The game made GameDiscoverCo’s unreleased Steam ‘trending’ chart multiple times [that] month. So it wasn’t a complete surprise if you’d been looking at CCU for unreleased Steam game demos.”

All of this contributed to making Schedule I an instant hit. What remains to be seen is the longevity of that success. While the game remains high on Steam’s list of Global Top Sellers, it has dropped down the rankings slightly over recent weeks. Player counts have also dwindled significantly in the last month.

This isn’t unusual for a game with a limited amount of playability, however. Moreover, Schedule I is unfinished, with TVGS planning regular updates to the game for several years before it is complete. Given its existing audience, a consistent run of updates could well maintain Schedule I’s success for years to come.