Schedule 1 Faces a Case of Indie Game History Repeating…

Schedule 1 was not on most people's radar heading into 2025, but it quickly became one of the biggest games of the year simply through word-of-mouth. Developed almost entirely by a single person, this drug dealer simulator was released in early access on Steam in March 2025 and, despite having no marketing campaigns, it attracted hundreds of thousands of gamers on the platform. Upon its initial release, Schedule 1 managed to outperform major AAA titles like Grand Theft Auto 5 and Monster Hunter Wilds in terms of player count, and it received an astounding 98% positive user score on Valve's PC storefront.

Even More Schedule 1 Mods Found to Include Malware

Popular indie game Schedule 1 continues to face issues with mods, as even more fan-created uploads are found to include malware.

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By Kyle Knight

Knock-Off Versions of Schedule 1 are Popping Up All Over the Place

Although the developer of Schedule 1 does have plans to bring the game to consoles in the future, it is currently only available on PC. In spite of this, players have seen games with the Schedule 1 name pop up on certain online storefronts. For instance, PS5 users recently noticed that there was a trending game on the PlayStation Store titled Schedule 1: Dope Empire. Despite having a somewhat different art style, this game was a blatant rip-off of the original Schedule 1, from its supposed gameplay description to its identically-named setting.

Popular Indie Games Get Knock-Off Ports More Often than AAA Games Do

Knock-offs and copycats have always been a part of the video game industry, but these days, it isn't so easy to find ones that are based off popular AAA titles. There aren't many Monster Hunter Wilds rip-offs out there, after all, nor are there a wealth of Baldur's Gate 3 clones floating around on the internet. The same sentiment, however, can not be applied to indie games. Over the last few years, several knock-offs and imitators have attempted to capitalize on the unexpected success of many of the biggest games from independent developers.

Like Schedule 1, Pocketpair's indie survival game, Palworld, was an instant hit when it came out on Xbox and PC last year. However, just days after the game was released, several knock-off ports of Palworld appeared on mobile game storefronts like the Google Play Store. A similar thing happened to the asymmetrical horror game R.E.P.O.; even though it's only playable on PC, fake versions of the game started to show up on the PlayStation Store without the developer's knowledge or consent. Even Gray Zone Warfare, the popular extraction shooter from Madfinger Games, had a similarly-named copycat on the PlayStation website.

Platform Holders Need to Put Stricter Regulations in Place to Stop This from Happening

One of the main reasons that shovelware developers are targeting indie games like these over major AAA releases is probably because they're less likely to be sued. After all, if someone were to sell a fake version of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on the PlayStation Store, Nintendo would probably send out a cease-and-desist letter immediately. Due to the advent of generative AI, it has also become a lot easier for shovelware developers to make copycat versions of games with little-to-no effort. Unless platform holders start placing stricter rules to prevent such games from being allowed on their storefronts, then this issue will probably continue for the foreseeable future.