It's Pretty Clear Why Schedule 1 Has Lost 78% Of Its Playerbase In A Month

Australian indie studio Tyler's Video Game Studio (aka TVGS) took the internet by storm when it released its debut game on March 24, 2025. "Schedule 1" is about becoming a small town drug kingpin, and that simple hook helped it score some impressive numbers right out of the gate. By April 6, 2025, the game's player count peaked at 455,652. However, within one month of hitting that lofty figure, the internet's "Schedule 1" high had started to wear off: By early May, the game had lost nearly 80% of its players. 

That's a pretty quick turnaround, and "Schedule 1" isn't even set to come out properly for a few more years. Its future definitely seems a little more uncertain now that a huge chunk of people have left the game. How does an instant hit lose almost all its steam in just four weeks? We've seen similar things happen to even bigger games: "Black Myth: Wukong" also lost 78% of its playerbase in a short time. The story of "Schedule 1" isn't unique for an early access game, but, luckily for those who are still playing it, there are some promising signs for the game's future.

Like so many other early access games, "Schedule 1" has lost a huge chunk of its playerbase because gamers don't usually have the patience to play for years while waiting for a full release. The timing of TVGS's early access release isn't the only reason "Schedule 1" has struggled to hold onto players, but it's more than likely a big part of it. "Schedule 1" triggered an initial burst of excitement among gamers, but everyone knows that the full release won't be until 2027 at the earliest. There aren't many people who will play on a regular basis as the drip feed of features comes in from developers.

Very few games have a success story like "Hades," where an early access period helps slowly build hype over time. For the most part, even players who dive into an early access title on day one tend to only check back in from time to time. Not every update will be action-packed and full of new content, so many players will circle back to a game months or even years down the road when several updates have been released. There's a good chance that "Schedule 1" will never beat its current all-time player count, but many of those players will probably pop in at random times to see what TVGS has added to the experience.

"Schedule 1" is the victim of another early access flaw: the game is light on content. Players have noticed that there's very little to do besides drug dealing. To be fair, making and selling drugs is the main point of the game, but a near-total lack of side activities makes the city of Hyland Point feel empty once you take the time to start wandering through it. The city is a fantastic sandbox for all the drug-related mechanics in the game, but it's certainly not an immersive place to explore. By early access standards, "Schedule 1" actually has a robust set of features and game mechanics, but at its core, the game is still far from finished.

Players have noticed that, after a few days of constructing drug warehouses and corrupting the citizenry of Hyland Point, they quickly run out of things to do. There is no endgame at this point, and it takes less than a dozen hours to unlock all the available drugs and paraphernalia. The game will eventually add rival drug gangs and all sorts of new conflicts for players to deal with. Will the gamers who have grown bored in the meantime return to "Schedule 1" once these changes have been implemented? Only time will tell. 

TVGS wasn't the first developer to envision a game in which the player builds a drug empire in an unsuspecting town. In fact, "Schedule 1" has some striking similarities to another game called "Drug Dealer Simulator," which was released five years earlier. Developed by Byterunners, "Drug Dealer Simulator" hits all the essential notes of TVGS's early access game. It didn't take long for people to start noticing the similarities, especially because "Schedule 1" blew up and quickly surpassed the success of "Drug Dealer Simulator." Rumors started circulating that "Drug Dealer Simulator" publisher Movie Games SA was going to sue TVGS over copyright infringement, and those rumors spread widely enough that Movie Games SA addressed them head on.

"There is no lawsuit," the publisher's statement reads in part. "It is not our intention to prevent TVGS from selling or developing their game. There is an investigation into the nature of similarities between the games since a preliminary legal analysis indicated there might have been an infringement. The analysis and investigation were necessary in the light of repeating opinions that the games are very similar. By not investigating it, Movie Games, being a publicly traded company, could face severe consequences for negligence." The statement made it clear that legal action was unlikely, but didn't rule it out. There's little doubt that the threat of having "Schedule 1" removed from Steam caused some of the community to avoid over-investing in the game.

"Schedule 1" has lost the majority of its active players, but the people who are sticking around are passionate about one aspect of the game in particular: Fans are thrilled to have a multiplayer game that's more about jokes and silly fun than competition. "I think there's a market for co-op games that don't take themselves too seriously," Redditor u/BiedermannS wrote, with u/RudeSize7563 replying, "This, people want to have a nice time with friends. In these times nobody needs more ways to get stressed."

You can play "Schedule 1" alone, but the game really opens up with a group of friends. Gamers and reviewers alike have praised the multiplayer mode, and when you're looking at the game from that perspective, the future seems bright. At its peak, "Schedule 1" was closing in on half a million players, but even after losing 78% of them, it is still pulling in around 100,000 users every day. For an indie multiplayer game that's still in early access, those numbers remain impressive. "Schedule 1" might not be able to hold up against the video games that will blow you away in 2025, but it still has a future.