Dope Game On Steam Accused Of Copyright Infringement Sparks A Drug Turf War
Let me just say right off the bat that for a multitude of reasons, I highly recommend against using Breaking Bad as a blueprint for your own life goals. Yes, Walter White and Jesse Pinkmak made a whole lot of money, but without spoiling the series, it came at many costs. Instead, there are several games on Steam where you can live out fantasy of becoming a drug lord much more safely, and somewhat humorously, a turf war has broken out between them.
What's causing a ruckus is a new early access title called Schedule 1, developed and published by TVGS. It currently sits with an 'Overwhelmingly Positive' rating out of nearly 72,000 user reviews. And similar to how the drug game works in real live, the dealer is offering a free demo called Schedule 1: Free Sample in hopes you'll get hooked and decide to buy the game for $19.99. Sometimes, art truly does imitate life, eh?
Apparently, the early success of Schedule 1 has ruffled the feathers of another dope game pusher. Movie Games S.A., the publisher behind Drug Dealer Simulator 1 and Drug Dealer Simulator 2 (both developed by Byterunners), has launched a copyright investigation into its newfound competitor, as spotted by GameRant.
According to the complaint, the investigation found "many elements covered by copyright," including the game's plot, mechanics, and the user interface (UI).
"The Issuer's Management Board has decided to use the support of international law firms specializing in Australian law—which is the law applicable to the producer and publisher of Schedule 1," the complaint states (via Google Translate).
This may have gone unnoticed if Schedule 1 wasn't popular, but it's off to a respectable start—it's been attracting hundreds of thousands of players each day, with a 24-hour peak of 459,075, according to SteamDB. And now it seems that Schedule 1's player base is retaliating.
They're hitting back with a review bomb campaign. While Drug Dealer Simulator is ranked as 'Very Positive' out of all reviews (nearly 19,000), over a thousand recent reviews are 'Overwhelmingly Negative' on Steam. Likewise, the newer Drug Dealer Simulator 2 has a 'Mixed' rating for all reviews, and 'Most Negative' rating for recent reviews.
"Lmao suing a lone indie dev for making a superior game is laughable.
Like, instead of trying to actually improve your game, your first reaction was to bust out the lawyers.
Pathetic. Absolutely embarrassing," one of the user reviews states.
Another one reads, "I liked the game up until they became greedy and jealous that a solo game developer, who created a game 10 times greater than theirs is so successful. I have a lot of respect for the person who is currently working on updating Schedule 1. If anyone is reading this thinking of buying DDS1, trust me buy Schedule 1 instead."
Some of the negative reviews are focused on technical aspects of the Drug Dealer Simulator series, but it's clear what is going on.
My own reaction to all of this? Drug dealing games sure have come a long way since Dope Wars on DOS (now playable in a browser). If you want to check out Schedule 1 for yourself, hit up the game's Steam page and give the free demo a try.
