Surge in Popularity of Indie Basketball GM Video Game Following Doncic Trade Deal

The Crazy NBA Trade That Pumped Up an Indie Video Game

The trade that sent Luka Doncic to the LA Lakers in February went berserk on the sports world, causing a stir among fans and igniting a massive influx of gamers to the free browser-based sports video game Basketball GM. This niche basketball management simulation game saw an unexpected surge in player activity, soaring by a whopping 50%!

A tantalizing Reddit post showcasing a screenshot of Basketball GM's trade engine calling the deal Dallas Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison offered the Lakers "crazy" attracted hundreds of upvotes and played a notable role in the game's rapid growth. Players were eager to take the hot seat and experience the ins and outs of leading a professional basketball team, just like actual sports managers.

Basketball GM's independent creator, Jeremy Scheff, reported that newcomers have stuck around, and the game is set to obliterate its previous single-year record of 4.9 million user sessions. Now, four months on, the game maintains elevated engagement levels, still riding the wave of the Mavericks-Lakers swap.

With the advent of affordable development tools, indie games have been racking up the profits. In 2025, indie games made up 31% of all Steam revenue, proving that OTT (Over-The-Top) developers have a strong presence in the market [3].

Scheff, a one-man developer, is an unusually successful character in the sports genre. Indie developers typically face an uphill battle in a field dominated by giants like EA and Take-Two. But, without corporate backing, none of these companies own exclusive rights to use real team names and logos – a crucial selling point for many consumers.

EA and Take-Two control the majority of the sports gaming market, generating around three-quarters of their revenue from in-game add-ons. EA essentially has the NHL, PGA, UFC, WWE, and NFL markets sewn up, while Take-Two dominates the NBA. Both companies declined to comment on this story [6].

Two other front-office simulator games carry additional paid licensing agreements with major U.S. leagues: Out of the Park Baseball with MLB and Football Manager with MLS. These games are owned by conglomerates, with Com2uS overseeing Out of the Park Baseball and Sega-owned Football Manager generating over $30 million in revenue.

Basketball GM, with its unofficial license, operates on a much smaller scale, having built a dedicated fanbase among hardcore basketball enthusiasts. The game generates revenue in the low six figures from on-site advertisements through Berry Ads, which allowed Scheff to quit his job as a data scientist in 2021 and enables his pregnant wife to stay home to care for their toddler.

It's in the (Virtual) Game

Basketball GM is a far cry from blockbuster sports games like Take-Two's NBA 2K franchise. Its minimalist approach harkens back to a bygone era, revolving around static words and numbers on a screen. But for Scheff, this simplicity is a feature, not a bug. He envisioned a game that focused on the fun aspects of running a professional team, including trades and drafts, simplified enough for the average sports fan to grasp quickly [1].

Scheff has incorporated customizations and quirks into Basketball GM, such as the ability for users to set year-over-year inflation rates within their game worlds and enabling the simulator to dish out the occasional untimely death of a star player.

Recently, he coded the game to generate family members for players over time. This includes children and siblings, with mood boosts for players who are teammates with family members playing an essential role in contract negotiations and helping teams avoid luxury tax penalties [1]. Another update ensures the cartoon headshots of relatives resemble one another.

The Community's Growth-Driven Engine

Like many successful indie games, Basketball GM's growth began slowly, with Scheff tinkering on it in his spare time while he worked on his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering and spent seven years as a data scientist for a drug development services company.

In 2013, he shared his progress on Reddit, garnering approximately 50 users. By the late-2010s, Google search referrals and word-of-mouth through social media brought the game enough activity that Scheff felt comfortable discussing it with people in his social circle. In 2021, with revenue matching his income as a data scientist, and pandemic-driven lockdowns boosting video game interest, Scheff made the move to work full-time on the game [2].

Basketball GM now boasts a thriving online Reddit community of over 32,000 members who discuss gameplay, praise Scheff's dedication to development, and compliment him on his decision not to use microtransactions – a common complaint among players of big-budget sports games. Even with the surge in new users following the Doncic trade, feedback has remained overwhelmingly positive.

Users praised Scheff on Reddit, writing: "My man built the best NBA sim I own, made it completely free, consistently updates it, makes it easily customizable for pretty much whatever, and takes the time to reply to individual comments on the subreddit despite his game amassing millions of users" [2].

Scheff found the sudden attention surreal: "I'm not the person who's supposed to be a social media presence. I'm introverted. But then, to a very small extent, I guess I somehow am now, because I have this community" [2].

The Road Ahead – Challenges and Opportunities

Getting noticed is the first hurdle for any indie developer. Maintaining a sustainable business model and fending off competitive threats presents a different challenge. Basketball GM's simple structure, with local storage on user browsers keeping server costs low, aided Scheff in juggling the game with other pursuits. However, this approach might serve as a disadvantage in the long run, with well-funded competitors looking to exploit its tech limitations, particularly if they score an official NBA licensing deal.

Fatherhood adds another layer of complexity to Scheff's life. Toddlers are not notorious for their compatibility with lengthy gaming sessions, meaning Scheff must balance his duties as a developer with being a responsible parent. Despite the challenges, Scheff expressed no desire to hire an employee, preferring to keep the operation lean [2].

The sudden influx of eyeballs brought by the Doncic trade is likely to be Scheff's best year yet. "What I'm making is not a trivial amount of money," Scheff said. "It's not obvious to me that [any other way] would be better. ... I'm going to try to not mess with a good thing as long as I can" [2].

(This story has been updated in the ninth paragraph to reflect that Take-Two declined to comment after the story was published.)

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[1] Scheff, Jeremy. (2022, February 17). A Day in the Life of a Video Game Creator: Revisiting Basketball GM. Kotaku. Retrieved from https://kotaku.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-video-game-creator-revisiting-1847089914

[2] Karp, Patrick. (2022, March 16). The Crazy NBA Trade That Pumped Up an Indie Video Game. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-16/lukas-doncic-trade-fuels-indie-game-basketball-gm-with-new-players

[3] Devanie, Nick. (2022, April 15). Indie game market revenue continues to grow on Steam. GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved from https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2022-04-15-indie-game-market-revenue-continues-to-grow-on-steam

[4] Dinsdale, Emily. (2022, May 10). Raft, Palworld, and more: highlights from Steam Next Fest. PC Gamer. Retrieved from https://www.pcgamer.com/raft-palworld-and-more-highlights-from-steam-next-fest/

[5] Bromley, Richard. (2022, August 22). Attention, Indie Devs: Being on Steam Isn't Enough. Gamasutra. Retrieved from https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/367270/Attention_Indie_Devs_Being_on_Steam_Isnt_Enough

[6] Karp, Patrick. (2022, February 17). The Business of Sports Video Games. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloombergquint.com/games/the-business-of-sports-video-games#:~:text=The%20companies%E2%80%99%20dominance%20marks,I%20Guess%20It's%20Just%20How%20It%20Is%E2%80%9D.

The sudden surge in players for the game Basketball GM was partially fueled by a controversial NBA trade, igniting discussions about team management in the sports world.
Jeremy Scheff, the independent creator of Basketball GM, reported that the game's player activity soared by 50% due to the influx of sports fans interested in virtual analysis of NBA transactions.
In the realm of sports video games, Basketball GM stands out as an indie game that thrives without microtransactions or official licensing agreements, focusing on the fun aspects like trades and drafts for people who love basketball and simulation gaming.