The game Rust does not offer character selection, you must play as a character, whether you want to or not. The development team states: The compulsion has done the game really well and sales are higher than ever.
The survival game Rust has received a gender compulsion with an update: You cannot create a character, but are assigned one that you must play. Now the development team has come forward and explained that the gender compulsion has benefited Rust: Sales have skyrocketed since the controversial change.
Rust – Sales have increased by over 70 % since gender compulsion
What has the game introduced? About two weeks ago we reported that Rust now has female character models. This in itself is nothing bad, but players in Rust are forced into both gender and skin color, which can no longer be changed as it is tied to the Steam ID. When the update was introduced, some players complained loudly: They now have to play as women and would rather not log in anymore. Some even said that Rust has dug its own grave with this and that it is only a matter of time before the game is “dead”.
Now the (more or less) surprising reaction: No. Rust is doing better than ever before.
Garry Newman, the founder of Facepunch Studios, has published some graphics on Twitter clearly showing how Rust has developed since the release of the controversially discussed patch. The statement is quite clear: Daily sales have increased by 74 %.
According to Newman, they have “never experienced anything like this,” except for the big Steam sales. With a touch of humor, they also say, “Linux sales have nearly doubled! From 4 to 7 per day.” But even more telling are the 2300 sales on Steam, compared to just under 1300 before.
In response to the negative criticism, he also has an answer. “That was definitely the loud minority,” he says in an email to Kotaku:
This is usually the case with all changes we make. On the Internet, you hear some opinions from people who haven’t played the game for months or have never played it at all. If we really want to know what people think, we anonymously join a server and ask for opinions there. The feedback from people who actually play the game is the most valuable.
Even in 2025, Rust is still a surprisingly important game. The survival game still dominates Twitch in 2025, despite larger and more important titles. More about this directly on MeinMMO: A 12-year-old survival game dominates Twitch, despite major releases on Steam
