The team behind Rust planned a cozy event with fans, has to cancel it: “Threats are common in survival games”

Rust is a survival game that launched in 2013 and achieved great success on Steam. In 2021 it also came to PS4 and Xbox One. Now the developers behind the game had to cancel an event because they received death threats, which they take seriously. This is common in the survival genre, says one of the developers.

What event is Rust canceling? Facepunch, the British studio behind Rust, had planned a small event on the sidelines of the “Game Developers Conference”. You wanted to talk to the fans, talk and exchange ideas in a coffee shop in San Francisco.

But in a statement on March 15, the team said (via twitter): You have to cancel the event because you received an “IRL threat”, a threat “in real life” that you take seriously.

The team will still take part in the conference, appear there in panel talks, but not, as planned, be reached directly at a contemplative meet and greet.

Received threat to ‘kill the studio’

What threat was that? In conversation with PC gamers Producer Alistair McFarlane explains that the location of the meeting was made public and a threat was received to “kill the studio”.

As a result, the studio decided it was too dangerous and would put too much stress on the staff to hold the meeting.

McFarlane says: “These threats are very worrying and must be taken seriously.”

Especially cheaters are a source of threats and insults

What makes that so depressing? Speaking to PC Gamer, the producer says such threats are common among teams behind survival games:

• Developers who speak to the community received threats like this on a daily basis when people rant about changes they don’t like on social media
• Cheat creators in particular would frequently threaten and harass developers – and would go to great lengths to target individual employees
• In some cases, employees and their family members have had to change personal details – which is very stressful for mental health

But McFarlane also says: The overwhelming majority of fans are respectful and support the employees, but there is always a small number of individuals who stand out with abusive behavior and even threats.

Rust has been getting a lot of media coverage over the last few years because it lends itself to being a big sandbox for Twitch streamers:

The German Twitch scene discovered Rust and immediately triggered a sexism discussion