The introduction of Rust female character models has led to a near doubling of players in the game. The controversial decision to add gender-locked Rust female character models led to an increase in sales of 74%, according to a recent Tweet by Rust game creator Garry Newman.
The decision to add randomly selected character gender to the game was a social experiment, claims Newman, and the numbers certainly indicate that it has been a successful one. "Rust sales grew 74% when we added female models with forced gender," Newman states in the Tweet. Some responders to the Tweet replied with the old saw that "correlation is not causation" and others inquired whether it may have been a result of people purchasing the game multiple times to get a character whose gender they identified with. Regardless, the change attracted a large amount of attention in the gaming community; responses to the decision to add the random character gender were overwhelming and largely negative, setting forums alight with strongly worded posts. It is this publicity, negative or not, which likely led to many curious people trying the game, thus causing the spike in purchases.
Our Thoughts:
Something, whether the decision to add the random character gender and female models, or the sudden surge in press surrounding the decision, caused that spike in purchases; 74% is a HUGE increase. Regardless, we were sincerely surprised - and pleasantly so - to see people's strong responses with regard to the change. After all, none of us got to select which gender we wanted to play in the game of life, and for some of us, the choice that was made for us is definitely not the one we'd have made. I don't know what the purpose of this "social experiment" was, but if nothing else, it gave some people a teeny taste of what is a day to day reality for a lot of people the world over; being forced to "play" as a gender you do not want. Regardless, it's wonderful to see the game getting so much attention and interest; we hope they keep stirring the pot!
Source: Twitter Post
