Garry's Mod creator finds unexpected success with new game Rust

Facepunch Studios announced today that its new game Rust has sold over 150,000 copies since it launched as a Steam Early Access title two weeks ago. That's a nice surprise for studio founder (and Garry's Mod creator) Garry Newman, who said as much in a post on the company blog today. The post includes a handy chart contrasting the sales of Rust to those of Garry's Mod, which sold 34,000 copies in its first two weeks of sale on Steam in 2006. That's a noteworthy disparity, given that -- as Newman highlights in his post -- Rust costs twice as much as Garry's Mod and its Steam store page is plastered with emphatic warnings that the game is nowhere near finished and could change significantly during development. Yet the unique premise of Rust -- a survival game inspired by DayZ which casts players as naked cavemen who must eat, drink and seek shelter in a world filled with other players -- seems to be compelling enough to tempt players into paying for access to the alpha version. "We have been knocked out by how well Rust has sold. Especially for an Early Access, unfinished alpha. Especially that we have warned people not to buy it. And especially because Rust isn’t even a 100th of the game we are envisioning," wrote Newman. "It very much feels like we have been given all of this money – but we haven’t yet earned it. That’s something we have to do now."