Facepunch Studios, the developer of Rust, has canceled a small event that was supposed to take place next week at a San Francisco coffee shop, citing an "IRL threat."

The event was scheduled to take place near the 2023 Game Developers Conference, which Facepunch had offered as an opportunity for conference attendees and fans to meet the Rust team, share portfolios, and "talk."

In an email exchange, Rust producer Alistair McFarlane told PC Gamer that threats are "an everyday occurrence" for survival game developers.

"Our community relations staff sees threats every day," he wrote, typically from players who "lash out on social media" at changes they don't like. McFarlane also pointed to cheat makers and users as the source of harassment and threats, saying that individuals in the "cheat community" "often go to great lengths to target individual staff members."

In some cases, McFarlane said, staff members and their families have had to "change their personal information" because of Doxing, which "often takes a heavy toll on their mental health."

The location of next week's event had been publicly broadcast, but after receiving "death threats," the studio decided that hosting the event was too great a safety risk and too much of a concern for its staff.

"These threats are very concerning and must be taken seriously," McFarlane said.

Facepunch will attend GDC as planned, and those who were planning to go to the meetup can contact them via email instead.

On Twitter, the cancellation has been met with disappointment, but no great surprise. Death threats are a problem for everyone in the gaming business, from employees of giant corporations to a single developer. In recent memory, we have covered threats received by Bungie, CD Projekt, Twitch streamers and modders.

"The overwhelming majority of fans are respectful and supportive," McFarlane wrote, "but there are always a few individuals who make threats and abuse."

The canceled meetup was scheduled to take place outside of GDC, but I reached out to conference organizers for comment; Facepunch did not disclose whether police were involved in the decision to cancel the event.