Does anyone play rust? Its sad what can happen to a game when the developers listen to the new players and cater towards them. People who have invested time into the game have been ignored. This is the same company that made gmod. They honestly don't really care about their players. If you keep up with Rust, are you happy with what it has become?
Honestly the survival genre has died down alot since it's peak which is reflected in the amount of people playing rust. The game just gets boring after a while and the genre is repetitive.
It's not a dying game but it's not growing fast either. Rust itself is pretty fun when you're playing with a group of friends. Playing solo on official just kinda sucks. Too many clans roam on official servers.
It's fun for awhile, but playing solo can get super boring. It is a lot more fun with friends, but they have to stay active as well, since the upkeep on builds is rough solo.