FAQ

What’s Ludeon Studios?

Ludeon Studios is an independent game developer based in Ottawa, Canada. The studio was founded by Tynan Sylvester in 2013.

I have an issue with payment or with the game.

–  Please go to the Support page.

Will I get the game on Steam if I buy it direct on rimworldgame.com?

– Yes! Everyone who bought RimWorld directly from us on rimworldgame.com can also register it to their Steam account for free by using the automated Steam registry system. It only takes a few seconds. (Note that to avoid fraud the system doesn’t give a transferable Steam key; it has you login to Steam through Valve’s site and then registers the game on your account directly using Valve’s system.)

If I buy the game on one platform, can I have it for free on another?

– Only as described above, where buying direct from us also gets you Steam access. This works because buying from us means actually buying from us. If you buy from Steam or GoG or Epic Games Store, we don’t have any of your info, or your money, we can’t verify your purchase or your region (noting that regional prices are very different). For all these reasons we as the developer can’t offer cross-store access if you didn’t buy the game from us.

I want to know about future features, products, or release dates.

– Ludeon uses an iterative development process that changed direction often. This is the best way to create the strongest game design, but it also means we have no way of knowing how the game will develop before it does. So to reduce stress and disappointment when designs and dates change (as they always do, for good reasons) we won’t answer questions about future developments. Because honestly – we just don’t know the answer! This leaves us free to iterate and change things as needed without worrying about angering players who were expecting a certain feature to work a certain way, or were expecting a certain release date. It also saves us a time that would otherwise be spent constantly managing and updating community expectations, which means that we can get the actual game to you faster and better.

What about future discounts?

We’ve always planned for RimWorld to have a very long lifespan. The goal isn’t to release into a frenzy of hype, grab a bunch of sales and then be forgotten a year or two later. RimWorld is an institution that has lived and will continue for a long time as the community matures and we keep improving the game.

Our goal has always been to make a game that’s worth its full price. We want to attract players who are interested enough for that price to make sense for them by improving and expanding the game over years and years of active development (as opposed to seeking discount impulse buys).

That’s why for the first 7 years after it became available (2013-2020), RimWorld was never on sale. Since then, RimWorld has participated in sales at small discounts. We will at some point have greater discounts, but since the game has a long lifespan this will take longer than for other games.

If you’re bargain-hunting, you can likely find deeper sales earlier by checking sites like our direct sales site or Fanatical (which has sold RimWorld for 20% off or more) or others. Both these sources give access to the game on Steam, and our website gives DRM-free access at the same time.

I am a writer/video maker. Can I have a free copy of the game?

It depends. You have to be established enough (we can’t just give free copies to anyone with a YouTube channel). If you’re a YouTuber, you should have consistently 1000+ views per video. If you’re a writer, you should be writing for a professional site or publication full-time. We will check each request against these standards. If you think you satisfy these criteria, please email support and request a key. We never hand out keys for giveaways or Steam groups.

Will I run out of RimWorld downloads?

–  No, they’ll reset with each significant update. Even if it looks like they’re not resetting, don’t worry, they are. SendOwl is just a bit weird with how it handles that. They may not reset on tiny updates. If you’re out, you can get them reset from the support page.

Can I monetize videos of RimWorld?

–  Yes. Anyone can freely make videos of RimWorld gameplay and monetize them on YouTube or other sharing sites. See the game EULA for details.

Where can I find your logos, press kit, or other art assets?

– You can find high-res versions of all of our logos, key art, and original game assets in this public Dropbox folder. You’re welcome to add the logos to play video previews, reviews, and other such content that is about Ludeon or RimWorld. Our game art assets should only be used to help make RimWorld mods. All assets are owned and copyrighted by Ludeon.

What technology did you use to make RimWorld?

–  RimWorld uses the Unity game engine. We created our own custom object and time handling systems because RimWorld is a tile-based 2D game with thousands of objects, while Unity is better suited for smooth-space 3D games with hundreds of objects. The programming language was C#. Other tools used: Photoshop, Audition, Illustrator, Flash 8, Visual Studio.

Can I become and intern for Ludeon studios?

– We do not accept trainees or interns of any kind, whether paid or unpaid.

Can I pitch my idea for a game/expansion to you?

– For legal reasons we cannot look at any such pitches or documents. Please do not send them.

How can I contact you?

–  If you need support with emails or installation, please see the Support page. For business and other inquiries, email us at [email protected].

Does RimWorld take content from mods and release it as DLC?

No. We’ve never taken any mod content and released it as a DLC. We develop everything ourselves.

Occasionally, we’re accused of stealing mod content because there are general conceptual similarities between things we do and mods that have existed. However, this conceptual resemblance is an unavoidable consequence of RimWorld having over 10,000 mods on the Steam workshop. Any game only has so many natural and obvious ways to expand, and with 10,000 mods on the Workshop, pretty much all those ways have been touched by one mod or another.

For example, we’ve been accused of stealing mods that do psychic powers (with the Royalty expansion), beliefs and religions (with the Ideology expansion), children, genetic modification, vampires (with the Biotech expansion) and many more. But all these are obvious and natural ways to expand the game. There are countless books, movies, and other games touching on vampires, children, gene-modding, psy-powers, etc for good reason. Even more, several of them stem from our own much older development materials, including our 2013 Kickstarter’s proposed modules section (which includes beliefs and religions), and the RimWorld fiction primer from 2013 (which includes xenohumans).

With 10,000 mods, expect someone to have tried to do some version of basically every concept – especially the most obvious and natural ones. We can’t treat 10,000 mods like a minefield where we’re not allowed to touch any related idea. To try to do so would make it impossible to function creatively.

Sometimes modders even implement ideas while we’re still developing an expansion. For example, halfway through Royalty’s development, after we had created a new system for psychic powers and built content into it, a modder released a mod with psychic powers in it. Even if we knew about this at the time (we didn’t), it wouldn’t make sense to demand that we throw out all our work as though someone else got ‘dibs’ on it.

Big studios block modding entirely. One reason they do it is to prevent accusations of mod copying when they release their own updates, expansions, or sequels. We don’t want to block modding. We want to support modding. Please help us do that by considering carefully any accusations of mod copying. If you actually look at our content and mod content, you will find dramatic differences in what was actually created, including art, code, game mechanics, and so on, because we create all our work ourselves.

Note: Oskar Potocki, who is a major RimWorld modder, has also done artwork for Ludeon since 2019. We have on a few occasions worked with him directly and included art that he originally made for a mod. Generally this is simple things, like different visual variations for animals.

What is your Privacy Policy?

– It is available here.

I have other questions.

–  There’s a forum thread of my collected responses to various questions about RimWorld. For other frequently asked questions see the RimWorld Kickstarter.