War Z, Hammer Point Interactive's online zombie survival shooter, was released a couple of days ago on Steam, but is now removed from the service thanks to public outcry. Players who bought the online game for $15 bucks claims that the game doesn't live up to several features promised by the developers.
You'd think it's a simple case of broken promises from a developer, but it's actually more than that. When the game was out for sale over at Steam, War Z's store page listed features of the game that was said to be in the game, but in actuality, some are not even included yet. Certain features like character skills, extra maps, servers with the capacity of 100 players, hardcore mode, and the given map size of 100 to 400 square kilometers were placed over at the game's key features. What was given when getting yourself a copy of the game was only 1 map, no skills, map size of around 100 square kilometers, and a player cap of 50 per server.
When Steam is offering refunds, you know it's serious. "From time to time a mistake can be made, and one was made by prematurely issuing a copy of War Z for sale via Steam," said Valve vice president of marketing Doug Lombardi to Polygon. "We apologize for this and have temporary removed the sale offering of the title until we have time to work with the developer and have confidence in a new build. Those who purchase the game and wish to continue playing it via Steam may do so. Those who purchased the title via Steam and are unhappy with what they received may seek a refund by creating a ticket at our support site here."
War Z is starting to look like a game filled with broken promises and false advertising. This sounds like a quick cash grab from the developers that pretty much took advantage of the Day Z hype, which I'm sure felt the pressure to release the game early since Day Z devs are working on a stand-alone version of the game.
A petition was even created asking Valve to remove the game from the Steam marketplace. Thankfully Valve was planning to anyway, with or without a petition.
The controversy doesn't end there. Kotaku posted a series of images to compare one of War Z's images to a series of photos from The Walking Dead tv series.
False promises coming from developers are nothing new, others have done it, but it seems like most of what made people excited for the game is not even implemented yet. With these lacking features, I can't really say what makes War Z different from Day Z at this point. When I noticed War Z was out on Steam, I checked out the game's store page and noticed that there will be skills and experience in the game, I got intrigued. I love character progression, and with it being a zombie survival shooter? Sounds good right?. So I did some research, watched players play the game and noticed XP flying per zombie kill. I asked about the skills but to find out it's not implemented yet. So why is the latest build showing XP earned, for kicks? I know this is considered an MMO, a game that is constantly evolving, but at least make it look presentable and not give the impression as if they just bought an unfinished version of the game.
You can read all the drama over at Steam's community page and Reddit, or check out Kotaku's amazing coverage over all of this War Z craziness.
[Source: GameInformer, Kotaku, Polygon]
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