War Z pulled from Steam for FRAUD


EbolaSparkleBear's avatar
The game was pushed hard and fast to beat out the release date of Day Z. I know, confusing right?

Add to that War Z was ripping off The Walking Dead and copying zombies on the tv show for use in the War Z art.

On top of that the developer lied to customers. Banned people who complained in the forums (an estimated 3,000 people!) and in an interview the main guy basically dismissed any complaints.

Nice!


The War Z has been pulled from Steam by Valve, in the wake of their investigation into allegations of fraud by the game's developers Hammerpoint Interactive.

Hundreds, if not thousands of reports were made by customers who complained that the developer had mislead them when it launched an incomplete game that boasted features which had yet to be implemented within the game.

Late last night, we reported that the War Z's developers had made attempts to conceal the game's problems by banning anyone who complained on the official Steam forums about the problems they were having.



Links:
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Straviios's avatar
Welp, there goes my 15$... and another 15$ because someone online asked me... like 3-4 months ago? Tried it once, it was horrible as hell. That's it.
fawfulmk-II's avatar
Valve is giving refunds now. [link]
fawfulmk-II's avatar
well one of the creators made arguably the worst videogame of all time(Big Rigs), so I am not surprised at all.
EbolaSparkleBear's avatar
Yeah, I think he should be banned from game making:P
Sareth-Art's avatar
Seriously, IMO anyone who thought WarZ would be up to anything or could actually be succesfull and good must've been on some kind of trip. Not that I can't understand why people are getting hyped for things and especially games, but this whole pile of... garbage was marked and destined to fail the moment it openend its gates.
Not only that it's a rushed bug-collective to get a quick cash-share of the DayZ hype, and 90% of its material has been scavenged from other games to put of work early, the entire way this company handled their 'fanbase' and customers just showed anyone with the slightest bit of farsightedness that this project was either way going to faceplant by itself, or get curb-stomped by the people surrounding it. And 'lo and behold, what happens?
yup...
EbolaSparkleBear's avatar
That's a question for the thousands of people who bought the game. They might have fallen for the name since it's basically 'Day Z'. It's even the same amount of letters.

Plus, I'm not sure how many people do fact checks before they purchase games.
I'm always hesitant to buy games that I cannot rent/borrow first.
Sareth-Art's avatar
The people who didn't know about DayZ would've most possibly never known WarZ, so the customer-base was probably at least a bit informed and interested in the subject matter.
And if you're not checking facts or aren't even able to check facts, because the company forbids every leak of footage that should flash up some warning lights. At the point where I noticed that people actually weren't allowed to put gameplay footage up on YouTube (etc) my first thought was "now thats a sign that they're hiding something" followed by the thought "nope, not gonna touch that"
superpika237's avatar
Well, what a jerk.
sbkMulletMan's avatar
You didn't show the best link!

[link]

Seriously, just watching that gameplay video made me surprised Valve even let it on their service to begin with, and he makes the best points that can be made. And the assholes who made the game honestly could not handle truth or criticism; they actually resorted to blaming the players for the problems, making up bullshit about "93% of our players are satisfied with the project". They weren't even good at bullshitting, much less making a game. Oh, and "we started developing this game before Day Z"? Yeah, not buying that. I don't even care about Day Z, but I know a cash-in when I see one.
EbolaSparkleBear's avatar
I found out the same guy behind war Z is the dude behind Big Rigs, the most horriblist game.

Yeah, if they started before Day Z why is it Day Z is better and more polished? :P
sbkMulletMan's avatar
When a game that's in a free Alpha stage is "better and more polished" than your fully released standalone game, that's when you know you really screwed the pooch.
EbolaSparkleBear's avatar
Hahhaah! yeah, that's bad
Cenaris's avatar
Now if only Anita the scammer could have all those games and "donations" she suckered out of gullible twits that she said she'd use to make a bunch of pro feminist videos that have never appeared.
EbolaSparkleBear's avatar
Ha!
Pro feminist games.
5 copies sold:P
Cenaris's avatar
You can't buy what doesn't exist
Pakaku's avatar
"Hundreds, if not thousands of reports were made by customers who complained that the developer had mislead them when it launched an incomplete game that boasted features which had yet to be implemented within the game."

What, like EVERY OTHER GAME who uses their customers as beta-testers?

Were the devs not going to patch the game, or something?
TheRedSnifit's avatar
Nearly every advertised feature did not exist in-game, and they only added "UPCOMING" to them after thousands of people complained.
XoPachi's avatar
Not to mention like the man in Mullet's link said this was not only a crock of lies, but lies at a price...WITH micro transactions.
sbkMulletMan's avatar
And with the respawn times (which I heard were quadrupled to FOUR hours!), it makes your real money-bought items useless, because you can't switch them to other characters. And that's assuming you can still use them on the same character after respawn.

And that being said, what the HELL is up with the long-ass respawns? Is that supposed to make it more "realistic"? It's not "realistic", it's a kick in the balls, especially in a game where you can't stay alive worth a crap, even with actual money-bought items. And as shown in that video, you can spawn right next to another player and immediately get killed by a magical floating backpack (nice tech work, guys) in only a few hits.

I only know the game through those small video examples and it still pisses me off. Thank god I grew bored with zombies years ago and therefore was safely guaranteed to have no interest in this game, because if I were one of those boned customers, it would not be pretty.
XoPachi's avatar
I'm so fucking glad I'm not the only one here sick of zombies and zombie games, but that's besides the point.

I can understand heavy penalties for death like Amnesia's DLC with the game ending deaths, but you can just turn it back on and try again. Why STOP the player from playing the damn game with an actual time limit like WarZ, though?
If they were going for realism, they kinda failed anyway because no one comes back from death after ANY increment of time. So it's better to just let people respawn immediately and play the fucking game. Did they even consider that new players (everyone) is gonna die eventually as they find the game's learning curve? Rhetorical question.
EbolaSparkleBear's avatar
I will never be tired of zombies.
superpika237's avatar
Whoa, an hour long respawn time?

Holy crap!
sbkMulletMan's avatar
Four hours now, unless they changed it again.

Just watch that video I linked. It's all you need to see to know that this game sucks horribly. It's actually quite amusing watching him die for the first time and waiting for his respawn. They don't even TELL you your respawn time, there is NO prompt during the "you have died!" overhead camera sequence; it just lingers on in limbo until you figure it out for yourself and disconnect from the server.

This game is going to be legendary when it comes to bad games. Right up there with Superman 64. And the developers, who are genuine, manipulative assholes, are only making it worse for themselves.


But let's go back to the whole respawn thing: this is a game that claims to be a MMO game, which is debatable, but it plays in that general setting: an open world with lots of traveling, EASY, unfair deaths, (side note: you can take heavy damage by going downhill. Not by falling off a ledge, but by walking down a steady declining slope. I am dead serious; watch the video), and even the other players can kill you with minimal effort like assholes (I believe Player vs. Environment-only is currently unavailable).

FOUR hour respawn times! FOUR! Even back when it was one hour, it was just ridiculous. Even a 5 minute respawn is stupid. Hell, anything longer than "1 minute, plus load times" is stupid for anything that's not a team-based competition, like a shooter or DOTA2 or something similar. For a "MMO", especially one like this, you need to respawn quickly. Otherwise, why bother playing?

And those items you bought with real money just so you would have more than a stupid flashlight? Yeah, so much for those. Gotta wait for the respawn (I HOPE).
superpika237's avatar
Yeah, I'm watching that video right now. It is bad!

I heard they were the makers of the Big Rigs game, if so, that makes this all make sense.

But I never woulda thought they would actually return to make another bad game!
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