ControverZ

It’s not exactly a secret that I’m a fan of zombie games. From fully-fledged team-based games such as Left 4 Dead, to mods such as No More Room in Hell and DayZ. If you’ve been around this genre before, you’ll notice that it nearly always takes place in the ruins of cities and towns. It makes sense, to be honest – it allows for a more varied playground of zombie-killing madness. DayZ took advantage of a massive piece of countryside, and made it lonely and brutal. And best-selling. Well, it’s free, so it’d be best-selling if you could actually sell it. Another group finally noticed this chasm in the market, and promised us The War Z. The one thing that smelled fishy to the office, was that it quickly popped up on our radar, months after DayZ started building momentum, and less than a year later, The War Z was up on Steam. And now we know how.

Despite everyone paying full price and the developers stating wonderful facts about the game, the whole thing was in an alpha-stage (to put it nicely). In other words, The War Z team lied to get more sales. Steam pulled the software from their store and allowed refunds (a rare occurrence within the Steam offices).

Labelling itself “The World’s First Survival MMO Zombie Game” The War Z gives (well, gave) gamers a multi-environment open-world zombie slaughter-fest. Now, lots of games will fall under the wheels of the gaming train each year. (A new year, and I’m already creating horrible analogies). Unfavourable reviews, broken gameplay, bad advertising – all routes to the bargain bin. None are as heinous, however, as bad PR. Upon the murmurings of dissension within the community, the developers replied with ‘If you don’t like the game, it’s not our fault. If you followed the the game’s description, word-for-word, then you took us too literally. ‘ (not their exact words, but you’ve got the jist).

Needless to say, unhappy customers ensuedand the aggressive stance of the developers did nothing to help. Pro-tip: don’t rush your game, just so you can get it out first, and don’t tell your customers to go frack themselves when they point out your mistakes.

If you’ve a hankering for an openworld zombie orgy, either gift the game to your housemates for April’s Fools, or wait for the DayZ standalone to power through to victory triumphant. Hopefully.

I was hoping that they’d be able to recover, at least, but they’ve dug themselves into even deeper holes now. Bans based on your k:d ratio, the inability to play the game for four hours after you die (unless you pay, of course) and a class-action lawsuit will probably finish the game off.