War Z pulled from Steam amid Fraud

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/11570/article/the-war-z-pulled-from-steam-amid-allegations-of-fraud/

Basically, the game promised a lot of things pre-release and when it was released, it didn't even offer half of what it promised. Gamespy had an interview with the lead producer and all he did was lie and made it seem like it was OK to lie.

Anyone who went to the official War Z forums to complain about the game lieing about it's features got banned. Gamers are TICKED. Because of all of this, Steam made it so that you cannot purchace War Z and is now giving out refunds like candy.

If any of my family bought War Z off of Steam and feels cheated out of their money can submit a ticket at https://support.steampowered.com/newticket.php

If you bought The War Z from the official website and want your money back well.... Fat chance.

Game made by Russians? It plays you.

This game has clearly broken several FTC laws. I'm surprised there isn't a class-action lawsuit against Hammerpoint Interactive. Though with the lead developer's rude attitude, the flat out lies, and him banning anyone who dares to complain both on the game and the forum, It's only a matter of time. I've been to the official War Z forums. I've seen Teenagers do a better job on forum creation, the community moderators and administrators can't seem to hold themselves to the standard they set for those below them (rules) and thus is completely unprofessional and should not be moderators. They censor ANYONE who voices displeasure, and only seems to moderate when it's convenient to them. (They'll ban someone cursing out the game, but won't ban someone cursing out the player who's cursing out the game). Hammerpoint is obviously an extremely unprofessional company that deserves nothing less than bankruptcy. They ripped images from The Walking Dead (http://kotaku.com/5969927/some-war-z-images-were-ripped-from-the-walking-dead) It's riding the coat tails of, "Day Z" while being almost a complete copy of Hammerpoint's last turd, "War Inc" Their customer service is horrendous, the GM's are in-game spawning weapons for themselves and players while banning legitimate non-rule-breaking players. To further prove that the developers of War Z is completely out of touch with gamers, The respawn timer is an hour long, oh but you can pay the equivalent of 50 cents to instantly revive. I don't know of any self-respecting gamer that'll consistently endure a 5 minute respawn timer, let alone a full hour. This game is a scam, the people behind it are scam artists. I hope to all that is holy this russian-based company is sued to the ground, that the players get a full refund, and that NONE OF MY FAMILY SUBJECTED TO THEMSELVES TO THIS NIGHTMARE.

» Edited on: 2012-12-22 12:45:58

Never heard of it, glad i didnt. =-p

I've seen this game and alot of people who have played it. If you are thinking of buying this game... don't. Like Viktor said, during their release they said this would be an amazing game with, high amounts of detail, interactive gameplay, and you can start off with amazing things if your willing to invest a bit in their in game market. It failed miserably on all of those accounts. People try to compare War Z to Day Z(Arma2 mod) and theres just no real legitimate way to do so. War Z claims it came out before Day Z.. and it can't prove it at all. In fact Day Z can prove that it came out first. War Z is 10 times more boring than Day Z. It lies that it has a 400KM maps, which are really 70KMs and the maps are just empty. On Day Z you couldn't travel any direction for 10 minutes without running into a building, on War Z it takes you 40mins to find anything and those places are so swamped in zombies that you can't possibly do anything to get in without sprinting inside. And even if you do sprint inside you find... NOTHING! Day Z fully admits its a game mod in alpha and its free to play it with servers that support up to 150 people. War Z claims it's a complete game with servers that can hold up to 100 people. This is a huge lie, it's servers can only hold 50 people at max(which lags the server badly) and it's far from a complete game, with hundreds of glitches, bugs, and exploits. And whats worse about War Z is it charges you 15$ to buy the game and has the gall to have an in game store that sells you useless junk. Over all Like Viktor said. DO NOT trust Hammerpoint at all. They are a dreadful excuse of a gaming company that cuts every corner they can, threatens its players on a daily basis, bans people for no reason at all(I kid you not, they once banned 10,000 random players in hopes of detering hackers, even if those accounts had nothing to do with hacking at all), and their mods are heavily abusive both in game and out of game. Rating for War Z OH GOD RUN AWAY out of 10.

» Edited on: 2012-12-22 15:36:54

A shame. Thanks for the heads-up. If only there were any other zombie-killing games on the market... if only...

I for one, Love playing WarZ. I have played it since the day it was released. I play with a group of people, mostly from the UK or what not. The real problems.... 1. Their real problem is that they let people into a Paid Alpha version of the game. The community that actually paid to play the game in alpha, has this mentality that they paid for a full game. They don't understand that what they bought into was alpha. If the game was a closed alpha, you wouldn't have the complains you do now. The community of this game has ruined the forums, you can't go there without people just complaining about everything. Instead of testing the game, and finding glitches, and reporting bugs. People complain about other people "hacking" and the lack of loot, and the in game micro-transactions. 2. Their PR sucks. Im not sure where they are actually, but whoever their mouth piece is, Sergey, he isn't very bright and only succeeds at furthering the disappointment. His Q&A's are always contradicting to his forum posts and he never answers a question completely. JohnnyTruant did a Ask Me Anything on Reddit, and only answered easy lame questions. They just need a decent PR person. 3. Hackers. While people have claimed to be killed by hackers, I have no encountered one. But, thats just me. I play on low population servers, and play with a group. If someone kills one of us, we kill that person.I haven't seen it but its for sure out there. They haven't done anything to stop them. The thing they did do was plant items in places you can only get to if you are hacking... those items had a hidden tag on them, then they banned anyone who had that tag. which sucked, because some people killed hackers, and got the loot, and then got banned wrongfully. Which they have been unbanned now, but its lame. 4. The in game micro-transactions. I for one, never spend real money on anything, once I get a game. It makes no sense to buy these things. In War Z, there are cosmetic items, like flares, chemlights, hats and such. And now, ammor for certain guns, and backpacks for storing loot. Nothing in the store is pay to win, nor is it worth me spending money on. They tried to make it cost money to have a clan. But with no real functionality in their clan features, its not worth it. We just all join a Axon Dolby server and play that way. This game has potential to be a really good game. But you can't help to be skeptical about their intentions. There are good points to all sides of it. I like to be optimistic and hope that the game will continue to get better. Their track record isn't that great at the moment, and they still don't have alot of features that they claimed to have. They do have a timeline for certain things, but I doubt it will be on time. I wouldn't recommend buying it right now. I'd wait until they add the things that will make this a better game. Right now, if you don't have a team, you will run around, and get shot on sight. Which is no way to play the game.

@ Pepsi " 1. Their real problem is that they let people into a Paid Alpha version of the game. The community that actually paid to play the game in alpha, has this mentality that they paid for a full game. They don't understand that what they bought into was alpha. " The reason that all of their players had the mentality that they paid for a full game. Is because they advertised that it was a full game. In no way at all when they put in up on steam did they say it was a game in alpha or that you were buying into an alpha. They went full out saying it was a completed masterpiece. And that is why people are constantly complaining about their game in every fashion. 3. Hackers are rampant in this game. As to those who were wrongfully banned, they have not been unbanned besides a few hundred... out of tens of thousands. Majority of those players were forced to buy new copies of the game. This game "Had" potential to be a good game. but their cutting corners on every point, and having brutal PR made one of the worst First impressions of ALL of gaming history of games sold on Steam. This game was ripped off of steam in record time with hundreds of thousands of people demanding refund for wasted money. You have a bunch of friends playing with you that makes the game enjoyable but you can do that with any game out there. Which in my opinion is the best way to play a game :) But I don't see this as turning into a wonderful game. The concept though stolen is a good one, and If they actually work at it i can see this as a cult classic in a few years. But due to this horrific first impression I don't see this game ever becoming something big.

They are a fraudulent developer. They stole Day Z, its very obvious to anyone who played. They lie, they ran a money grab scam and I feel for the players that bought into their bullcrap and paid them monies. I know that Day Z is dragging his feet on getting a standalone game out, but its not an easy thing to develop on your own. Plus, War Z sort of put him into a bad bind, it will be interesting to see how this all turns out. Its not the first time that a game has had fraudulent developers. Dark and Light was a game based on a stolen game engine, a money grab cash scam and existed for the sole purpose of being an "operating advertisement" so they could sell off the stolen engine to whoever was stupid enough to buy it. No one did and things ended badly for them. But back on War Z... just have patience and wait for Day Z to come out (I hope he's still working on doing that). It will be a legitimate game, developed by the original developer and he really deserves your support, a lot more than these Russian criminals do. edit: yes I know Day Z is currently "out", but just as a mod, not as a standalone game, yet.

» Edited on: 2012-12-23 13:56:34

What a shame. Neat idea gone to waste.

You should see some of the art they blatantly ripped off of the Walking Dead. It's Hilarious to think that they thought they could get away with it.

» Edited on: 2012-12-24 04:15:25

edit: I'll rephrase. I believe that they are associated with Russian organized crime. There is a lot of money in gaming, both legitimate and illegitimate, to be had. Its a grey area of the law, especially international law, and I know that organized crime has their hand in both the gold seller market, as well as the game development markets. People laugh when I say that, but there are billions of dollars in this industry, and just like American crime has their hands in various industries, I believe gaming is a ripe fruit just waiting to be plucked by them. They'd be stupid to pass it up.

» Edited on: 2012-12-24 03:45:50

I was one of the unlucky sods that actually paid $59 for alpha, I have no problem doing such to support good ideas as the final product was included in the price. Unfortunately for me it was a bad gamble as I uninstalled the game the following day. I know the difference between a bad product and an alpha product, and that was just a bad product. It wasn't until the steam debacle that I realized just how bad they were (stolen art assets etc). I think it's entirely possible that organised crime could have been financially backing it, whether it was Bratva or some other syndicate is anybody's guess. One thing for sure though, with the amount of attention that the game got and the amount of sales it got on launch day, I truly hope that a Triple A studio gets off their but and makes a triple A quality Sandbox Zombie survival MMO. Topped Steam Sales on opening day should be all the market research they need.

I like the game, and I still play it, and me and my friends still have. I bought the $40 version and have given my beta keys to my friends, and we all enjoy it. I am not super happy about what is going on right now, but I hope that they will get their stuff together. I too support the idea of a Triple A studio picking it up. There is definetly a market out there for it.

edit: I'll rephrase. I believe that they are associated with Russian organized crime. There is a lot of money in gaming, both legitimate and illegitimate, to be had. Its a grey area of the law, especially international law, and I know that organized crime has their hand in both the gold seller market, as well as the game development markets. People laugh when I say that, but there are billions of dollars in this industry, and just like American crime has their hands in various industries, I believe gaming is a ripe fruit just waiting to be plucked by them. They'd be stupid to pass it up. Most of the gold selling issue comes right out of China. People aren't just making assumptions when they mention Chinese Gold Farmers. Fact is, a lot of Chinese prisoners are forced to do a lot of it to make revenue for the prison. Now when it comes to Russian cyber crime, it's far more dangerous to your computer. They're the types that'll make faux free anti-virus software for people to download when it is in fact a trojan and other spyware to steal your personal info and destroy your computer. The faux anti-virus software will give you the option to, "clean" your computer if you buy the full product, of course it won't do anything. Fact is, a lot of computer virus' originate from Russia. This actually happened to my last computer, I eventually had to call a buddy of mine, bring the computer to his house and have him do a complete memory wipe and reinstallation of Windows. Didn't cost me anything, but daaaaum.

» Edited on: 2012-12-26 00:36:05

Well, regardless of who is financing them, which is actually totally moot, its a buyer beware scam. Now its not just me sounding like a crazy paranoid in warning people about War Z, because Steam is saying that it doesn't seem legit to them, either. If you feel your 30-50 bucks was well spent on War Z, then by all means, enjoy it. But if you do like War Z, then I'd suggest checking out Day Z, which is currently still just a mod, but is the original and its free. I haven't kept up on current affairs with the game, so my information is about 3 months old on Day Z. That's what Google and Bing are for. ;) I just strongly feel that folks should support the original game and not the cheap ripoff. >_> Now I supported Mech Warrior Online by buying a Founder's pack, Piranha developed (w/ Infinite Game Publishing) a great game. They also did the "selling Alpha/Beta" thing to raise development funds. They made enough money to develop a great game, one that I need to start playing more, tbh. I could tell they really cared about their game, before they offered it for sale, as they do a lot of Twitter traffic and have storyline news-feeds, they are very much into the Battle Tech universe, as fans, themselves.

» Edited on: 2012-12-26 03:54:43