After allegation of false advertising surfaced, Hammerpoint interactive's The WarZ has been taken down from Steam's new releases section and Valve has issued the following statement regarding the move:
"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. 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 purchased 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.
Again, we apologize any inconvenience."
The game quickly became a best seller on Steam, but problems began to arise once gamers realized that many of the features listed in the game's Steam page description were not actually available in the game.
According to an article from Forbes, numerous features were mentioned in the game's description including multiple maps that ranged from 100 to 400 square kilometers and servers that could support up to 100 players.
Forbes reports, that gamers are saying there is currently only one map which measure only 72 square kilometers and that servers were originally capped at 50 players rather than the promised 100.
In an interview with GameSpy, Hammerpoint's executive producer on The War Z, Sergey Titov disputes many of the allegations and says that the map is currently over 100 square kilometers and that the change to the player cap was due to fan feedback.
"Okay , if text is saying "up to 100 players" -- yes, I may imagine situation when somebody will say "okay it have to be 100.," Titov told GameSpy." Over 100 sq km" falls in "100 to 400" right? Okay my point is -- online games are [a] living breathing GAME SERVICE. This is not a boxed product that you buy one time. It's evolving product that will have more and more features and content coming it. This is what The War Z is."
The interview is worth a read and there are some very interesting exchanges between the interviewer and Titov. You can read the full interview here at GameSpy. You can also read more about the issues with the game here.
What do you think about the allegations? Have you tried The War Z? Do you feel cheated? Do you think that Valve did the right thing by removing the game? Comment in the section below and tell us what you think.
