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The War Z dev: 'We were arrogantly deaf to problems'
They may not be slavering corpses, but the developers of The War Z share one thing in common with the undead denizens of their game: Persistence. Despite seemingly endless controversy, the open-world zombie survival game has reportedly passed 2.8 million sales. From the beginning, players accused The War Z (aka Infestation: Survivor Stories) of liberally borrowing ideas from Bohemia Interactive's cult-hit DayZ, including its setting and basic "survive against endless hordes of corpses" gameplay. Then The War Z reached Steam and was immediately hit by allegations that the developers knowingly listed features on the digital storefront that had not yet been added to the game. Valve eventually stepped in and pulled The War Z from Steam.
Infestation producer: The War Z was a 'terrible choice of a name'
Infestation Survivor Stories (previously known as The War Z) Executive Producer Sergey Titov has penned a post-mortem on Gamasutra about the game's launch in 2012, noting how inviting the comparison to DayZ worked against the project. "That said, The War Z was a terrible choice of name, as it naturally invited comparisons between our game and DayZ," Titov admitted. "We made a big mistake in not listening to the vocal minority of our community who thought the name was terrible [...] Beyond not listening to the community, we were also very arrogant in our public communications. We should have taken more care to communicate how and why this was not a DayZ clone, citing specific differences in both design and conception. Instead of saying to ourselves 'Oh well, haters gonna hate!' we should have tried to understand where the hate was coming from and address it." Another key mistake that Titov and his team made was engaging in an "arms race" to get The War Z to Steam before DayZ, which resulted in its being yanked from that platform due to misrepresentation of the existing game features. Even with these missteps, Titov said that Infestation sold 2.8 million copies, and of those, over half logged at least 50 hours of playing time apiece. You can read Massively's hands-on impressions of this title from 2013.
Infestation: Survivor Stories claims 2.5 million players to date
A new state of the game post is up today for Infestation: Survivor Stories (formerly The War Z), and the team claims that the title has seen 2.5 million players pass through its doors, with "over 100,000 people" playing the game daily. The team apologized for not getting its promised updates out on time and said that it's made "sweeping changes" to improve communications and be more accurate with releases. Part of these efforts included hiring CMs and pledging to an internal model of "complete transparency whenever possible." The state of the game post went on to list some of the game's recent additions, including vehicles, Super Zombies, balance tweaks, and an overhaul of the Colorado map. The team also said that it has committed itself to work on Infestation without external funding.
Ask Massively: Giveaways, zombies, and capturing the spirit of Ultima Online
This week in Ask Massively, we're answering questions about eerily quiet games, giveaways, and capturing the spirit of classic sandboxes and The Walking Dead. Holden asked, "Why has Perpetuum dropped off the map? I never hear about it anymore. The only time I even remember it is when I am doing searches for (more) robot/mech desktop wallpapers. Once monoclegate blew over, it was as if Perpetuum fell of the face of the earth, but it seems that it is still around from glancing at the website." This was such a good question that we went digging for an answer before we even added it to Ask Massively. It had been a long time since we'd reported on Perpetuum because it had been a long time since Perpetuum had made a big splash in the news. Readers speculated that the game's playerbase has shrunk over the last two years, but in fact over the winter holiday, developer Avatar Creations posted a dev blog detailing plans for a newbie tutorial island intended to bolster the new player population. Hopefully Holden and other fans of the game will enjoy this "island of noobs" (Avatar's words, not mine!).
Free for All: Two weeks on a private Infestation server
I remember when I first laid eyes on Infestation: Survivor Stories. It was GDC Online in 2012, and I did an interview with Alex Josef, Hammperpoint's PR consultant We made a quick trip to the press room, where he popped out a large gaming laptop to show me the game. I was really impressed with how simple its premise was: You're dropped in the middle of the wilderness, there are zombies all around, and you can starve to death. It felt great, as well, sporting realistic lighting effects and systems to simulate hunger, thirst, and sound. So much has happened since that first meeting. I am very, very aware of all of the drama concerning the developers -- the name changes, the patches, the community issues, and so on. I am not writing this to discuss that part of the story. My specific goal over the last couple of weeks was to see whether playing on a private, paid-for server would give me a different experience than Massively's Mike Foster's. During his time with the game at launch he was, to put it mildly, miserable.
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Seven zombie-infested MMOs for the survivalist in you
Let's talk zombies and post-apocalyptic futures. Sure, the undead have become an overused and watered-down genre, but it's easy to see just why it's so successful -- it practically has something for everyone. The horror fans love it for obvious reasons; there's nothing scarier than the reanimated dead. Sandbox fans and survivalist maniacs love that it represents what happens to society when everything -- and I mean everything -- breaks down. MMO fans adore it because it's all about teamwork and developing a society from the ground up alongside other people. So even though the genre is getting spread a bit thin, it's still as promising as any other. I thought it'd be a good idea to round up many of the current zombie MMOs and pseudo-MMOs so that over the holidays you can celebrate by ignoring your family to bash in a few previously deceased skulls. You can thank me later when all of the training you receive while playing these games helps you survive the coming zombie apocalypse.
Hands-on: Infestation: Survivor Stories, aka War Z, is worse than actually being killed by zombies
If there's one thing we know about the games industry, it's that no success goes uncopied. World of Warcraft breaks a million subscribers, everyone starts building WoW-like MMOs. Minecraft showers its creator with enough money to buy his home country, voxel-based crafting games fall like rain. It's just how things go. It should come as no surprise, then, that some studio somewhere would attempt to piggyback on the success of DayZ, Dean Hall's ridiculously popular mod for Arma II. The title, which drops players into a dangerous, zombie-filled open world and challenges them to survive, resonated so immensely with gamers that a clone wasn't so much probable as it was inevitable. But Infestation: Survivor Stories, formerly known as The War Z, is more than just a clone of DayZ. It is a charmless, cynical, and craven rip-off packaged with one of the most sinister microtransaction models ever implemented into a game, and it's developed by a company that has on multiple occasions proven itself to be only shades away from a dedicated fraud factory.
The War Z is now 'Infestation: Survivor Stories'
Publisher OP Productions has changed The War Z's name to Infestation: Survivor Stories, "in part to help fans differentiate the popular game from similarly titled brands," a press release reads. If we were to take a wild guess, that's probably in reference to DayZ, the Arma 2 mod that gained massive popularity and is due out this year as a standalone game. "OP Productions initially filed The War Z trademark early last year, but soon found out from the United States Patent and Trademark Office that the name was comparable to another property," the statement says. "After months of trying to resolve the issue, OP Productions decided the best option to avoid confusion among players was to rename the game. Current players will not experience any change or interruption with the exception of the change in name and game logo." The War Z launched on Steam on December 17, but was quickly removed for advertising inaccurate game elements. The War Z re-launched on Steam in February.
The War Z now known as Infestation: Survivor Stories
Remember The War Z? Hammerpoint Interactive is hoping that you don't, at least when it comes to the game's checkered development and customer service history that includes being temporarily pulled from Steam and suffering a major security breach. At any rate, the firm is looking for a fresh start and has changed the zombie MMO's name to Infestation: Survivor Stories. The War Z's original URL now automatically redirects users to a rebranded website. [Thanks Paul!]
