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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: Survivor Stories (The War Z) surpasses a million players
Infestation: Survivor Stories, the massively multiplayer online zombie survival game that was called The War Z until some pesky trademark issues forced a name change, has over 1.3 million players worldwide. Publisher OP Productions also shared today that that game has 400,000 players monthly, with more than 100,000 players logging in daily. It notes the game launched in December, which is trueish. The War Z launched on Steam this past December to a ravenous zombie horde of issues, and was removed shortly thereafter for false advertisement of game features. The game re-launched in February and currently holds a Metacritic rating of 20.
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 hack accessed login info, not game accounts
The War Z publisher OP Productions has released the preliminary findings of its investigation into a recent hacking attack on its forums and databases. The publisher has revealed that the hackers gained access to several of the administrator accounts on the War Z forums, which also gave them passwords for the administrators' game accounts. This resulted in deletion of the forums database, as well as "several dozens" of players being banned from the game (and subsequently reinstated).The forum databases do not contain payment information and are hosted separately from the game's servers. They do, however, contain the email addresses and passwords of forum users. The passwords are encrypted, though OP notes that many members "use weak passwords that could be guessed using brute force."The company was unable to find "definitive proof" that game accounts were accessed in any way. In other words, it appears that payment information was not compromised. Any players who use the same password for both the game and the forums are advised to change them, along with any unrelated accounts or services that use the same email address and password.OP has installed new security measures on both its forums database and The War Z's game servers.
The War Z forums and databases hacked, taken offline for investigation
The War Z has been taken offline due to the compromise of its databases and official forums, publisher OP Productions has announced. "We have discovered that hackers gained access to our forum and game databases and the player data in those databases," the statement reads. "We have launched a thorough investigation covering our entire system to determine the scope of the intrusion. This investigation is ongoing and is our top priority."The user information obtained during the break in includes log-in e-mail addresses for the official forums and the game itself, along with the encrypted passwords associated with those addresses. No user payment information was compromised, however, as payments are handled by a third party company that operates outside of OP Production's ecosystem.Despite the fact that "there was absolutely no exposure of your payment or billing information of any kind," according to the statement, the possibility still exists for the stolen encrypted passwords to be decrypted, which could obviously be an issue for anyone that used the same email address and password for The War Z as they did for other, more vital internet accounts. As such, OP Productions recommends that its users change up their passwords.Beyond the promise of future updates, no further timeline was given with respect to when the game may come back online.
