The War Z has been pulled from Steam by Valve, in the wake of their investigation into allegations of fraud by the game's developers Hammerpoint Interactive.
Hundreds, if not thousands of reports were made by customers who complained that the developer had mislead them when it launched an incomplete game that boasted features which had yet to be implemented within the game.
Late last night, we reported that the War Z's developers had made attempts to conceal the game's problems by banning anyone who complained on the official Steam forums about the problems they were having. Many users vocalized their dissatisfaction with the fact that the studio had added a lengthy 4-hour respawn timer and had begun to charge players to respawn their characters upon their deaths.
A bizarre interview on GameSpy also went up last night with the game's lead producer, Sergei Titov, who appeared unsympathetic to the problems his customers were facing. He seemed to believe that lying to his customers was not only acceptable, but an action to be praised.
"I can assure you that based on what we're seeing and number of people who post bad comments are small percentage," he said in response to one of the many hard questions about the game's problems. He also placed the responsibility of refunding players on Steam.
The game's store page remains online on Steam, but the link to purchase the game has been removed. Valve has since issued a statement about the retraction of the game and is offering full refunds to anyone who purchased the game:
Valve: 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: https://support.steampowered.com/newticket.php
Again, we apologize any inconvenience.