If I were Dean “Rocket” Hall, I wouldn't be terribly happy about the fact that a bunch of hacks (hereby referred to as Sergey Titov and Hammerpoint Interactive) ripped off my game and tried to make a profit by calling it something else and tricking customers into thinking they were getting a game of equivalent quality to Day Z.
Understandably, Hall’s a bit miffed by the whole issue and said as such in a recent “Ask Me Anything” Q&A with the fans on Reddit. He blames both the public and particularly the media for failing to ask any hard questions about The War Z prior to the game’s release, simply taking their claims at face value.
The reports on the game were appalling, to say the least—few, if any of which actually bothered to draw comparisons to Day Z or point out the flaws in the game. The backlash from the press only came after fans had complained either directly to the press, or indirectly on Steam, about the lackluster quality of the game.
He wrote:
To an extent I think yes you are right. I need to be clearer about what I mean, I don't blame consumersindividually for the decisions they are making – but I do challenge them to consider the impact of their decisions. The people I would lob criticism at would be some in the gaming media who take fairly dubious claims from a developer at face value without saying "is that really correct?" and asking for backup claims. There are many media who were saying how great the game was they "played" in pre-alpha, only to say something completely different a few months later about how terrible the game was. I think that's the absolute worst.
I don't think I've ever said they weren't competition. But I have said, as I did above, that competition doesn't necessarily mean lower prices or better quality for the consumer (automatically). It can actually mean that companies get carried away competing for something that isn't important (such as perception, or marketing).
I am angry about the WarZ. I'm very angry. I'm quite hurt personally because anyone can see how similar the words are, and while the average gamer knows the difference individual people don't. I've had family members/close friends mistake the difference and confront me about what they believed was unethical behavior they thought I was making. I really don't think anyone can understand just quite how exasperated that can make you feel when you've gambled everything on something, put your whole self and reputation on the line. So it hasn't made my life very pleasant and I disagree entirely with the conduct and how consumers have been treated.
I think the word "scam" is such a loaded word that isn't really relevant in the discussion, much like the word "terrorist" is a very loaded word and very much dependent on point of view.
