Hammerpoint trying to sell a renamed The Warz on Steam

Diablo1099_v1legacy

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The issue Valve had the first time was more to due with the false advertisement then the actual quality of the game.
They couldn't really care less if Hammerpoint made a shit game by ripping off DayZ, they only got involved for actually misleading people by claiming to have features that they didn't actually have

If the game sucks, people won't buy it and become part of the Summer Sale Bargain Bin, no shit off Valve's arse.
 

KungFuJazzHands

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I've considered buying the game just so I can actively troll the developers online (apparently some players have been permabanned because of bad-mouthing the devs/publisher). But then it hits me that the part of my money would be going to Valve, who should have done the right thing and permanently removed War Z from the Steam Store, and the rest of it would be going into the pockets of Hammerpoint. Neither of the parties involved deserve my cash -- they both handled the early controversy poorly IMO.
 

CBanana

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I have to take issue with Valve on this for:

1) Not imposing the quality control they supposedly are putting in every non-major game that doesn't go through Greenlight.
2) Putting the game back up after the developers were revealed to be pretty shady.
3) Removing the Metacritic rating from the game's page for a long while.
4) Actively promoting the game on the front page knowing that many people are going to be suckered into buying the game. This is especially so as Valve doesn't do anything to let people know about the name change thus making the game harder to research.

This does come across as Valve being complicit in trying to fleece consumers.
 

Diablo1099_v1legacy

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CBanana said:
I have to take issue with Valve on this for:

1) Not imposing the quality control they supposedly are putting in every non-major game that doesn't go through Greenlight.
From what I see it (That Steam is a Retailer), it'd be like Gamestop going through every game and getting rid of all the shit ones.
I'd imagine that the Quality Control would be more for making sure the game actually worked with Steam's interface or Making sure it didn't damage computers, stuff like that.
2) Putting the game back up after the developers were revealed to be pretty shady.
While I get where youre coming from and Hammerpoint was trying to cash in on DayZ's hype, at the end of the day, it's not Valve's problem that the people making the game are greedy.
They just sell the game, nothing more.

Not defending Hammerpoint in the slightest, just you don't blame the shopkeeper when the product sucks.
3) Removing the Metacritic rating from the game's page for a long while.
I'd say that'd have something to do with the Dev requesting it, I'd imagine they get the final say on what description ends up on the Steam Shop.
4) Actively promoting the game on the front page knowing that many people are going to be suckered into buying the game. This is especially so as Valve doesn't do anything to let people know about the name change thus making the game harder to research.

This does come across as Valve being complicit in trying to fleece consumers.
They pulled it when it was falsely advertised and put it back up once it was corrected.
The "Hush-Hush" Nature could once again be due to Hammerpoint wanting a low profile after all that went down.
As for Fleecing, that'd only be the case if they kept the False Adverts up and they did refund people who were mislead.

To conclude, I think Valve did their job as a Retailer, it was Hammerpoint who dropped the ball.
 

CBanana

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Diablo1099 said:
From what I see it (That Steam is a Retailer), it'd be like Gamestop going through every game and getting rid of all the shit ones.

I'd imagine that the Quality Control would be more for making sure the game actually worked with Steam's interface or Making sure it didn't damage computers, stuff like that.
You'd be right if Steam was like Apple's App Store or Google Play where whatever the hell you want to get published could get published on Steam. However, Steam tells game developers all the time that they don't meet their unnamed criteria and they can't get on Steam without going through Greenlight. If the criteria is some measure of quality control, how the heck does War Z/ISS get a pass? Some consistency and transparency would be nice.

At present, it just seems Valve thought this was a good premise and would make them money even if any level of quality control would show that gamers would be conned out of their money.

2)While I get where youre coming from and Hammerpoint was trying to cash in on DayZ's hype, at the end of the day, it's not Valve's problem that the people making the game are greedy.
They just sell the game, nothing more.

Not defending Hammerpoint in the slightest, just you don't blame the shopkeeper when the product sucks.
War Z is not just a bad game but it's a defective product. If I buy something from a shop and I find out it's a defective product, I can bring it back for a refund. Steam doesn't have have that level of protection built into it.

3) I'd say that'd have something to do with the Dev requesting it, I'd imagine they get the final say on what description ends up on the Steam Shop.
The dev having a say in withholding information from consumers is hugely anti-consumer and unethical. Really, the best I can say for Valve regarding this Metacritic shadiness is that it was through negligence rather than predatory behaviour.

4) They pulled it when it was falsely advertised and put it back up once it was corrected.
The "Hush-Hush" Nature could once again be due to Hammerpoint wanting a low profile after all that went down.
As for Fleecing, that'd only be the case if they kept the False Adverts up and they did refund people who were mislead.

To conclude, I think Valve did their job as a Retailer, it was Hammerpoint who dropped the ball.
Valve took a defective product and put it at the front of their store encouraging customers to buy it. They also through negligence or abusiveness withheld information about the product.

Naturally, the consequence is that many people who bought it on impulse got suckered out of their money for a defective product. The very least Valve could have done is put a non-defective game up in its place as a daily deal.
 

Diablo1099_v1legacy

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CBanana said:
Stuff and Things
1) Well...I can't really say much else without knowing what those quality control measures are.
Could be just technical, Could be more, That's just how I'd imagine it'd work.
Still, I don't think that an entire Team of Steam Staff would sit and playtest games when that's the Dev's job.

2) It's Defective in what way? Yes, they claimed to have features they didn't have, but they got rid of those claims.
Yes, it's full of BS Microtransactions.
Yes, it's a ripoff, but it still is a working product.
A Shitty Product, Yes, but it works.

By that logic, it's not defective, it's just shit.

3) Those scores can be abused, Remember that story about Star Trek: The Game got perfect 10s despite being a crappy tie in and no actual reviewers got to review it beforehand?
I'd imagine all the bad press around the game could translate into bad scores, even by people who didn't own it and downvoted it because "They ripped off DayZ.".

By that logic, it's kinda understable, though I'd think that Hammerpoint still had to kick and scream to get it removed though.

4) Again, it's shit, a ripoff and all those other thing, but not defective.
A Bad Game doesn't mean a Broken one.

As for them still selling it...They are a Retailer like Gamestop, it's what they do :p
 

CBanana

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Diablo1099 said:
There are lots of good games that Valve has stopped from going on their service and that have been forced to go through Greenlight instead. Valve has some criteria on what gets to bypass Greenlight but it's a big problem that it's not transparent or consistent. If War Z/ISS had gone through Greenlight or Valve was transparent on why it bypassed Greenlight, it would help alleviate a lot of the criticism.

It's defective in the sense that the game has huge server issues, is full of cheaters and the anti-cheat software is buggy often banning people who don't do anything wrong.

I honestly don't why comparing Steam's similarities to Gamestop is supposed to improve my opinion of Steam. If your actions have consequences that are detrimental to a great many people, you would have to come up with a really good reason on why these actions are justified.
 

Diablo1099_v1legacy

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CBanana said:
There are lots of good games that Valve has stopped from going on their service and that have been forced to go through Greenlight instead. Valve has some criteria on what gets to bypass Greenlight but it's a big problem that it's not transparent or consistent. If War Z/ISS had gone through Greenlight or Valve was transparent on why it bypassed Greenlight, it would help alleviate a lot of the criticism.
Fair enough.

It's defective in the sense that the game has huge server issues, is full of cheaters and the anti-cheat software is buggy often banning people who don't do anything wrong.
Oh...Didn't know that, Sorry ._.

I honestly don't why comparing Steam's similarities to Gamestop is supposed to improve my opinion of Steam. If your actions have consequences that are detrimental to a great many people, you would have to come up with a really good reason on why these actions are justified.
I just wanted to point out that Valve only got involved when the game was sold under false pretenses like the Map Size and such and at the end of the day, all Steam is about is selling.
Still, had fun debating with you :)
 

DoPo

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CBanana said:
Diablo1099 said:
There are lots of good games that Valve has stopped from going on their service and that have been forced to go through Greenlight instead. Valve has some criteria on what gets to bypass Greenlight but it's a big problem that it's not transparent or consistent.
What are you talking about? It's seems pretty clear - new indie game that is self published and from a studio that doesn't have a game on Steam - Greenlight, games with a publisher - straight on to Steam. And since publishers seem to have some sort of arrangement with Steam, I'd imagine an indie studio can also do one technically, though, it may require criteria a small development team is unable to match (like, putting X amount of games on Steam per year or something).

Anyway

Developer: Hammerpoint Interactive
Publisher: OP Productions
I don't see the issue here - why exactly should the game have been put through Greenlight?
 

MetalMagpie

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Yeah... I think there are other hints on that page that you shouldn't buy, even if you didn't know it's a renamed WarZ.

I know we should always be dubious of Metacritic, but when a game scores 20/100, it's time to look very hard indeed before purchasing!
 

CBanana

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DoPo said:
What are you talking about? It's seems pretty clear - new indie game that is self published and from a studio that doesn't have a game on Steam - Greenlight, games with a publisher - straight on to Steam. And since publishers seem to have some sort of arrangement with Steam, I'd imagine an indie studio can also do one technically, though, it may require criteria a small development team is unable to match (like, putting X amount of games on Steam per year or something).

Anyway

Developer: Hammerpoint Interactive
Publisher: OP Productions
I don't see the issue here - why exactly should the game have been put through Greenlight?
Your argument is contradicted by this article:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/124544-Valve-to-Indie-Devs-Dont-Use-Publishers-to-Bypass-Greenlight

Also, let's see what games OP Productions has published on Steam previously to give them such clout:
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released&sort_order=DESC&publisher=OP+Productions

Honesty, I don't really think we can speak definitively on why Valve does or doesn't do anything since their policies are opaque and inconsistent. This of course, drives me nuts as bad games on Steam gain success simply by being on Steam while good games are held back because they're not on Steam for whatever arbitrary reason.
 

MetalMagpie

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Liberaliter said:
So what? They just changed the name, probably due to a legal issue, if anyone is stupid enough to buy it, then it's their own fault.
The smart money is on a potential conflict with the film "World War Z". If I had a choice between renaming my game and going toe to toe with Hollywood lawyers, I would pick the former.
 

Playful Pony

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They actually changed it because of World War Z, the movie. And they SHOULD remove it, this thing is a dreadful piece of knockoff crap that should never have been allowed on in the first place, and ESPECIALLY not be allowed to come back after having caused mass uproar and refunds for anyone that bought it!

Steam seriously need some quality control...
 

AnthrSolidSnake

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I bought it knowing that it was bad in the beginning, but they have changed it. I wouldn't pay full price for it, sure, but while it's on sale I thought I could give it a try. It's not great, no, but I do get a bit of enjoyment out of it. I know people might think I'm stupid for buying it, but you know what, I don't care. I enjoy it, I paid for it, and they have changed the game enough to be perfectly playable and even fun. Do I recommend it alone? No. I'd recommend getting a couple friends to play it, but knowing the bandwagon flak the game still has, my guess is people would have a very hard time even remotely convincing their friends to buy a copy. You know what? Fine. Don't. I don't want you ruining my enjoyment with the game anyway. If you bought it when it was first put up, I can understand the frustration then, but now it just seems like the more people who haven't played it, the more people who hate it because reasons. the only reason my experience gets ruined is because you have to wait an hour before you can "respawn", but then I just use my second character until the timer runs out. I'm competent enough to survive an hour, so it's not a big deal.
 

Clive Howlitzer

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I am surprised anyone could see a zombie game and think "Hey this looks interesting". There is nothing less interesting than zombies.
 

Xanadu84

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From what ive gathered, the new War Z managed to upgrade from blatant false advertising in an unplayable game, to run of the mill advertising speak in a run of the mill crappy F2P game. Steam sells a number of bad games. They are a pretty open platform, and they are hardly assisting in a false representation: The store page leads me right to that 20 metacritic score. I think in this case, the correct response isn't some flash boycott: Just don't buy the game, and let other people know what the game is. Problem solved. Regular market forces will clean the whole mess up rather quickly anyways.