WarZ Removed From Steam

[Comocat]

...

Except legally, it's really not their responsibility. It's not Wal-Mart's responsibility to check for lead paint in toys they sell, it's not Best Buy's responsibility to make sure every DVD box actually has a DVD in it, etc. The vendor is let off the hook time and again. Ultimately it is the consumer's responsibility to take issue with the manufacturer, or pursue legal means when that fails. This isn't any different for video games.

It may not be their responsibility, but how many DVDs would you buy from Bestbuy if you kept getting empty boxes? In the past two weeks Valve has let some pretty high profile stinkers through their system. I was interested in Towns, and tried the demo only to find its an unfinished mess. Now, WarZ, a genre I'm pretty excited about, shows up on steam out of the blue, and with claims that are dubious at best. Valve certainly doesnt make money making games, so if their service cant be relied on for buying games, what does that leave them? Most of my purchases on steam are impulse sale buys, but now I have to wonder about some of the titles showing up.

I think this also hurts the genre as a whole. Video game makers are notorious for over promising and under-performing. I have not personally bought a MMO since Warhammer and will certainly never pay $60 upfront for an IP I know nothing about. The video game industry thrives off deceiving their customers about the content of their purchases and in my case, its costing them revenue. I wont pirate games, but I certainly wont buy them.

 

[cookyt]

Yes, DayZ gives no grounds for refunds, except it is made by a guy who works for the company that makes ARMA, and we all know that he is getting paid. Hiding behind a mod to make money. That's trash.

You want a refund for DayZ? Reach into your pocket and pull out zero dollars. That is what you spent on acquiring DayZ: the Alpha version of a mod with no warranty. I doubt, however that's what you want. What you really want is a refund for ARMA 2, the game you actually paid for. Making the assertion that the two are the same is a slap in the face of the ARMA 2 developers. They worked hard to bring you a game, and you are ignoring that game to play a mod they have no control over. You wouldn't ask Microsoft to refund you the purchase of Windows because you don't like Google Chrome, so why would you ask the ARMA 2 developers to refund you because you don't like DayZ?

As for your comparison with War Z: Is there anything about ARMA 2's marketing that misled you into thinking the (core) game was anything other than what you got? If not; if the ARMA 2 you paid for is the ARMA 2 you expected to get, then there is no comparison between the situation of the people who purchased War Z and your predicament. You paid for a war-based shooter; you got a war-based shooter. They paid for a zombie survival game; they got an unfinished mess.

As to your assertion that the DayZ developers are in cahoots with the ARMA 2 developers to make more money, you are missing two facts. DayZ is free, and its developers are not being given funds from the ARMA 2 developers for its continued development. Two it is the point of a mod to extend the lifetime of the game and make it more appealing. This is why the modding tools exist in the first place. Yes, a developer from ARMA 2 also made DayZ, but he made it on his own time, and the time he spends on DayZ is time unpaid. Besides, wouldn't you expect that one of he most popular mods to the game would be developed by one of the people who are most familiar with how its engine works?

 

[m19]

Valve offered to give your money back. Not sure why so much whining over their involvement.

 

[xefaros]

its no different from the other hundreds of other mods released for arma 2 except its well known.

What DayZ? DayZ is made by a guy who works for the company that makes ARMA. The difference between the guy who makes DayZ and the guys who make all those other mods, is that this guy is getting paid. How this is just allowed to function in a gray space and everyone is OK with that is beyond me.

If I were the guys releasing WarZ, I would have just released an old game and offered the real game as a free optional mod. Or even just offer the launcher as full-priced game. Boom, you are now absolved of any responsibility ala Bohemia. Afterall, it's OK when they do it.

Actually they did released an old game as a new product and put a price tag on it.That game was War inc.The fashion they did it was dodgy.Also one is optional(DayZ) other is advertised as a full product at least the first 24 hours.Steam didnt have to take it down after the description was changed but if u didnt follow the story you wouldnt know about mods deleting negative comments to score some cash,unplayability,misinformation etc etc
( http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/152u0c/just_when_you_thought_it_couldnt_get_any_worse/ )
BTW microtransactions were planned ( http://kotaku.com/5942114/would-you-pay-for-an-in+game-item-you-lose-when-you-die?tag=The-War-Z )

But please continue your fetish and attack Dayz

Its somewhat similar to Skyrim DLCs they see the mods community(or Bethesda) made pack some story on it and release it as a dlc but at least they doing it properly

 

[MrPhyntch]

So prove it and court and sue them. It's pretty clear that Valve only acted to protect itself and nothing more. They didn't have to do anything about it. It's not their responsibility to verify the publisher's claims.

I'm going to stop you there.

Yes, it is absolutely the vendor's responsibility to ensure that unfinished games and dishonest under-handed business practices are not sold on their service. You can't seriously be suggesting they're absolved of all responsibility, right?

If a physical retailer sold you a broken product which you bought because the manufacturer had lied about its features, the physical retailer is pretty obviously at some sort of obligation to take some responsibility when people start complaining.

Except legally, it's really not their responsibility. It's not Wal-Mart's responsibility to check for lead paint in toys they sell, it's not Best Buy's responsibility to make sure every DVD box actually has a DVD in it, etc. The vendor is let off the hook time and again. Ultimately it is the consumer's responsibility to take issue with the manufacturer, or pursue legal means when that fails. This isn't any different for video games.

Do you understand what you just did? You just contradicted your own argument. You've been saying that Valve has just been doing this to protect their own interests, so that they can't get sued and whatnot. But now you just admitted that Steam is incapable for getting sued for this. Sure, Steam wants to make sure they have consumer confidence, but if they can't get sued over this, this is partly a gesture of goodwill. And goodwill usually requires the consumer to compliment them on it.

Seriously, some people. When valve does something bad, they're the devil. When they do something good, they're still the devil and now they're hiding something.

 

[cookyt]

What DayZ? DayZ is made by a guy who works for the company that makes ARMA. The difference between the guy who makes DayZ and the guys who make all those other mods, is that this guy is getting paid. How this is just allowed to function in a gray space and everyone is OK with that is beyond me.

After looking it up, the man was contracted by Bohemia Interactive to work on the stand-alone version of DayZ AFTER it became a huge success. I have seen nothing to indicate that the man was contracted beforehand to produce this mod as some sort of unofficial expansion to the game. You are also ignoring that there are official expansions to the game already out there. Besides, what's the point in going through all the trouble to hide some dubiously shady dealings. They could easily make more money by selling it as a full-priced game.

Also consider: this conspiracy you say they had hinges on giving away a free mod with no marketing, and hoping that word of mouth is enough to persuade people to suddenly start buying a three year old game en mass. Please recognize that anyone insane enough to actually try such a plan, belongs in an asylum.

If I were the guys releasing WarZ, I would have just released an old game and offered the real game as a free optional mod. Or even just offer the launcher as full-priced game. Boom, you are now absolved of any responsibility ala Bohemia. Afterall, it's OK when they do it.

So, you're saying that they should have released the game as some sort of Content which is DownLoadable? At any rate, it's moot point.

If they did that, and the mod was free, then they wouldn't make much money off of it because, as stated, the game is not fun. The people who would already own the hypothetical old game would spread this message quickly, and you wouldn't see any significant increase in sales due to this mod.

On the other hand, if the mod was not free, we would be in the same situation. i.e., they would be selling an incomplete, falsely-advertised product, and people would still have a right to demand money back.

 

[maturin]

Point is this- this is nothing but a series of dick moves on the part of the DayZ community and Valve. Don't really see any winners here, just a lot of whining all around. This is probably the most I've ever had people jump up my ass in one thread to make a very simple point.

Because it's a fallacious, non-existent point. It's an argument without a premise. There's no connection between Valve's action and Day Z. If Day Z was a fully-owned, ordinary retail game, there would still be no grounds for complaint or refund and Valve wouldn't have to do anything.

Valve is simply protecting itself and doing right by its customers, which is has a history of doing better than most other companies. And you're scrambling for ways to ***** about it by bending logic.

And your remarks about lawyers are downright distressing. Yes, on a LEGAL level it's for the interested parties and their counsel to determine false advertising. On the MORAL level ordinary human interaction and customer service, it baldly constitutes a LIE that deserves to put them OUT OF BUSINESS. This is why Valve acted without waiting for a court order.

 

[xefaros]

Also consider: this conspiracy you say they had hinges on giving away a free mod with no marketing, and hoping that word of mouth is enough to persuade people to suddenly start buying a three year old game en mass. Please recognize that anyone insane enough to actually try such a plan, belongs in an asylum.

Actually they added the information about DayZ on their Steam page about Arma II (the one needed for DayZ).I dont argue that some1 out of the blue would buy such a thing but its surely a promotional thing which i know sh*t about.Dispite that DayZ got popular pretty much from mouth to mouth and few late reviews

 

[xDarc]

Do you understand what you just did? You just contradicted your own argument. You've been saying that Valve has just been doing this to protect their own interests, so that they can't get sued and whatnot. But now you just admitted that Steam is incapable for getting sued for this.

No, you can be sued for anything. But legally, you may not be liable- but that does not prevent your ass from being dragged into court.

Point made is the same.

Valve only acting out of self interest in response to a community of trolls.

Valve also hypocritical for hiding behind gray area of a mod made by a developer who is absolutely getting paid for selling millions of copies of ARMA, but when someone else goes to cash in and there is the slightest concern, they pull it.

It's really, really simple. The fact that not one single person can at least admit to seeing how this is questionable just goes to show who's posting in the thread.

I'm done.

 

[Bad Jim]

People make this argument as if it is has any weight whatsoever. If you pay for a game purely to play a user-made mod that's your own problem. Whether you bought it for DayZ or not, DayZ is not the product you bought.

First of all, you don't understand the argument. I believe I already made it abundantly clear that DayZ has the convenient position of not being the product in the package.

The argument is that aside from a technical distinction; DayZ and WarZ are arguably similar games.

Both are unfinished, both borrow heavily from other games, both have major glitches and technical issues.

When DayZ is responsible for selling millions of copies of ARMA and people are unsatisfied, the gray area between the product and the mod makes this OK.

When WarZ tries to do essentially the same thing, but in a stand-alone package- it's taken off of Steam.

I think this is kind of hypocritical of Valve and shows that they genuinely do not give a shit. They'll take people's money to buy copies of ARMA knowing full well they're going to be playing DayZ; and they can hide behind the mod distinction and say, sorry, no refunds.

But when someone else goes to cash in on a stand alone platform, suddenly Valve is some great moral crusader? Bullshit. If the WarZ devs had instead tried to get an app on steam that was literally just a launcher and sold it for whatever; they could have offered the actual game as a mod ala DayZ and valve would happily have kept your money.

It's all bullshit.

Bohemia advertise Arma 2 as a realistic war game. When you buy it, you get a realistic war game. Its' metascore is 77% which indicates that it is not a brilliant game, but is reasonable. So Bohemia do deliver on their promises. They do not advertise anything zombie related, so they are not obliged to throw in a high quality zombie game.

WarZ, on the other hand, fails to deliver on virtually everything advertised.

 

[LoLife]

Well it sure feels like a victory for both the consumer & Valve

 

[kortin]

How many copies of ARMA is DayZ responsible for selling? There's really no telling, but DayZ is a shit stain of a game as well; ah but it's a MOD- so I can complain about it all day and how there is no justification for it being 2-million-copies-sold-good... but the product is ARMA, not DayZ.

So is Valve really a do a corporate do-gooder, or are they just catering to a competing developer that has brought in millions?

I don't know, I haven't played WarZ. But honestly, DayZ is one of the worst games with the worst community to come around in a loooooong time. But it's not a game, it's a mod, and is therefore not accountable for the pile of shit it is- regardless of it being directly responsible for selling millions of ARMA copies. Gee, that's a pretty sweet position to be in.

Hell, maybe I will complain and ask for a refund on ARMA, which I never had any intention of playing; and DayZ- which is arguably as poor of a game as WarZ.

There's a massive difference between DayZ and WarZ. DayZ is a WORK IN PROGRESS ALPHA MOD, whereas WarZ is advertised as a complete game with features that were not in the game yet. DayZ is unfinished and therefore negative criticism towards it is unfair and unjustified. Whenever the people do finish the game, then go ahead, have a field day and claim that it's shit all you want. Whereas WarZ had a bunch of bullshit claims that were nowhere near true for the game you got.

Do research before you say shit, it makes you look like an ass.

 

[D-Class 198482]

why is everyone getting mad about this
it is a shit game and DayZ isn't that good either but DayZ has a reason to be shit and actually told to truth so in retrospect it is far better than The War Z
i'm chill with the zombies in the War Z though because they do look fairly threatening in a horde

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

People make this argument as if it is has any weight whatsoever. If you pay for a game purely to play a user-made mod that's your own problem. Whether you bought it for DayZ or not, DayZ is not the product you bought.

First of all, you don't understand the argument. I believe I already made it abundantly clear that DayZ has the convenient position of not being the product in the package.

The argument is that aside from a technical distinction; DayZ and WarZ are arguably similar games.

Both are unfinished, both borrow heavily from other games, both have major glitches and technical issues.

When DayZ is responsible for selling millions of copies of ARMA and people are unsatisfied, the gray area between the product and the mod makes this OK.

When WarZ tries to do essentially the same thing, but in a stand-alone package- it's taken off of Steam.

I think this is kind of hypocritical of Valve and shows that they genuinely do not give a shit. They'll take people's money to buy copies of ARMA knowing full well they're going to be playing DayZ; and they can hide behind the mod distinction and say, sorry, no refunds.

But when someone else goes to cash in on a stand alone platform, suddenly Valve is some great moral crusader? Bullshit. If the WarZ devs had instead tried to get an app on steam that was literally just a launcher and sold it for whatever; they could have offered the actual game as a mod ala DayZ and valve would happily have kept your money.

It's all bullshit.

I think you are missing the reason why this game was pulled. The game was pulled not because it was in essentially alpha, but because it was advertised as a full game with features that it didn't have, which is false advertising, which is illegal. If the game was simply advertised as an alpha build and that the features listed would be added in at a later time instead of being listed as bona fide features in the current build, all of this would have been avoided.

Also, DayZ isn't available for download on Steam. You have to go to their website to download it. So I don't know how you could make the argument that WarZ being pulled while DayZ isn't is bullshit since Valve has no control on whether you get DayZ or not. They are making money on Arma, not DayZ.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Well because your point was off-base and wrong. Since you seemed to be conflating this refund with an issue of quality as opposed to false advertising, which War Z clearly did and that Valve ignored until now. Plus, it's not just the Valve and Day Z community the but fucking War Z community itself! People felt ripped the fuck off because they were promised a very clear set of features that did not even exist, to which the developer could only answer "Well you might have just imagined all that shit we clearly stated in our Steam summary."

And again, Day Z didn't make any fucking promises to the consumer, it was a mod to an established game and people bought Arma 2 for the simple matter of word of mouth on Dayz, big. fucking. difference. Big fucking difference from a game that says it's gonna be this and then blatantly isn't. It'd be like is Bethseda promised that Skyrim would be twice as big as the Oblivion world but on Day 1 only made it about the size of Whiterun and said that the bigger world would come later and that people read too much into "It'll be twice as big as Oblivion."

In short, you made a bad point, and your ass was rightly jumped up.

Just letting you know, click 'quote' on the right side of the bar where the person whom you want to talk to's name is. Otherwise whoever you're wanting to talk to you won't read your post let alone reply.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

Valve also hypocritical for hiding behind gray area of a mod made by a developer who is absolutely getting paid for selling millions of copies of ARMA, but when someone else goes to cash in and there is the slightest concern, they pull it.

Do you have any proof to back that statement up? The DayZ website clearly states that the dev of DayZ is in contact with Bohemia in order to make a STANDALONE version of the game, built on it's own engine and will be sold as a separate IP, but that the mod version of DayZ is, indeed, just something he, a few other hobbyist devs and some dedicated community members do in their spare time. ( http://dayzdev.tumblr.com If you want proof for this statement, here it is.)

I wouldn't have a problem considering your argument if you were able to provide evidence for what you're saying, but all of what you say is completely based on speculation and "supposed" facts, which have been repeatedly falsified, therefore making your point all but moot. Not to mention that you contradict yourself multiple times, stating that Valve is only trying to "cover it's own ass" but at the same time they are not legally obligated to do anything. While I won't argue that they are, indeed, covering their own ass, you fail to understand why they are doing so. They didn't pull the game because of some conspiracy involving them and the "DayZ trolls," or because they are legally obligated to do so, but because it's good business sense, which in the end, Valve is a business. They have the right to make sure that the games they sell on their storefront are, in fact, what what they advertise. War Z obviously was not what it was advertised to be and the evidence is not only given by the OP, but by many other posters on this thread. You don't need a trial to prove something is not what it is said to be. If I gave you a random rock and told you that it was a diamond, would it require a trial prove to you that what I am giving you is not a diamond? Furthermore, if you own a store, and you receive a product to sell, but then it comes to your attention that what you are selling is not what it is advertised as, would you keep selling it, or would you take it off your shelves and refund the people who bought said product under false pretenses that what they are getting is what they paid for? The latter would be the most obvious choice, not only because you would want to get the false product off of your shelves as soon as possible, but because you want to maintain your customers' trust that your store provides honest products so that they continue to buy from you. Given these facts, it is only in Valve's favor to pull this product and offer a refund and, in return, regain their user base's trust in what they are selling.

While I admire your tenacity, in the future I would recommend that you hold fast to an argument based on provable facts and supporting evidence rather than your own personal antipathy, as it makes you out to be less intelligent and downright ignorant as to what the current topic is truly about.

 

[Solo-Wing]

Well. The War Z team drop all pretence and flat out refuse to speak to customers wanting refunds, no matter how legitimate their claim is.

Spoiler

 

[xDarc]

They didn't pull the game because of some conspiracy involving them and the "DayZ trolls," or because they are legally obligated to do so, but because it's good business sense, which in the end, Valve is a business. ... Given these facts, it is only in Valve's favor to pull this product and offer a refund and, in return, regain their user base's trust in what they are selling.

Oh please, Valve isn't a business, it's an institution. What are you going to do? Not use Steam anymore and give up all your games? Much like the government, they are selling dependency. You need them, they don't need you. Much like the government, when they say they are doing something for your own good, I don't believe them for a second.

 

[maturin]

You sound like a 'gritty remake.'

Valve's hard-nosed, cynical strategy for insidiously building dependency in their customers is by treating them well. Ethical, responsive, business practices that prioritize honesty and value for the customer. And it works, and they deserve the praise they get.

And despite the faux-jaded teenage world you live in, even corporations have earnest values and culture, as (in this case) Valve's unique organization and independence make clear.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

They didn't pull the game because of some conspiracy involving them and the "DayZ trolls," or because they are legally obligated to do so, but because it's good business sense, which in the end, Valve is a business. ... Given these facts, it is only in Valve's favor to pull this product and offer a refund and, in return, regain their user base's trust in what they are selling.

Oh please, Valve isn't a business, it's an institution. What are you going to do? Not use Steam anymore and give up all your games? Much like the government, they are selling dependency. You need them, they don't need you. Much like the government, when they say they are doing something for your own good, I don't believe them for a second.

Valve is very much so a business. They provide a service that you don't have to use, and in return for using their service, they make sure you're taken care of. You can buy your games somewhere else. Hell, you can still use Steam without buying a single game from it. Steam gives you the option of adding non-steam games to your library, which if you lose your account, you still keep your games. The only way Valve would be selling dependency would be if they only gave you the option to use the games you buy from them with the service. And before you go off saying that some games that you buy from the store require you to activate with Steam, that's the developer/publisher who decided to use Steam as a form of DRM, not Valve. If you really want a game like that without having to use Steam's service, buy it for a console.

Your argument is more and more starting to sound like you are only hating Valve to hate Valve, making you sound more and more like just another bandwagoner. None of your points hold any ground. I highly doubt you've even used Steam.