#hammerpoint interactive

It's absolutely no surprise the amount of drama that ensued after The War Z release earlier this week. Given it's shady track record and questionable development, people that have been keeping an eye on The War Z developer, Hammerpoint Interactive, saw this coming from a mile away. For those unfamiliar, here's a quick breakdown of what happened: 

The War Z was announced on July 19th, earlier this year and was touted by Hammerpoint Interactive as a "Zombie Survival Shooter MMO" with a "hardcore" mode that includes permanent death. Fans of the very popular DayZ Arma 2 mod immediately began calling The War Z a clone of DayZ. However, Hammerpoint Interactive claimed that The War Z has been in development for over two years. 

Fast forward to October 15th, when The War Z alpha was made playable. People with alpha access began realizing that The War Z was just a mod of War Inc, a game developed by Arktos Entertainment, coincidentally Hammerpoint Interactive's parent company. Furthermore, it was discovered that the terms of service used by The War Z was a simple copy of the League of Legends terms of service. Later on in the same month, The War Z beta was delayed. 

In November, players started to claim that the gameplay revolved too much around a pay-to-win model, and many players began requesting refunds. Upon this request, they were contacted by Hammerpoint Interactive representatives and told that they would be blacklisted from any future purchases involving The War Z. Hammerpoint Interactive then updated their terms of service with a clause that prevents anyone who accepts it from getting a refund. This is illegal in some countries. (Click to enlarge.) 

In December, forum posts are made that Hammerpoint Interactive is banning many hackers from the game. However, many legitimate players were swept up and banned alongside of the hackers. This moves us to current: On December 17th, The War Z is released on Steam, with many people immediately noticing that the description listed on Steam were not offered in game. A Reddit user pointed out the specifics:

Hammerpoint Interactive attempts to change their game description on Steam, however players point out that there it still contained false information. Furthermore, an interview between Lead Designer Sergey Titov and Gamespy reveal Titov unwilling to acknowledge that the information posted on Steam was incorrect. Instead, Titov apologizes that the players themselves misread the description on Steam. Valve investigates the backlash from it's community, especially the claims that The War Z mods were liberally banning users from the The War Z Steam forums. Shortly after, The War Z is pulled from Steam and Valve issues an apology with the promise of a full refund to unhappy buyers: 

After releasing on Steam, the zombie game, War Z, has been removed from Valve's platform. Consumers are being offered refunds.

For the last year or so, I've been growing increasingly tired of zombies. They seem to have been overdone to death (pun intended) as of late. Left 4 Dead, Dead Island, and Call of Duty Zombie Mode are just a few of the key offenders that one can name off the top of their head contributing to making the undead little more than a trope at this point. Yet, for all the zombie games that have left me little more than obtusely interested, The War Z runs the gambit of being genuinely interesting.