The ever-pondersome The War Z has managed yet another controversy, yesterday being forced to apologise to Steam users after advertising features the game simply doesn’t have. Or as Hammerpoint Interactive put it, what was “imagined” by those who “misread” the Steam page.

It seems that the description put on Steam was a touch… exaggerated, perhaps listing what the game is eventually planned to include, rather than what’s in there right now. And it didn’t even mention that the game is not yet beyond beta. Claiming to feature “areas between 100 to 400 square kilometers”, the game in fact currently only has one map, and it’s 72 square kilometers. It listed itself as having private servers, which it does not. And it sold itself as having skills to buy with experience points, despite the game having no skills at all.

An imaginary “hardcore mode” was listed, and it claimed the complete rubbish that 100 players could join a server when the limit is 50. So, well, a pack of lies? No, says executive producer Sergey Titov, it was in fact “presented in a way that could have allowed for multiple interpretations.” He continues,

“We’ve taken steps to correct this and format information presented on our Steam Store page in a way so it provides more clear information about game features that are present in the Foundation Release and what to expect in the coming weeks.

We also want to extend our apologies to all players who misread infromation about game features.”

It could be a translation thing, of course, but I’m not sure that reading the words on the screen quite counts as “misreading”. I think he meant that they “miswrote”. Incredibly, Titov’s lack of contrition goes a lot further. Yesterday GameSpy spoke to the man about the incident, and amazingly he laid the blame with the customers once more. When GameSpy persist in pointing out that they had simply listed features as included when they weren’t, Titov replied,

“I’m sure there’ll be people who will look into small details and will say “no I was mislead,” where in fact they imagined something to themselves without checking details first.”

Buh. See if you can imagine the following to yourself too!

He then goes on to say that if people feel they’ve been misled, they can just apply to Steam for a refund. Oh, okay! Because that’s always a smooth and relaxing process. His dismissive attitude throughout the interview is astonishing.

So there it is. Hammerpoint seem determined to suggest that the fault remains with customers, despite their hollow apology. And if you read that GameSpy interview, you’ll see that Titov really cannot understand what is wrong with making misleading claims about the game. Which all rather suggests you may want to think carefully before handing over money. Thanks Eurogamer.

Source - http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/12/19/the-war-z-apologises-after-misleading-steam-customers/

two months ago they gave a real apology

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/367536/Facebook-appology-from-the-developers-we-let-you-down.html

apologising because Steam players "misread" their marketing?

that is indeed hollow - sounds more like blaming

FYI, Sergi's interview with Gamespy he never even acknowledged he was in the wrong.  I feel bad for those of you who were gotten by this.  Always sucks as it makes me more cynical about the next purchase.

There  was no "miss read".  Steam clearly listen features not implemented.  I don't care if you plan to add them in 2 years.  Now is now.  They still have that 100 players thing up.  While it is technically up to 100 and they allow 50 (which is within 1-99) they don't have a single map currently allowing for more than 50.  Period.

Originally posted by wartyxwt
Sadly this will hinder greenlighting which is in itself a wonderful and necessary thing for Steam. Pretty fucking rude way to apologize. Wasn't going to buy the game, now at least I can avoid the company too

This isn't a greenlight game, it just appeared on steam, the community did not greenlight this train wreck.

Oh you gamers and your misreading of information. Look very close to all those game features and you see an asterisk behind them stating:

Game features may or may NOT exsist in-game at the moment or ever in the the future.

Oh the ever so elusive asterisk.

Oh...still cannot see them? That's because there are none. And even if there were, there is no excuse to place game features up that are not in game yet. FFS none of those features are even being publicly tested (whether or not they are behind closed doors I do not know).

This company is shady. I have felt it ever since they annouced their game after the great success of the DayZ mod.

What's sad is that this company will cast a negative spotlight on indie games. I'm all for indie games and it won't stop me from purchasing any that I find interesting but I will be extremely cautious before buying.

Some people will just bypass indie games altogether. Either side of the fence you're on it impacts idie game developers.

Thanks for the post Maj!

You saved me 15 bucks.

I don't find one hint of an apology in his statement. just blaming "stupid" customer that cannot read inbetween the lines of his accurate description.

And the award for worst apology ever goes to..... Those guys!!!

I'm sorry....that you guys read the statement that I said exactly how I said it and that you're stupid. I'm paraphrasing, but saddly, not by much.

" they can just apply to Steam for a refund" <- i would just like to point out that 

A) steam does not do refunds even on their own games

B) any thing you buy on steam be it the best thing ever or the biggest piece of crap is your own fault and steam wont do squat to help you lol

C) steam gives every account a 1 time customer appreciation where they remove the title and give you steam bucks. no actual money. 

even if this game bought on steam shut down for whatever reason, steam would not give you a refund lolol so anyone saying steam will is either heavly BSing steam to the point steam could very well shutdown their account or is lying about getting a refund. (it took me 2 weeks of back and forth bitching to get stronghold 3 preorder "refunded" on steam)

so bottomline is.. dont buy warz unless you really really really want it, though im not suprized its on steam, as that is where i found warInc lolol

Shouldnt have tried to get your game "green light" in the alpha stage........... doh!

Yeah glad i didnt waste time or money on this BS!

Originally posted by SlothnChunk
They need a peer review system simaliar to what Xbox Live Indie Games has. If a game is an alpha, buggy mess not including listed features it won't be published until fixed.

that is what greenlite is, but warz was not greenlited it was automatically added (most likely do to the fact WarInc is currently on there already as a F2P title) 

so the community had no say in the matter of steam added warz to its store roster. but to be fair there are alot of buggy alpha/betas on steam. (though most are greenlit rofl) so  this isnt really that far out of the norm for steam. (steam takes no blame on non-valve titles being FUBARED on its store page, much like steam will direct you to the community forms/official game forums and/or give a generalized copy and paste help message for game issues with non-valve games)