In this week's Devil's Advocate, we take on probably the hottest topic of the week: The Steam controversy that resulted in The War Z being removed from the game portal's stable. See what we've got to say and why the whole mess has us feeling a bit uncomfortable. Join the discussion in the comments.

Valve even went as far as sending out a statement, saying, 

From time to time a mistake can be made and one was made by prematurely issuing a copy of War Z for sale via Steam. We apologize for this and have temporary removed the sale offering of the title until we have time to work with the developer and have confidence in a new build. Those who purchase the game and wish to continue playing it via Steam may do so. Those who purchased the title via Steam and are unhappy with what they received may seek a refund by creating a ticket at our support site here.

Read more of Victor Barreiro Jr.'s The Devil's Advocate: The War Z - Feelin' a Bit Uncomfortable.

Honestly these things are taken way out of extreme.

people spending too much time to ditching a game-if you dont want to play it then dont. move on, if you feel youve been ripped off- ask for a refund. -done.

i myself beign a commercial artist-there is nothign wrong to take images(photographs) for referenceto use in  illustrations. [mod edit]

Originally posted by orbitxo
<stuff>

What exactly did you just say?  Are you trying to making a claim of fair use concerning War Z using Walking Dead promo pics?  If you are truly a commercial artist, you would know  fair use seldom applies in commercial advertising.  I'm betting 85% of the people here know that.

Originally posted by orbitxo

Honestly these things are taken way out of extreme.

people spending too much time to ditching a game-if you dont want to play it then dont. move on, if you feel youve been ripped off- ask for a refund. -done.

i myself beign a commercial artist-there is nothign wrong to take images(photographs) for referenceto use in  illustrations. this is just stupid. iam not going to go into detail about teh extent of usage i would say 85% of the people here woulndt even understand and iam not abt to educate them about commercial advertising. they should be in school learnign something instead of trolling forums.

Hard to tell but this must be irony?

If it is, well played.

If it is not, not so well spelled.

The game currently has 100 man servers so that part of your article is incorrect.

Originally posted by orbitxo

Honestly these things are taken way out of extreme.

people spending too much time to ditching a game-if you dont want to play it then dont. move on, if you feel youve been ripped off- ask for a refund. -done.

i myself beign a commercial artist-there is nothign wrong to take images(photographs) for referenceto use in  illustrations. this is just stupid. iam not going to go into detail about teh extent of usage i would say 85% of the people here woulndt even understand and iam not abt to educate them about commercial advertising. they should be in school learnign something instead of trolling forums.

You sound like you do not know much about this particular case at all.

It isn't just about a graphic.

Also asking for a refund had some customers threatened with being added to a "global blacklist" which would make purchases from other companies very difficult in the future.

Not to mention the developers lying about why the game was pulled from steam on their forums.

Don't forget the developers permanently banning people from the Steam forums for breaking a rule they have on their non-steam forums.

Also deleting threads that ask for refunds.

Valve is spending a lot of time undoing the damage caused by this developer.

But yeah I'm not going to go into the detail about the full extent of the fraud as I am not about to educate a commercial advertiser on the merits of reading about something.

Originally posted by Zyzra

 

Also asking for a refund had some customers threatened with being added to a "global blacklist" which would make purchases from other companies very difficult in the future.

 

This was only with regards to charge backs. Steam does the same thing (lock/ban your steam account) if you get a charge back on a game instead of going through their support system.

The fallout from all of this is going to be pretty big I imagine. Dark and Light stole art assets from a small company to promote the game and it hurt them pretty bad in the end. I don't want to think of what stealing assets from something like The Walking Dead will equate to. Companies have to respond to this kind of thing or they lose the right and ability to respond to other more serious cases. 

And this is something they are going to have to deal with on two fronts. They are guilty of false advertising on not only steam but they have the exact same information on their websites official home page. If people want their money back the War Z devs don't have a leg to stand on. They can't even deny a refund to someone that is just finally bored with the game due to their unethical advertising tactics. 

This is going to hurt I think. 

Originally posted by furdude

Originally posted by Zyzra

 

Also asking for a refund had some customers threatened with being added to a "global blacklist" which would make purchases from other companies very difficult in the future.

 

This was only with regards to charge backs. Steam does the same thing (lock/ban your steam account) if you get a charge back on a game instead of going through their support system.

I think ATTOW (At the time of writing) applies here. In any case about the 100 man servers, people are complaining that the map isn't large enough for the 100 players and it's causing issues. So they really should get the maps up to what they said first, then focus on increasing the player cap. 

It's a much better approach than "Look, we can have 100 players so we didn't lie about everything!" because there is still a lot that was falsely advertised and this comes off as a rush coverup rather than making it up to their playerbase whom are now suffering due to the rush coverup attempt. 

Originally posted by furdude

Originally posted by Zyzra

 

Also asking for a refund had some customers threatened with being added to a "global blacklist" which would make purchases from other companies very difficult in the future.

 

This was only with regards to charge backs. Steam does the same thing (lock/ban your steam account) if you get a charge back on a game instead of going through their support system.

Ah yeah I forgot having my Steam account banned could make it hard for me to purchase from Amazon, Newegg, and other unrelated companies.

Also related to what I wrote, a different customer service Rep had to say the first one was mistaken after images of the refund response surfaced online.

Originally posted by Umbrood

Originally posted by orbitxo

Honestly these things are taken way out of extreme.

people spending too much time to ditching a game-if you dont want to play it then dont. move on, if you feel youve been ripped off- ask for a refund. -done.

i myself beign a commercial artist-there is nothign wrong to take images(photographs) for referenceto use in  illustrations. this is just stupid. iam not going to go into detail about teh extent of usage i would say 85% of the people here woulndt even understand and iam not abt to educate them about commercial advertising. they should be in school learnign something instead of trolling forums.

Hard to tell but this must be irony?

If it is, well played.

If it is not, not so well spelled.

yah excuse me if iam not really caring about the grammar here-the point got across- iam at work atm , iam a comercial artist not a copywriter.

nextime ill get my thoughts proof read before posting on this site.

<.<

troll on.

Reputation is everything, especially for a company trying to sell an online game in this digital age of social media. If you lie or blatantly misrepresent yourself you will be found out and everyone will know about it.

I was wary reading about the company before the Steam uproar. Now they will go on my ignore list. I would never trust them with personal details after all the lies they seem to have made.

Originally posted by orbitxo

Originally posted by Umbrood

Originally posted by orbitxo

Honestly these things are taken way out of extreme.

people spending too much time to ditching a game-if you dont want to play it then dont. move on, if you feel youve been ripped off- ask for a refund. -done.

i myself beign a commercial artist-there is nothign wrong to take images(photographs) for referenceto use in  illustrations. this is just stupid. iam not going to go into detail about teh extent of usage i would say 85% of the people here woulndt even understand and iam not abt to educate them about commercial advertising. they should be in school learnign something instead of trolling forums.

Hard to tell but this must be irony?

If it is, well played.

If it is not, not so well spelled.

yah excuse me if iam not really caring about the grammar here-the point got across- iam at work atm , iam a comercial artist not a copywriter.

nextime ill get my thoughts proof read before posting on this site.

<.<

 

troll on.

It's pretty unbelieveable to me personally that someone would have hired you.  Many jobs require excellent communications skills, or at a minimum they'd look for communication skills that aren't a detriment to their company's image.

It isn't typos or just poor grammar.  It is an obvious lack of understanding of basic spelling.  You lack a real grasp of English.

It is one thing to mistype a word when you know how to actually spell it correctly.

It is a completely different thing to write "iam" repeatedly, three times by my count, in the same post.  That isn't a typographical error, that is a Human Resources department error inside your company.

For example, how do you think people would look at Leonardo da Vinci if he had titled his famous painting "The Last Superr"?  As an artist, maybe that you could understand.

Originally posted by Zyzra

Originally posted by orbitxo

Originally posted by Umbrood

Originally posted by orbitxo

Honestly these things are taken way out of extreme.

people spending too much time to ditching a game-if you dont want to play it then dont. move on, if you feel youve been ripped off- ask for a refund. -done.

i myself beign a commercial artist-there is nothign wrong to take images(photographs) for referenceto use in  illustrations. this is just stupid. iam not going to go into detail about teh extent of usage i would say 85% of the people here woulndt even understand and iam not abt to educate them about commercial advertising. they should be in school learnign something instead of trolling forums.

Hard to tell but this must be irony?

If it is, well played.

If it is not, not so well spelled.

yah excuse me if iam not really caring about the grammar here-the point got across- iam at work atm , iam a comercial artist not a copywriter.

nextime ill get my thoughts proof read before posting on this site.

<.<

 

troll on.

It's pretty unbelieveable to me personally that someone would have hired you.  Many jobs require excellent communications skills, or at a minimum they'd look for communication skills that aren't a detriment to their company's image.

It isn't typos or just poor grammar.  It is an obvious lack of understanding of basic spelling.  You lack a real grasp of English.

It is one thing to mistype a word when you know how to actually spell it correctly.

It is a completely different thing to write "iam" repeatedly, three times by my count, in the same post.  That isn't a typographical error, that is a Human Resources department error inside your company.

 

For example, how do you think people would look at Leonardo da Vinci if he had titled his famous painting "The Last Superr"?  As an artist, maybe that you could understand.

 

O damn orbitxo better watch out! Zyzra is gonna go tell your boss that you used bad grammar on the internet!!!!

Get over yourself Zyzra.

Unless you consider trolling the mmorpg.com your personal job? Gotta keep it professional right?

Originally posted by furdude

Originally posted by Zyzra

Originally posted by orbitxo

Originally posted by Umbrood

Originally posted by orbitxo

Honestly these things are taken way out of extreme.

people spending too much time to ditching a game-if you dont want to play it then dont. move on, if you feel youve been ripped off- ask for a refund. -done.

i myself beign a commercial artist-there is nothign wrong to take images(photographs) for referenceto use in  illustrations. this is just stupid. iam not going to go into detail about teh extent of usage i would say 85% of the people here woulndt even understand and iam not abt to educate them about commercial advertising. they should be in school learnign something instead of trolling forums.

Hard to tell but this must be irony?

If it is, well played.

If it is not, not so well spelled.

yah excuse me if iam not really caring about the grammar here-the point got across- iam at work atm , iam a comercial artist not a copywriter.

nextime ill get my thoughts proof read before posting on this site.

<.<

 

troll on.

It's pretty unbelieveable to me personally that someone would have hired you.  Many jobs require excellent communications skills, or at a minimum they'd look for communication skills that aren't a detriment to their company's image.

It isn't typos or just poor grammar.  It is an obvious lack of understanding of basic spelling.  You lack a real grasp of English.

It is one thing to mistype a word when you know how to actually spell it correctly.

It is a completely different thing to write "iam" repeatedly, three times by my count, in the same post.  That isn't a typographical error, that is a Human Resources department error inside your company.

 

For example, how do you think people would look at Leonardo da Vinci if he had titled his famous painting "The Last Superr"?  As an artist, maybe that you could understand.

 

O damn Umbrood better watch out! Orbitxo is gonna go tell your boss that you used bad grammar on the internet!!!!

 

Get over yourself orbitxo.

 

Unless you consider trolling the mmorpg.com your personal job? Gotta keep it professional right?

I had to laugh at this.  I think you're a bit mixed up, better read through the names again.