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Bohemia Interactive looking to shutdown DayZ Bounty mod

Monetised version of zombie survival game "not something we want to be associated with”

Bohemia Interactive has condemned a monetised mod of its DayZ zombie game, and plans to ask its developers to stop running it in its current form.

“The DayZ development team and Bohemia Interactive is not involved or has had any contact with with DayZ Bounty and it's creators,” Bohemia Interactive told VG247.

“While we fully support modifications created by the community to improve the gaming experience for players of DayZ and ArmA II, we do not support their creators putting a cost on them. As commercially exploiting their small additions to DayZ undermines the work done by the original team.”

With DayZ Bounty players are asked to pay $5 up front.

"This gets you 20 lives in-game - which, if you're at all talented, is quite a few," DayZ Bounty's website explains.

"Once you use up those 20 lives, you will be unable to play until you add another $5 worth of lives. Alternatively, we are considering a monthly subscription."

Players can then earn money back by killing zombies, survivors and bandits and by holding the position of Outlaw. Bohemia Interactive sees this as gambling, and isn't happy.

“We believe that the elements of gambling that DayZ Bounty introduces challenges the basic game design aspects that DayZ is built upon. It changes the focus of DayZ from being a creative, enjoyable, gritty gaming experience to a game that is based almost solely on financial gain and that is not something we want to be associated with.”

“We will be contacting the owners of the DayZ Bounty website directly over the coming days, to ask that they cease their activities in their current form.”

Earlier this week DayZ Bounty's Jake Stewart, creative development lead on the project, told PC Gamer “we're not trying to make money. It's hard to explain that.”

“I consider it like playing skins in golf,” continued Stewart. “Almost like a VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars] or a Rotary club, where everyone has a say. Everyone has input. Everybody understands where everybody's at and where all the money is going. We can vote on things. The community can take a vote on it and we go from there. That's kind of what we're getting at-having a huge involvement with everybody. If you pay your five dollars, you're part of what we're doing.”

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Rachel Weber

Senior Editor

Rachel Weber has been with GamesIndustry since 2011 and specialises in news-writing and investigative journalism. She has more than five years of consumer experience, having previously worked for Future Publishing in the UK.

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