Dean Hall "angry" over The War Z similarities
Day Z creator believes controversial rival has made a negative impact on his reputation
Dean Hall, the creator of Day Z, has spoken out about his anger over Hammerpoint Interactive's widely reviled The War Z.
Writing in response to a post on Reddit, Hall claimed he was "very angry" about the similarities between his popular Arma II zombie-survival mod and The War Z, and the negative impact he felt as a result of Hammerpoint's treatment of its customers.
"I'm quite hurt personally because anyone can see how similar the words are, and while the average gamer knows the difference, individual people don't," he said. "I've had family members/close friends mistake the difference and confront me about what they believed was unethical behaviour they thought I was making.
"I really don't think anyone can understand just quite how exasperated that can make you feel when you've gambled everything on something, put your whole self and reputation on the line. So it hasn't made my life very pleasant, and I disagree entirely with the conduct and how consumers have been treated."
The War Z was pulled from Steam in December following allegations that Hammerpoint had deliberately misled users by listing features in its marketing materials that were not in the finished product.
The initial response from the game's executive producer, Sergey Titov, intimated that users had simply misinterpreted the information - Titov later retracted this statement as an "arrogant" decision brought on by the scale of The War Z's early success.
Thanks Eurogamer.
I can't see how a third party can claim ownership over the work you did just because that is written in a EULA. Neither would I expect Adobe could claim ownership over anything I made with Photoshop. Sounds like that part of Bohemian's EULA is invalid.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Tim Carter on 18th January 2013 7:05pm
@Tim
Mods based on existing software are very different from something you make in Photoshop. There are many Terms of Service and EULA's that have a clause that basically say anything created to work in conjunction with the software (i.e. mods, scenarios, etc.) become sole property of the Developer and/or Publisher of the base software. Without this clause, people would be allowed to sell user created scenarios and stuff like that, which I'm sure most software companies would put a stop to immediately.
For example... Look at Blizzard ToS regarding account selling, character selling, item selling (outside of the Diablo III RMAH fiasco).
I don't think I explained my point correctly. My point is, IF this clause exists in the EULA for ARMA 2, then the DayZ IP has been the property of Bohemia interactive long before the announcement of 'The War Z'. With all the obvious similarities between the two (other than the name) as well as the resulting negative media surrounding The War Z's release, it would be rather easy for Bohemia to file suit against Hammerpoint for not only theft of intellectual property, but the negative press that came as a result of it.
I'm of course basing my opinion on my knowledge of US intellectual property law, so this may be a different situation.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Klaus Preisinger on 21st January 2013 8:27am
a.) The name State of Decay isn't anything like DayZ, so people aren't going to easily confuse like they did with War Z.
b.) The game play, while also being a first person-shooter with zombies, is also going to include management elements in it so as to differentiate it.
c.) War Z promised a whole lot of features that were never implemented in the 'final' game, and most felt it was little more than an attempt to sell people stuff with in-game advertising, rather than providing any sort of tangible, unbroken gameplay mechanics.
Again I am sure there are more reasons for the [justified] negative press against War Z and why people won't confuse DayZ and State of Decay.