DayZ's Dean Hall: "I am angry about the The War Z"
"I'm very angry."
Dean Hall sounds fed up, and he's finally broken his silence on shady DayZ copycat The War Z.
"I am angry about the WarZ. I'm very angry," Hall wrote on Reddit, but he doesn't mean what you might think.
Nowhere does he rubbish the quality of The War Z, which we know to be awful because we reviewed it and gave it 3/10. Dean Hall is angry because The War Z positioned itself so close to DayZ that people confused the two. And when The War Z was embroiled in allegations of false advertising and removed from Steam, Dean Hall copped a lot of misdirected flack.
"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 wrote. "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."
Hall would challenge gaming press and gamers who don't themselves challenge "fairly dubious claims" of a developer. The reason why he'd do this is because, I assume, The War Z gained momentum and fame it didn't deserve. And then came the problems.
That Dean Hall answers fans honestly and candidly shows what makes him, and DayZ, different. He's not a suit, he's not hidden behind PR, and that's how he likes it.
"In terms of being a professional, no, I don't think I am," he wrote. "My aim is certainly not to be a professional. I think I am being a creative person, and I'm being a public person.
"I am successful because the public got behind me, therefore I think the public has a right to know what I think so they can make their mind up about me."
"I also think there is something immoral about not standing up for what you honestly think. I think I've been pretty guarded about what I've said, I have said far less than any single major review site has said and nobody is calling them unprofessional. Nobody is calling Steam unprofessional for removing the game.
"I think a good developer should be a person not a professional," he added. "Because games are personal. I care more about being a good person, and if that conflicts with some abstract sense of professionalism then to hell with professionalism.
"I made DayZ for the game I want to play, not because I wanted a career in it."
