The War Z executive producer Sergey Titov and the rest of the development team are accepting of Valve's decision to pull the recently released game from Steam. For those unfamiliar with the situation, The War Z came under sharp criticism when it was discovered that many of its listed features were not actually in the game. Hammerpoint Interactive attempted to update the product features page and even apologized to those who "misread" it, but by then it was too late — the game had been pulled.
Speaking to PC Gamer, executive producer Sergey Titove said it was "no surprise" that The War Z was removed from Steam.
"Valve contacted us to let us know their concerns based on some of the info circulating in the press and we completely understand their need to sort things out and make certain we are communicating correctly to their audience before we relaunch with them," Titove said. "They have an obligation first and foremost to their customers and we recognize that."
Furthermore, Titove went on to say that the team "respects their decision." He went on to explain how some of the miscommunication and errors may have arose following the game's release.
"As you know we’ve been publicly available since October 15. Over that time I think we (the developers) got used to and took it for granted that players knew what state the game was in and how it was a constantly evolving project, with new features being added on and ongoing basis," he said.
"Clearly the release on Steam introduced the game to players who never followed War Z and we made the mistake of not communicating effectively to the Steam community. Also, during our pre-holiday crunch time with development extending late into the night, there was a major disconnect between our development team and marketing team that resulted in some of the “coming soon” features being listed as current features on the Steam sales page."
"We recognized the above quickly and made the update to the Steam page within the first day of going on sale, however we completely understand that players were upset and felt that we mislead them. We absolutely take responsibility for these inconsistencies. Ultimately, despite all the controversy that has surrounded The War Z – even since the early Alpha launch, we have cultivated a large and loyal player base that is very active in the game and we want to make sure that new players coming into the game now will be satisfied and feel that they are getting a great game experience."
As it stands now, Hammerpoint is currently working with Valve to bring The War Z back to Steam. Prior to its sales being disabled, The War Z was the number one top grossing game title on Steam. Titove didn't say how sales have been affected since its removal, but the game does remain purchasable from the official War Z website.
