WarZ community manager threatens Steam bans and FBI over stolen source code

While it's been a few weeks now since The War Z, changed its name to Infestation: Survivor Stories (ISS), because of a confliction with the upcoming movie, World War Z adapted from Max Brooks' novel, that doesn't mean the drama over that buggy, ban happy, pay-to-win game is over with. Thanks to its inclusion in the recent Steam summer sale, a spate of new information has appeared as new purchasers and detractors alike take to the Steam forums.

One particularly interesting bit of information that arose from it, is that DeadZ, a similar looking game, turns out to have been stolen source code from War Z, leading to the community manager for the game, Kewk, to suggest that if anyone downloads the game, they could have their “lives destroyed.”

Going under the pseudonym, “The Doctor Is In,” Kewk posted in response to a thread asking the community whether he should buy ISS, or download the free to play DeadZ. While several people's replies suggested that he should play neither as they're both bad, Kewk appeared a few posts down and said the following:

“Giant warning, DeadZ it (sic) the stolen source code from warz. It's basically stolen intellectual property and copyright infringement. It's against state, federal and international laws to obtain, posses, use, distribute, etc. Basically the source code to the game was stolen and its worth multimillion dollars (sic).”

Despite being a rip off, it's almost more professional looking than anything Hammerpoint put together

He goes on to threaten those that download it, suggesting that it could have big ramifications for them: “This could get members in giant trouble, far worse than copyright infringement. Your lives could be destroyed if you get involved in this. No kidding. Not trying to scare anyone, this is no joke.”

Adding the icing on the cake, he then suggests that downloading the non-steam game, would get you banned from steam: “It is also against steam policy and can get you permanently banned.”

Most of the responses from the community were derisive, laughing at Kewk's “scare tactics,” and suggesting there was no way Steam could know you had installed the game in the first place. Some also pointed out that during development, WarZ stole artwork from The Walking Dead TV show.

However, this didn't deter Kewk for long. He quickly returned with more threats:

“It wont be steam u (sic) have to be worried about its the federal government the FBI and Interpol. This is serious crime to be dealing in stolen intellectual property and copyright infringement and plus it involved hacking into computers to steal it,” he began.

He even suggests that someone called “Uk kit,” got extradited “to us,” for having a website linking to DeadZ.

The threats continue however, “this is web (sic) every body watching, steam, hammerpoint lawyers, state/federal government. steam will be more than happy to comply to federal request and hammerpoint legal request or international agency.”

“And yes the code is worth multimillion dollars cause its generated easily multimillion dollars (sic). Look up how much Sergey sold warinc for… this game is easily worth a lot more than that one was. So u guys r (sic) all playing deep up to your necks on this one.”

He even suggests that users, “search web about just how serious,” for those wanting to find out more and ultimately draws a comparison between music label legal action and pirates: “think of those kids who they go after for $250,000K for a song or movie, this is far worse…”

Unfortunately that's where his diatribe ends, but it seems to have had little effect on the players discussing the game.

There isn't much information about DeadZ unfortunately, though the general consensus is that it does indeed use The WarZ's source code and in most senses, is as bad as the game it rips off. The Kickstater for the game was ended by the creators after just a few days, but it seems to be receiving regular updates and news on the official Facebook page.

KitGuru Says: In all fairness, DeadZ is said by some to be filled with viruses/trojans, so if you think about downloading it for a laugh or just to do something that would annoy Hammerpoint, be careful and make sure your antivirus is up to spec.

For the record as well, Hammerpoint's official website still looks like this.

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