Should Early Access DayZ be in Steam's Summer Sale?
Dean Hall "shocked" Bohemia put it there.
Since DayZ launched in Early Access, developer/publisher Bohemia has discouraged people from impulse - hype - buying it. "We strongly advise you not to buy and play the game at this stage unless you clearly understand what Early Access means and are interested in participating in the ongoing development cycle," a clear warning on the game's Steam page reads.
Nevertheless, such was the buzz surrounding that DayZ still managed to thunder to more than 2m sales in just over four months. But the point is: the warning was there, and creator Dean Hall could hold his hands up and say 'I did not entice you'.
That's why it's odd to see DayZ in the first wave of Steam Summer Sale games. It should be £20 but at the moment it's £16.99. Yet DayZ is still an Early Access game and is still in alpha, and the "ongoing development cycle" that the warning message mentioned is still very much part of the proposition.
So why, with the game still at least six months from being finished, would Dean Hall entice people into buying DayZ with a price cut? Well, he isn't. Bohemia - the company that employs him and owns DayZ - is.
"Please don't contact me about why DayZ went on sale. I am as clueless and shocked as everyone else," responded Hall on Twitter.
"I have no idea why this occurred," he added on Reddit. "It's a complete surprise to me."
DayZ producer Brian Hicks said similar on Twitter: "I cannot answer any questions about the Steam sale. That is a corporate thing, outside my wheel house."
Why did Bohemia do it - and why didn't Bohemia consult Hall first?
"Brian and Dean have both been travelling and unavailable for some time," a Bohemia spokesperson told me in an email. "It's possible that there is an issue here caused by miscommunication which hopefully can be cleared up when they return to the office."
"Cleared up"? Something could change? It's a question that's been left hanging.
DayZ isn't the only Early Access game currently in the Steam Summer Sale: Divinity: Original Sin is 20 per cent off. I reached out to developer Larian to find out why.
"Our initial release date was scheduled to June 20th," creative director and studio founder Swen Vincke told me. "When we learned about the sale we had two options: to participate or not to participate. We figured we could turn a negative into positive and look at the discount required to be on the summer sale as a pre-order incentive." A pre-order with a demo, if you like, he elaborated.
"We certainly wouldn't have done it if this would have been the beginning of Early Access."
Eurogamer reviewed the DayZ alpha in December and found a game that still needed a lot of work. Much has been done, of course, and the roadmap for the rest of this year has been laid out.
