War Z producer gives ‘sage’ advice

Sergey Titov, executive producer of problematic, recycled idea-fest, The War Z, has been speaking out at the Games Developer Conference with some advice for anyone trying to release an online game, or one with micro-transactions.

According to Titov, one of gamer's favourite features about The War Z, is that despite having paid for items with real money a lot of the time, they lose them when they die. He cites a survey of 18,000 people that showed an overwhelming majority liked it that players lost these items. Of course, he didn't give precise numbers, or explain if this was people claiming they liked losing their stuff when they died, or if they liked nabbing another player's loot after killing them.

He also extolled free to play games, suggesting they were a great way to get more people into the game. Understandably someone in the audience then asked, why The War Z wasn't free to play. Titov confusedly responded: “If I had a dollar every time people asked me why the War Z is not a free to play I wouldn't have developed the War Z at all.”

“Free-to-play removes any barrier for me to play your game. You instantly get a lot of users…. in paid game you get less users, but all of those users will be much more invested in your game… Do you need a more active, engaged audience or more people? There is no clear answer.”

He also suggested it was a great idea to outsource a lot of your companies duties: such as customer support. Because that's what people love right? Customer support from a far away country, with workers that have no real idea what the product is or what your complaint is about?

Titov did however admit that The War Z had a lot of problems at launch, but suggested that the review procedure was partly to blame for the game's poor reception. “I don't know how online games should be reviewed,” he confessed. “Reviewing a game just once doesn't work well for online games.”

KitGuru Says: Some of you may not like me giving this guy any more exposure, but it's hilarious to watch him hang himself with his own words.

[Thanks Eurogamer]

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