War Z removes all items from a player when they die – this includes any items purchased via microtransactions. Executive producer Sergey Titov claims that they are maintaining this system due to the demands of the fans.
“In War Z when you die you lose all your items, even if you bought those items using real money. [It’s a] super, hardcore brutal choice. Recently some of the people on forums have been saying, ‘we don’t like that.'” said Titov according to Eurogamer, claiming that he made a survey asking 18,000 users if this should be altered, and “most players said, ‘don’t change that or we leave the game.'”
“It turns out that people who get stuck and stay with the game, they like that,” he added.
Titov also heaped praise on free-to-play games, saying how the low barrier to entry made people far more willing to try out a game. This inevitably led to the question why the War Z wasn’t free-to-play and he replied, “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 added.
