The standalone version of apocalyptic survival mod DayZ is getting ever closer to a public release, creator Dean "Rocket" Hall has confirmed. The game hit over a million downloads in its first three months making it extremely popular, especially with streamers like myself on Twitch leading to a world wide championships named "The Survivor GameZ."
Dean explained, "So what we're doing at the moment is, we gave free keys as a gift to the forum moderators, the Reddit moderators, people who helped out with DayZ development, and stuff like that," Hall said. "I guess there's about 30-100 people involved with that."
Systems such as Steam’s Early Access service allow players to buy in early while games are still in the developmental phase. I've recently been streaming the newest version of ARMAIII which is currently in its alpha rewarding those who invest early with discounted prices. It is a model that the upcoming DayZ standalone will follow.
“From here, once we've finished our server/client architecture--because we're moving it [to] an MMO model--we're reviewing the situation of that in June, and then we do an alpha, just like Minecraft. People pay X amount of dollars and they get early, cheap access to it, and then once it's beta, price goes up, maybe, say, $10, and once it goes retail, the price goes up $10.” Hall said.
DayZ was originally penned for release before the end of 2012. As seen above Dean Hall recently took a two month leave of absence to climb Mt. Everest. Last month, the creator said that a console port of the game was "almost certain."
