DayZ Bounty (opens in new tab) , a service which pays out real money for in-game kills (opens in new tab) in Arma II mod DayZ, has caught the ire of developer Bohemia Interactive. In an e-mail this morning, DayZ Production Assistant Matthew Lightfoot told us that the developer does not support "commercially exploiting" DayZ mods and will be contacting the owners of DayZ Bounty to request that they cease their activities.
"The DayZ development team and Bohemia Interactive is not involved or has had any contact with with DayZ Bounty and it's creators," wrote Lightfoot. "While we fully support modifications created by the community, to improve the gaming experience for players of DayZ and ArmA II, we do not support their creators putting a cost on them. As commercially exploiting their small additions to DayZ undermines the work done by the original team.
"We believe that the elements of gambling that DayZ Bounty introduces challenges the basic game design aspects that DayZ is built upon. It changes the focus of DayZ from being a creative, enjoyable, gritty gaming experience to a game that is based almost solely on financial gain and that is not something we want to be associated with."
When we spoke to DayZ Bounty's founders (opens in new tab) , they claimed that they're "not trying to make money," but instead see the service as something akin to a "Rotary club." Members pay dues to keep the club going, and are given input on its direction. For Bohemia, intentions and philosophy do not appear to be up for debate. "We will be contacting the owners of the DayZ Bounty website directly over the coming days, to ask that they cease their activities in their current form," wrote Lightfoot.
