You can permanently lose items purchased with real money in The War Z

The War Z sticks players in an open-world test of survival against nature, carpets of zombies, and fellow survivors, but here's another punch in the gut from realism: you can permanently lose cash shop items purchased with real money through the in-game store. Good heavens, is it griefing o' clock already?

"We've discussed that a lot and at the end decided that this will provide a pretty good incentive for players to either be extra cautious while playing, or just not spend too much money in the game and, instead, try to procure all items by finding them in the game world," Josef said.

This sets up a new avenue of emergent gameplay touching upon the desperate nature of scarce resources in a post-apocalyptic environment. What's stopping players from forming roving bands of highwaymen extorting victims at gunpoint for their cash-shop goods? DayZ's PVP certainly contains its fair share of resource wars, but embellishing that formula with microtransactions definitely runs up the tension. Server stability presents another issue -- if a player's faulty connection causes a death, are they justifiably "paying the price" of lost items? We'll see Hammerpoint's balancing efforts -- and whether its intentions actually make it live -- when The War Z releases this fall.

Omri Petitte is a former PC Gamer associate editor and long-time freelance writer covering news and reviews. If you spot his name, it probably means you're reading about some kind of first-person shooter. Why yes, he would like to talk to you about Battlefield. Do you have a few days?