DayZ developer Dean Hall has announced on Twitter that the game passed the 2 million sales mark on Thursday. Since the game is still in alpha and is therefore very far from finished, 2 million sales within four months is impressive.
The zombie survival game–a genre that has become popular in all forms of media–costs $30 and is still a little bit buggy, but it has consistently been one of the most popular games on Steam.
Originally, DayZ was nothing more than a mod for Arma II. As the mod become more popular however, the developers decided to push out an alpha version of DayZ as a standalone title.
Any sort of open-world survival game is bound to become popular in the current gaming market, so DayZ’s success is far from shocking. However, what is slightly more surprising, is that there are 2 million PC gamers who feel paying $30 for an early version of the standalone is worthwhile.
The basis for DayZ as both a mod and its own game is that players are dropped into a zombie-infested world with very few supplies and a plethora of dangers. Starting with basically nothing, players must find supplies and fight back against the AI-controlled zombies while also dealing with other gamers who are trying to get at the same supplies in order to survive.
Since the game is intense and things happen relatively fast within it, the game attained a particularly large following on live streaming sites like Twitch. As a result, the DayZ community has become more well-known than the actual Arma II community.
DayZ is still in alpha but its developers are expected to release the first final version of the standalone title on PC later this year. As of right now, the Steam page for DayZ continues to stress that the game is nothing more than an early developmental version. However, apparently millions of people people don’t care and would rather spend the $30 to start playing anyways.
Summary: DayZ has surpassed the 2 million sales mark. The game is still in its alpha phase. A final version is expected to come out later this year.
image credit: venturebeat