DayZ mod getting unofficial Bounty server: dispenses real cash for kills

DayZ is to receive a unofficial, fan-made Bounty server that awards real-world currency for in-game kills. The developers have revealed that the mode was the result of a drunken session of the game. Check out the fine points below.

Speaking with PC Gamer, creative development lead Jake Stewart explained that DayZ Bounty is an unofficial fan project - which has its own site here - that came as the result of a drunken play session within DayZ.

"We started a kind of hero clan," he explained, "‘Super Hero Medic Squad.’ All we did was try and help people. One night, we got drunk and started messing around, and I was like, ‘Screw it. I’m bored. I’m tired of helping people. I’m going rogue.’ We all started killing each other.”

Stewart and his cohorts then began to place bets on whether or not they could kill each other, zombies and other players. Stewart recalled that he said, “I’ll give you five dollars if you can take me out. And all of a sudden, I thought: this is a fun way to play. This’d be great if we had a whole community of people that were doing the same type of thing."

"James [Ortiz] and I had talked about maybe getting it together," he added, "I started messing around with the map editing and things like that, and he started working on the server end of things. I’d done map editing and other things in Oblivion and a lot of the older Elder Scrolls games.”

Stewart concluded, "We figured that if people had a value on their life… there’d be something to fear besides the zombies," and this led to the creation of DayZ Bounty.

How does it work? Players have to 'buy-in' to the DayZ Bounty server in denominations of either $5, $10, $15 or $20 and this gets them a stack of lives. Cash is rewarded back to the player for killing zombies, bandits, and other survivors. Special bonuses are doled out if you kill the player with the most kills - known as The Outlaw.

Cash earned will be paid back to players via PayPal. On the subject of where profit goes internally, Stewart added, "We’re basically trying to keep all the money in-game, where there’s no overflow of cash, but we’re not spending money to do it as well."

What do you make of the concept of DayZ Bounty? Can it work? Would you feel right paying for the pleasure of potential returns? Let us know below.

Thanks CVG.