Hammerpoint Interactive's zombie survival MMO, The War Z, has been renamed Infestation: Survivor Stories today, the developer announced this morning. The name change won't have any effect on the game itself. Hammerpoint claims that the name change is meant to "help fans differentiate the popular game from similarly titles brands." In January of this year, DayZ creator Dean Hall expressed anger at the similarity of the two game names, feeling that it caused confusion about which of the games was the original concept.

Last month, DayZ creator Dean Hall said he was very depressed by all the bad press surrounding competing zombie game The War Z.

The last podcast of 2012 - Episode 34 of the Super Podcast Action Committee - tackles "One Game a Month," what Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight got for Christmas, and the trials and tribulations of The War Z development team. 2012 was a great year for us and we look forward to bringing you many more episodes of the show in the brave new world we call 2013. Thanks for listening! Download it now: SuperPAC Episode 34 (1 hour) 55.6 MB.

The War Z executive producer has penned an open letter to the community apologizing for the "arrogant way" he handled customer complaints when the game was released on Steam recently, though he doesn't mention the fact that the game was pulled by Valve from its digitally distributed catalog.

The War Z has not had the best PR in the last week or so, and things are not getting any better for the post-apocalyptic zombie survival action game. Apparently, even as Hammerpoint Interactive released the game and then had it pulled from Steam, the company behind it had lost its trademark for the game..

DayZ creator Dean Hall says that all the bad press surrounding the release of rival title The War Z is so depressing that he considered quitting the industry because of it. Speaking to the Reddit community, Hall said the whole ordeal made him "pretty depressed" and made him "seriously question" his desire to be a part of the industry. He also said that the media inquiries and interview requests have caused him to retreat slightly.