Day Z creator turned down offers from "many, many publishers"

The digital sensation that is Day Z has turned many heads in the past few months – including some on the publishing scene.

The zombie-themed mod for 2009 PC shooter Arma II was released in April and has since racked up a cool 1m users.

Now the DayZ developers are planning to create a standalone edition – but this isn’t the first time someone has been interested in making the add-on available to the masses.

In an interview with MCV, DayZ creator Dean Hall said several players in games publishing have tried getting their hands on the popular title, but none presented a strong enough offering.

"Many, many publishers have contacted me about DayZ but I always ended up repeating the same question: what benefit are you providing development?" he said.

"What value is actually being added to the process by publishers when you can distribute for free?"

You can find the full interview with Hall, including why he believes traditional publishers have become "irrelevant", in this week’s issue of MCV – which is available to download now.