Fans of Sony Online Entertainment’s (SOE) upcoming zombie survival game H1Z1 are outraged at the developer for allegedly breaking promises not to include pay-to-win mechanics.

H1Z1 has just launched on Steam as an Early Access game, allowing players to buy the game early and play it in its currently unfinished state. The developers initially promised that cash purchases could not be used to gain unfair advantages over other players, but the H1Z1 Reddit community reacted with anger to a livestream that proved guns and ammo could effectively be bought in the form of airdrops.

Pay-to-win is a derogatory term used for free-to-play games that sell items and other abilities that put non-paying players at a severe disadvantage to players who are willing to pay microtransactions. The term has been used by some players against other SOE titles such as Planetside 2, which shared some of the same development team with H1Z1.

H1Z1 is another entry in a series of titles that attempt to capitalize on the popularity of other zombie survival games like DayZ, which has made several million dollars in sales since it was released as Early Access in 2013.

DayZ began as a mod for Arma II and was later developed as a standalone game. It helped popularize a no-rules, multiplayer survival genre that led to similar games like Rust and the now-infamous The War Z (renamed Infestation: Survivor Stories). DayZ is still currently in Early Access and remains a popular title despite remaining unfinished.

“Try it” says SOE President

SOE President John Smedley made a post on Reddit in response to the accusations, saying that the airdrop feature had not been hidden or lied about by his team.

“We’ve been straight about it,” Smedley wrote. “We’ve called attention to it publicly and it’s something we’ve decided we want in the game. It makes it more fun. It can shake things up. Please don’t judge based on knee jerk reactions. Try it.”

Smedley noted that the airdrops can be grabbed by anyone, and the player who ordered it might have to fight his way to the supplies or even risk losing them entirely.

Players in the subreddit reacted strongly against Smedley’s post, many of whom pronounced the game to be dead already.