How communities formed around, helped and spread DayZ

Communities of players helped DayZ achieve its success, and creator Dean Hall traced the community's evolution alongside the game in a recent interview with Gamasutra.

"I remember when it first released," Hall said, "the strongest core was actually on 4chan, and you could argue that it was actually 4chan which really promoted and pushed DayZ into the world.

"It then spread out among different forums, with Reddit being one of the last areas to really pick it up. Since then, Reddit has become a very big part of theDayZ community for some."

Beyond internet chatter about the zombie-infested game, other users have spread word about DayZ through different means, Hall said. And that phenomenon allows individuals to gain a certain amount of fame from playing games.

"I believe that the YouTube and streaming communities are some of the most key to DayZ, as they represent a really exciting new area of video games for me: The idea that gamers can actually become 'famous' within the games themselves and develop their own followings."

Earlier this month, Bohemia Interactive announced that DayZ had sold more than 1 million copies since is alpha release in December. You can learn more about Hall's reaction in Polygon's interview with Hall and at Gamasutra.