Batman: Arkham Knight sales suspended on PC following launch disaster

Scorpus

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Warner Bros. Games has decided that, following the disastrous launch of Batman: Arkham Knight on PC, they will be suspending all sales of the game until the widespread technical issues users are facing have been addressed.

In a statement posted on the publisher's forum, attached below, WB Games apologizes to PC gamers who are experiencing performance issues with Arkham Knight. The company takes "these issues very seriously and have therefore decided to suspend future game sales of the PC version while we work to address these issues to satisfy our quality standards."

Currently, the game is still visible in the Steam Store, although there is no link to purchase the title and there is no pricing information to be found. However, gamers yet to play Arkham Knight can still read a collection of "mostly negative" reviews about the game from fellow gamers.

While WB Games asks for patience while the issues with the game are resolved, their statement includes a link to Steam's refund policy if gamers are not satisfied with the product that they have purchased.

The launch of Batman: Arkham Knight has been nothing short of a disaster, with users everywhere reporting major performance issues on all sorts of hardware combinations, both Nvidia and AMD. The issues, which include stuttering and gameplay lag, seem to be present while gaming on both high-end and entry-level hardware, and changing the game's quality settings does not appear to have a large effect.

Arkham Knight was allegedly ported to PC by a third-party development studio containing just 12 people, which might explain why so many people are experiencing issues playing it. Even though Nvidia worked with the developers to integrate GameWorks effects, Arkham Knight still runs poorly on Nvidia hardware, even after installing the latest GeForce drivers.

It's not very often that a company will pull a game from sales channels following a bad launch, but WB Games are obviously very concerned about the performance issues plaguing PC owners. The company is already working on an update to address the issues with the PC version.

Dear Batman: Arkham Knight PC owners,

We want to apologize to those of you who are experiencing performance issues with Batman: Arkham Knight on PC. We take these issues very seriously and have therefore decided to suspend future game sales of the PC version while we work to address these issues to satisfy our quality standards. We greatly value our customers and know that while there are a significant amount of players who are enjoying the game on PC, we want to do whatever we can to make the experience better for PC players overall.

Thank you to those players who have already given valuable feedback. We are continuously monitoring all threads posted in the Official Batman: Arkham Knight Community and Steam forums, as well as any issues logged with our Customer Support (support.wbgames.com). If you purchased your copy of the game and are not satisfied with your experience, then we ask for your patience while these issues are resolved. If desired, you can request a refund at help.steampowered.com (Steam refund policies can be found here: https://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds) or the retail location where you purchased the game.

The Batman: Arkham fans have continually supported the franchise to its current height of success, and we want to thank you for your patience as we work to deliver an updated version of Batman: Arkham Knight on PC so you can all enjoy the final chapter of the Batman: Arkham series as it was meant to be played.

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Only 12 people to port a game to PC. For the whole PC world. When will they learn that 30 fps is not worth playing when we have PC hardware LIGHT YEARS ahead of console now that can easily do 60 fps.

PC gaming is the obvious choice if you are a serious lifelong gamer.
 
I bet they wouldn't of done this if there was no steam refunds.
Makes me wonder if there wouldn't be any Steam refunds, if it wasn't for the likes of Arkham Knight, Project Cars, and Witcher 3. Seems everything that comes out now days is a disappointment. There is no wonder Steam started allowing refunds, the only other option was for people to stop paying at all.

I can't help wonder how Steam can justify pulling this game, while they still have so many other BS games that have much worse gameplay.
 
I can't help wonder how Steam can justify pulling this game, while they still have so many other BS games that have much worse gameplay.
Steam did not make the call, Warner Bros. Games did. If anything it is a rare case of a studio immediately admitting fault and telling people they should return it if they are unsatisfied. Now there are plenty of questions and concerns to why they even let a half baked port out into the wild, but I'd also wager management/marketing related schedules were also involved...
 
Well you cant sue early access games or indie developers(since you wont get anything), but you can always sue big corp like Warner Bros
 
Good thing they admitted fault, but of course it never should have happened. Release it when it's ready.
On the other hand, it just goes to prove that while the early bird may get the worm, the early adopter (you know the type, the one who just has to have everything first) gets the bugs.
 
Good thing they admitted fault, but of course it never should have happened. Release it when it's ready.
On the other hand, it just goes to prove that while the early bird may get the worm, the early adopter (you know the type, the one who just has to have everything first) gets the bugs.
Pays a premium for it too.
 
I also think that they knew of the problems before release but hoped that *magically* the game just works on PCs. I think they side stepped all the PC problems because their major revenue is stronger on consoles, therefore giving the PC version a second priority.
 
I'd say PC gamers are the most devoted gamers. We shell out for top shelf hardware for a better experience, yet we're always getting the short end of the stick. Makes me wanna throw rocks at people (publishers). :s
 
The port was handled by the same team that ported Origins to PC, the first two were handled by the original Rocksteady team. Also if you got the game on Steam then sure you can get a refund, which is a welcome addition to say the least. If you were duped into getting it with that shiny 40% off on GMG, you have to wait for a patch before you can get a refund there of course.

To me when I seen the 40% discount on a game, that is launching brand new only hours later it told me don't get it. There has to be some marketing ploy to sell enough copies, to offset the huge outrage of angry gamers who got ripped off. I imagine third party sellers are in a tough spot, after Steam decided to offer refunds on games. So they likely either tried to do something special, or it was a sponsored deal that wasn't listed.
 
It's a beautiful game, I hope they don't disable the high end features to make it more stable and actually work out the problems as they should be...
 
Only 12 people to port a game to PC. For the whole PC world. When will they learn that 30 fps is not worth playing when we have PC hardware LIGHT YEARS ahead of console now that can easily do 60 fps.

PC gaming is the obvious choice if you are a serious lifelong gamer.
The number of people actually working on the port doesn't matter.

"Arkham Knight was allegedly ported to PC by a third-party development studio containing just 12 people, which might explain why so many people are experiencing issues playing it."

Laying out a conjecture based on zero facts is bad journalism. There are no points of comparison, like what good PC ports are out there and how many people are credited as working on them. Supposedly Nixxes only had 6 people working on the port of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and that was pretty great on the PC. Meanwhile, every Ubisoft game is all hands on deck and their PC ports are a crapshoot.
 
I hope they can get it fixed up and released before it goes on Steam's sale at Xmas because that's when I intend to purchase it.
 
More of the same...

Pay 59.99 to be a alpha tester


the reason I never buy a game on release day....
 
**** like this will keep going as long as consumers continue being stupid and keep buying unfinished products.
 
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