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Tonight, we kill the batman... is exactly what Warner Bros had in mind for Batman's recent PC release, as it has suddenly been pulled from platforms like... well everything. The game has faced some pretty harsh issues on PC platforms, including frame locks, glitches galore, and complete unplayability.

Warner's statement below:

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: http://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.

The game has been pulled from Steam and is currently unavailable for purchase.
Source

 

[Deleted User]

What I literally just posted on Miiverse before logging on here: "The current state of PC gaming in a nutshell: Unstable ports of console games on an unstable platform full of people bragging about spending $3000 on a gaming rig so they could have slightly better graphics than consoles."

 

[Bladexdsl]

Because maybe they secretly like piracy of other companies.

lol WAT?

 

[Deleted User]

PC Disaster Race

 

[GamerzHell9137]

What I literally just posted on Miiverse before logging on here: "The current state of PC gaming in a nutshell: Unstable ports of console games on an unstable platform full of people bragging about spending $3000 on a gaming rig so they could have slightly better graphics than consoles."

Unstable platform....? PC is the most stable platform TO release games. Devs being shit devs is something else.

 

[emmanu888]

And thing is, apparently Iron Galaxy did the port. What else did they ported? Capcom fighting games on the PS3, are the current devs for Killer Instinct and are the one's that's gonna be porting KI on PC. Here's hoping the KI PC port isn't this bad.

 

[Deleted User]

Unstable platform....? PC is the most stable platform TO release games. Devs being shit devs is something else.

Steam is unstable as well as PC parts sometimes.

 

[GamerzHell9137]

Steam is unstable as well as PC parts sometimes.

Have no idea what you mean by that.

 

[CathyRina]

Unstable platform....? PC is the most stable platform TO release games. Devs being shit devs is something else.

What people tend to forget is that developing for PC is not an easy task.
You have to consider all the 3rd party hardware/software that might interfere with your games, different specs, different input methods etc. Even something as simple as super meat boy had to be tested on 11 different PC's.
PC is really my least favorite platform to game on. If not for Steam I wouldn't had any PC games.

 

[Deleted User]

What people tend to forget is that developing for PC is not an easy task.
You have to consider all the 3rd party hardware/software that might interfere with your games, different specs, different input methods etc. Even something as simple as super meat boy had to be tested on 11 different PC's.
PC is really my least favorite platform to game on. If not for Steam I wouldn't had any PC games.

What I find peculiar is that PC games tended to just work last decade, I don't recall anything like this back then, but now these days just about every game is coming out on PC with issues.

 

[Vipera]

WB is just doing damage control on the screw up from the company that they trusted to do the PC version. You have to understand, when a company outsources a port, they outsource every part of it. That means development for porting to the PC, bug testing the port, and applying any fixes to the port as necessary in patch updates or otherwise.

I imagine that whoever did the porting said "oh yeah, it's ready for release", and that had to be trusted because the main studio was still working on the console version of the game up until release day.

If you want to be upset with somebody, be upset with whoever handled the PC port. They're the lazy developers that half assed a port and then lied about how ready for market it was.

They handed the porting to a team of 12 people that had to do everything in 8 weeks. I'm not blaming them.

 

[CathyRina]

What I find peculiar is that PC games tended to just work last decade, I don't recall anything like this back then, but now these days just about every game is coming out on PC with issues.

That is also weird.
Probably has to do with the limitations of patches. The internet wasn't as big of a deal as it was now so the game either worked or was doomed.
Nowadays patches can be easily distributed so people don't care as much to release a not broken game because "lol we can fix it later".

 

[Nathan Drake]

What I find peculiar is that PC games tended to just work last decade, I don't recall anything like this back then, but now these days just about every game is coming out on PC with issues.

Awful PC ports are hardly anything new. PC gaming has just grown significantly in popularity in the past decade which is why we're more aware of issues than ever before. It's not as if every PC port is a Saints Row 2. Most actually run just fine with maybe a tweak or two required depending on your hardware.

They handed the porting to a team of 12 people that had to do everything in 8 weeks. I'm not blaming them.

Do you have a reliably source for your eight weeks story, or even that team size? Because I'm having a really, really hard time believing WB would say "here's the entire game now port it to a playable state for PC in eight weeks - enjoy your 20 hour shifts". I did find this story that states Iron Galaxy themselves only designated a 12 person team for the port. That isn't the total size of a studio that has handled some of the high profile releases like the Borderlands Handsome Collection. Otherwise you pulled the 8 week thing out of your ass as far as I can tell.

The biggest problem is that they apparently outsourced to a studio that primarily works on console ports. At the same time, apparently they were the ones that handled Bioshock Infinite porting to PC, so that excuse flies right out the window. No matter how you look at it, Iron Galaxy dropped the ball.

 

[Deleted User]

That is also weird.
Probably has to do with the limitations of patches. The internet wasn't as big of a deal as it was now so the game either worked or was doomed.
Nowadays patches can be easily distributed so people don't care as much to release a not broken game because "lol we can fix it later".

I guess. I also bought my PC games a year or two after they were released so they already had a few patches under their belt. Never saw anything in the very short and few patch logs suggesting graphical and performance bugs though, just new features and the odd fix for a usually minor gameplay bug

 

[retrofan_k]

The bigger question is: How did all of this crap get past their bug testing?

Simple, like everything else nowadays, Devs release titles as a BETA and then patch later on. Cheaper, less time consuming and a quick lazy way out of the QA.

I used to be a QA tester and the amount of times higher management would waive serious bugs just to get the title(s) out to the public was ridiculous.

 

[Fou-Lu]

Awful PC ports are hardly anything new. PC gaming has just grown significantly in popularity in the past decade which is why we're more aware of issues than ever before. It's not as if every PC port is a Saints Row 2. Most actually run just fine with maybe a tweak or two required depending on your hardware.


Do you have a reliably source for your eight weeks story, or even that team size? Because I'm having a really, really hard time believing WB would say "here's the entire game now port it to a playable state for PC in eight weeks - enjoy your 20 hour shifts". I did find this story that states Iron Galaxy themselves only designated a 12 person team for the port. That isn't the total size of a studio that has handled some of the high profile releases like the Borderlands Handsome Collection. Otherwise you pulled the 8 week thing out of your ass as far as I can tell.

The biggest problem is that they apparently outsourced to a studio that primarily works on console ports. At the same time, apparently they were the ones that handled Bioshock Infinite porting to PC, so that excuse flies right out the window. No matter how you look at it, Iron Galaxy dropped the ball.

Even if the 12 people doing the port in a few weeks story isn't true, WB are still the ones publishing the game. They have the final say in this and should not have let a shoddy port like this be released in the first place.

WB hasn't learned shit from the awful Arkham Origins situation, except this time it's even worse.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Top kek.

At least I got this shit for free, instead of actually buying it Thanks Nvidia for saving me money

 

[Qtis]

Steam is unstable as well as PC parts sometimes.

I've yet to get Steam itself to crash on me. Games are another matter, but they depend a lot on what is actually being run (*cough* Modded Fallout New Vegas *crash*).

In many ways, this is something that was reasonable and justified. WB may be having a PR nightmare for the game, but at least they figured that keeping the game up for sale as-is would have been a thousand times worse. Unlike others such as CDPR with Witcher 3 and Ubisoft with AC:Unity, WB weren't the ones doing the development themselves in-house. Not much they can push if the port is as bad as it is

 

[RiveaJ]

I'm 90% through the story and haven't encountered any issues with the game at all, and my PC isn't exactly brilliant either.

i7 2600 @ 3.4GHz
16GB RAM
GTX 660 Ti

Running the game with recommended settings from nVidia GeForce experience (which are close to max on the slider bar). I'm glad got the game on launch before they pulled it because that would've been disappointing.

 

[WiiCube_2013]

I'm 90% through the story and haven't encountered any issues with the game at all, and my PC isn't exactly brilliant either.

i7 2600 @ 3.4GHz
16GB RAM
GTX 660 Ti

Running the game with recommended settings from nVidia GeForce experience (which are close to max on the slider bar). I'm glad got the game on launch before they pulled it because that would've been disappointing.

How does Arkham Knight compare to Akrham Asylum and City?

I'd still prefer to this day Arkham Asylum over Arkham City.

 

[Taleweaver]

What I find peculiar is that PC games tended to just work last decade, I don't recall anything like this back then, but now these days just about every game is coming out on PC with issues.

Nope. It's just the AAA-ones that also appear on consoles. Indy games and PC exclusives work fine.

On a more serious note: patches weren't new then either. And I'm sure it won't be much of a problem to dig up a couple games that had issues for much longer than THE VERY FUCKING RELEASE DAY!
It's that last thing that needs to be seen in more of a focus: back then, the whole preordering and release date thing wasn't as hyped as today. As such, the issues seems much more important now. I guess youtube also has an influence (the second someone finds out an error in a game, he puts up a youtube vid, which promptly goes viral), but I'm not sure about it.