Batman: Arkham Knight PC buyers offered refunds after continued problems

Tight deadlines are common in the games industry, yet very few AAA titles are released as broken as this was, and pulled from sale altogether. I believe Iron Galaxy were the developers of the PC version, with Rocksteady only doing the console versions. I think Rocksteady was then brought on to help with the PC version after the initial debacle. Either way, there are people responsibile for this on all teams (WB, Rockstead and Iron Galaxy), and they should be punished accordingly. Warner is as good at running a company as Greece is running a country, and those people need to be relieved of their positions. If there were any justice, the majority of the firings should be Warner Bros., as they're not the most competent of publishers (Mortal Kombat X anyone?). Shadows of Mordor seems to be the exception to what is a rule in this case.

Yeah. Iron Galaxy was responsible for the PC port. And there are like only 12 people in the team.

And none of those twelve people learned how to program, apparently.

Yeah, I got the company's mixed up. "very few AAA titles are released as broken as this was"
Except for AC: Unity, Halo: MCC, Battlefield 3, 4, Hardline and the list goes on..... "and pulled from sale"
This was because of Steam's new refund policy, not because WB magically cared about consumers. They were actually lose 30% every sale, since Steam didn't refund their cut back.

So in other words, real life. Sounds like any job in the world.

Rocksteady shouldn't have taken the contract if they couldn't meet the deadlines Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

Exactly, WB may have issued an unrealistic deadline for this developer, but Rocksteady decided to except the bid and develop the game. They should have known they'd never make it work in time and turn it down. In that case WB would in turn found a developer that had the resources to release the game properly. Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

Nope. Rocksteady is very high quality studio. You are very wrong. Rocksteady made the consoles version which was flawless. The PC version however was ported by unknown studio and this was their first "big" game. And you can see how it went... Rocksteady did not do anything wrong. WB did.

"Rocksteady did not do anything wrong. WB did." Incorrect to the first sentence. Rocksteady was brought in to help fix the game after Warner pulled it from sale. Warner then re-released it months later, slightly fixed but still a disastrous mess, that they're now offering refunds. Since Rocksteady was brought in to help fix the issues, and the game is still beyond useless, they are at fault for not fixing something they were hired to do. So yes, WB screwed up, and so did Rocksteady. You are right, Rocksteady is a quality developer, just look at Arkham Knight's console release. Even quality developers suck at times, and this is one of those times.

Okay so I will give you a pile of sh*t and tell you that you have 4 months to make it into a car and if you fail a whole crowd will tell you its your fault. If you dont get the reference I am out of ideas. Trust me, its not Rocksteady´s fault, I played Arkham Asylum and Arkham City from them and it was perfect.

Rocksteady could've easily said they wouldn't be able to fix what was needed in the short time Warner gave them. The fact they didn't and still chose to undertake the project speaks. I'm sure if they had enough time, they could've brought it up to the console quality (that's something you don't hear often). Alas, it was not meant to be. Yes, Arkham Asylum and City were excellent games. They weren't perfect as you say, because they did have issues, but they seem perfect next to Knight.

Honestly youre naive if you think thats how it works. WB gives them deadline and they dont care what Rocksteady says. Same as it was with EA and DICE (Battlefield 4) It was bugged as hell and EA always pushed DICE into release even if the game wasnt ready.

I think you are wrong. All previous games are made by rock steady. This one was outsourced to some other company than rock steady.

I think everyone should stop saying people need to be fired and punished. It's a game, nobody died because of bugs in the game. It was most likely due to bad decisions made by managers rather than bad decisions made by developers, it happens all the time where developers are forced to code something they know is bad but the managers won't wait for good code. Deadlines and profits mean a lot more to executives than quality of code, most executives don't even understand the difference between good quality code and poor quality work around code that's made in a rush to get something out the door on time.

Hear, hear!

We consumers seem to always make excuses for game developers when they deliver a faulty product any other industry would be in court with a classic action against them for some of the shoddy games they have been putting out lately. There job is to deliver a full functional product if they can't do that heads should roll. This generation has been very bugged filled, I still can't play The Crew and when I am able to I still haven't received the preorder stuff that came with my order. We need to hold them to a higher standard not lower. If we keep coddling game developers we will keep getting shoddy products.

Bill, when you say developers you might mean management structure as well in the dev company, but you'll confuse people who think it's the actual developers. It's hard to explain how complex development is, and how often dev risks raised are ignored by management who make them work very long days. This is particularly prevalent (normal, in fact) in game development. It is probably nice to work in an industry where it's much easier to output a quality product, but development is currently a very new industry and the developers themselves are constantly doing cutting-edge R&D while working to very tight deadlines and budgets. Thus the golden triangle applies: if time, budget and requirements are set in stone, then quality will suffer.
Rocksteady may have been hired to fix issues, but given that it's impossible to know up front how much work it will take to fix things, and their estimates will have reflected that difficulty, it's still the publisher's fault for re-releasing when QA wasn't good enough. Edit: sorry, iron triangle. Brain fart.

"It's a game, nobody died because of bugs in the game." I actually died several times because of some of the bugs. Well, not died, since Batman can't "die" in the traditional sense, but you get the idea.

Should have just used a Universal App from XB1 Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

Universal apps only work on Windows 10, not Xbox OS, which is what pretty much every Xbox game is coded for.

Windows 10 is in beta already for Xbox1. I'm not saying it's here, but it's coming.

Universal apps are only for apps and small games. AFAIK, you can't do console level changes as universal apps. I don't think even Fable Legends is a universal app

I'm beta testing Fable legend and I can tell it is a universal app you can only donwload it from windows 10 store app

Bye windows phone :) I am switching to android from tomorrow onwards , I have used windows phone since its inception , so I have no complaints just need to explore other platforms instead of envying , you will be missed ( not sure ) , thanks for the memories ( painful )

Then welcome to the world of useless aps, viruses and lag :) Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

I have heard lot about androids UI and user friendly customization things , and if you buy cheap phones it is surely going to lag , for better performance you need to pay some extra , hope I wont be disappointed like you..

my brother and my friend both have the galaxy S5 and they both complain about the lag

Are you talking negative about Android? I hope you are using sarcasm because you, yourself, are using a Lagdroid phone.

Have you got issues mate; first of all don't be rude and fyi android is rubbish. Windows phone is better.

His post contains "Posted via the Windows Central App for Android." I find that offensive. I do have issues. We have Android users posting here, and that's usually them coming to diss on Windows Phone, or them using Android devices to use Windows Central, I find that blasphemy. If you have an Android device, stick to Android Central. I find Windows Central making an app for Android is a joke.

I would agree with you if this was still Windows Phone Central... but Android users still use Windows and Xbox, so I don't see why they can't be here. The "posted via" signature is stupid no matter where it is, and just as egotistical (or possibly just clueless) as having "sent from my iphone" in email signatures.

What the hell does this have to do with batman? Are you that self absorbed that you feel the need to announce it, or are you that bad of a troll?

Naah guys , i Just thought of letting you ppl know that one of the oldest users is leaving, just wanted to tell someone so thought its a better platform, has the world turned this much rude or am I being too dramatic ??

Self absorbed it is I see.

Your OP was pretty dramatic

Dude, nobody cares. Android has so many security issues it's ridiculous. Yes, all those apps and games are tempting, but until those security issues are fixed (never), I'm staying on WP/WM. They need to make a proper OS, not that Java piece of crap.

No one cares about what you are staying with.

Definitely being too dramatic.

"Joined Jan 2015" yeah, you're clearly 'one of the oldest users' here... or perhaps you just meant old aged

I agree, if he wants to switch, he can do it. He doesn't have to make it a huge announcement, we usually don't care if people leave. In either case, he could just have made a post there(Android Central) saying, "Hi, I have switched over from Windows Phone." (In which, users might reply the same, but chances are he will be welcomed.)
 

Thank you

Thanks

Lol such a passive (aggressive) post. We will miss you (we won't). Bye!

Did you comment on the wrong article or just really hate Batman?

Yeah I took it that way at first. I thought for some reason this was the straw that broke the camels back LOL

I think his parents were killed by a mugger in the street after coming out of the opera, they had a copy of the game for him in their bag and the mugger wanted it badly. Then when he finally got to play the game his parents died for, it didn't work very well so now he hates Microsoft.

Binned my 925 three weeks ago to get a Samsung Galaxy S6. Wish I'd done it earlier.

Do you really think the s6 is that much better? I'm on the s6 from the Icon and I still have lag. It looks beautiful though Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

I have an S6, Note 5 and a 930. If your S6 has lag you should be concerned. Disable the bloatware on your phone. Visit forums to learn how yo do this. You no longer need to root.

My GS6 from stock would freeze in the dialer and does lag with more than 30 installed apps. I'm not the only one I know with that problem. My 1520 with W10M is more consistent with just over 400 apps currently. Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

http://windowscentral.com/commenting-guidelines

Please take your off-topic comments and your tears with you.

LOL! You evil dog, you. I agree, if they want to leave, there's the door, just don't let it hit you on the way out. *Points all over the place*

Fuck off , you miserable son of a bitch!

That was a nice laugh to wake up to.

I will tell you my experience.. Once you go WM you won't go back to android/ios.. I was using Galaxy and Nexus in past until I saw Htc 8x... I gave it a try since it was new OS platform for me to use... Loved it! Just wasn't enough featured apps on it like android but had that phone for almost 2yrs til spring 2014, I picked up a new galaxy s5... Big mistake I made.. Totally dislike how awful the phone runs and drains battery 3x faster than HTC 8x.. So I went lookin for a Nokia Lumia... Picked up a 1520 and sold the galaxy S5... Trust me man.. I used to bounce from phone to phone all the time.. Not worth messing with android.. Lack of security and too buggy...

What is this lack of security that concerns you do much?
Proper keep saying lack of security and lag.
1) There is no lag on both Androids I own. WPs loading and resuming screens are worse.
2)What is this security crap? If you have facebook or whatsapp on your phone you are not concerned about security. If you use a browser on your phone you're not concerned about security. In fact simply having a phone that is always connected to wifi means that security is not something high on your list. You want a secure phone get a Nokia 3310.

Stagefright is much more dangerous than Facebook. Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

I didn't know a Broken Batman game was so dramatic

Despite the fact the loading of apps on android is worse than WP. I don't use fb app sir.. It's called mobile browser fb that seems to be better than android and wp app combined which doesn't show double or triple of same post as you scroll through. No lag on phones.. Hmm interesting.. I've had many friends complain about their flagship android phones and switched to iPhones and some wp to get away from em.. Again I was only speaking out of my opinion and there you are.. Always someone to contradict my opinion ;-)

Well dude, u'll probably gonna miss wp forsure. Im a ROMer do i decided to buy a new android phone for that n so i can test what i made but trust me i got so tired of that fucking shit after a month that i bought a new lumia 930 n trust me i love it more than my previous phones not even iphone provide such beauty :) n yaa btw if u r interested u can try my blisspop ROM built upon 5.1 crap :/ never ever switch back to that langdroid will use it as a secondary for developing purposes.

Does this count if you buy it now?

Just don't buy it.

Unless you want to play the full game for free? Buy now and then get it refunded after completion? ;-)

Exactly. That's what I wanted.

I'd like to know too, and does the free back-catalogue include all the DLC? 

Please add news filtering in this app.. No offense but I don't want to see games on "front page"

Or American carriers one, for that matter. Whatever it is just bring on the filters will you, WC?

they do have different sections for different news... well on the actual site at least

Too demanding. Their app is pretty bad. Apparently they are developing a WM10 app. Any changes will be implemented in that app most likely.

They currently lack a developer for the app.

Considering there will be a beta version released this week or next, I'm pretty sure the developer either never left or he's back now.

Why the heck does PC Gamers suffer the most?

Because the console version only needs to be optimized for one combination of hardware. There's endless configurations on PC. But apparantly the people they hired to do this have no experience with it and suck at it so hard they have to give it away for free.

Yes, it's the optimizations for the hardware. It's odd that the games are made on PC and not optimized for the PC separately, or made for the PC first, then downgraded to work on the console @60FPS/30FPS, whatever they intend for the consoles, for that matter. (Lovely lady on the picture, by the way.)

Because the development time is faster when you only have a specific number of devices to test for. If you have to test on all possible combinations of hardware for the past five years it's going to blow out in time and money. Better to release in console, and if it's a success then invest in PC version.

Nobody tests on all possible combinations, it's simply not possible, and going back 5 years is even worse. They will test against all supported OSs in 32bit and 64bit and different processors and graphics cards. Games are developed to target hardware features and software features so if two graphics cards both support the necessary hardware features, there shouldn't be a need to test against both even though it's quite possible one of those cards might have bugged drivers that cause the necessary feature to fail, but that failure is the responsibility of the graphics card manufacturer to fix, not the developer of the game. The larger amount of combinations you test usually reduces the quality and coverage of your testing which makes it bad for everyone rather than just people with a specific combination.

Yeah, it was an exaggeration on "all combinations". The point was they still have to test dozens of different systems (various grfx cards, different amounts of RAM etc) versus 1 specific hardware setup, which means a much larger amount of testing on PC. They'd have to do their own in-house testing, as well as with beta-testers having various 'real world' setups to identify which combinations have issues. I don't think hardware providers are responsible in this situation, as otherwise the issue would be far more widespread... the onus is solely on the game developers, and they've clearly run out of ideas or simply of money to fix the issue. I'm sure if they could blame one particular OEM's drivers they would... 

Because Warner Bros. thought they could get away with demanding unrealistic deadlines for Rocksteady.

Too bad this game took a beating on PC like this. It was such a good game (on Xbox One at least). I enjoyed it and continue to enjoy all of the season pass content.

It was a good game on console, it wasn't an Xbox exclusive. It was great on the PS4 as well.

Just bought the wife a galaxy S6.

Cool story bro.

Cool story

Keep this in the Android section, you seem to be lost.

Stop lying. You don't have a wife.

You're a good man. I bought my ex a Lumia 930 ^_^

Maybe that's why she's your ex... :( just kidding lol

Hmmm... Interesting, tell me more... :)

I bought my wife an iPhone 5s. She loves it because it's smaller and lighter than her old 920 and Instagram and Facebook "work perfectly" though I often here a few swear words coming from her direction when something doesn't work lol. After about a month she cracked the screen and now she's stuck with a broken screen for another 1.5 years. So Facebook and Instagram have 1.5 years to get their shit together on Windows 10 and my wife will be back with the cool kids again.

Wow, what a royal fuck up! Enjoyed the game on ps4 though.

Batman: Awful Knight PC (Piece of Crap) edition. I don't get it, shouldn't the PC version be superior over the home console versions. Now it's the other way around...

consoles are a lot easier to code for, theres only one set of hardware, for pc theres millions of different hardware combinations that developers need to have compatibility for.

That's now really how it works. A game isn't coded with tens of millions of if() commands. They're written to (still a sizable amount) drivers such as the GameReady driver for Nvidia cards. The thing that killed this game was the unrealistic deadlines that WB placed on the company that they outsouced development to (Rocksteady).  

Don't they own rocksteady? So it's not really outsourced.

Brain fart. I meant Iron Galaxy, not Rocksteady.

Technically it looks better. You just need monster hardware to run it properly.

I replayed arkham asylum recently, it didn't have the scale of city or origins for that matter, but it was a compact story which worked brilliantly. I want to get arkham knight, but I refuse to buy a game this broken unless it is either in alpha or beta, which this may as well be. Utterly pathetic warner bros... Congrats

And people still ask why many of us play games on console vs PC.

As a PC(Master Race) gamer, I have to agree. Most of the games are made to work, since the Xbox and PS4 have static hardware. As for PC, we have many CPU and GPU vendors, and the drivers(don't get me started with the drivers).

Don't start on the drivers lol.

Price, graphics, detail, selection, mouse percision, availability.. . the list goes on for me. I do like Xbox for local multilayer games, like Just Dance, Halo, and such because I can play with the wife and kids easier Otherwise, it's PC all three way. Just wish the Windows App Store had Steams selection since stream refuses to promote touch based games. Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

PC Master Race, right?

Lol!

So disappointed that it's still a mess. I really wanted to buy it when it was re released. Oh whale :( Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

"whale" lol!

I find it funny that they mention "Issues that we cannot fix." So much for developers and their expertise.

Lack of wanting to put more money in it would be what they cannot fix. Sad really. Should have not rushed anything done it right the first time around. But companies rush rush and rush some more for the greedy green dollar.

The deadlines is what kills us, you are correct.

Bought it there yesterday to give it a shot and it's running really well for me anyway. Running on an i5 4690K, GTX970, 8Gb Ram. Haven't hit any glitches or bugs and I'm about 3-4 hrs in

Damn "Console master race" anybody lol

Time to sack the shonky devs and QA teams that's for sure.

Thank goodness I have a Xbox and PC too.

Off with their heads!

And, this is why I got an Xbox........not that the console games don't have bugs, they are just typically not as bad.

Yep, my Xbox one version works just fine....

If your fine with 900p and 30 fps, then yes.

And despite having 20:20 vision I don't notice the difference between 720p and 1080p and only just notice the difference between 30fps and 60fps. And it's not enough of a difference to kill off a game for me. Maybe I just give too much credit to the gameplay over the graphics. That said I did enjoy Sonic 06.

I'm fine with 900p 30fps that works vs 3000p 100fps with settings on high that don't work..

So I guess consoles > PC......

Because of one game being sh*t on PC? Which is the fault of Warner Bros.

Give me consistency

Guess again

Wow, I can't believe he trouble they are having. I've played it on PS4 and it's great. One has to ask questions like WTF or WTH was QA doing when it was being developed/ported for PC. This is embarrassing I wonder what the problem is because this is a massive PR fail nevermind black eye for the studio. I've seen products fail, as I've worked on MMORPG teams, but this is inexplicable especially after a round two. They should have enlisted a small group of people that would help test the game that had difficulties with compensation along the lines of free games, etc. In house team is either inept or doesn't have the resources or management didn't care and hoped round 2 would be enough to at least take some peoples money.

OMG!!!! I can't believe they have done this again, this was meant to be the most exciting game, it being the last one in the Trilogy!!!! And they go and completely ruin it for PC gamers!!!! I mean I have an XBox One myself, but my brother builds his own PC so he can play these sorts of games on max settings and First of all they stop selling it, so the limited edition I ordered for him not only got cancelled, but hasn't come back up for sale, and now this!!!! Luckily Amazon had a flash sale yesterday and I managed to get the Xbox One limited edition for a good price, but still, I was going to play the Xbox One version and buy him the PC version but it looks like I should just give him the Xbox One Version and he can get the PC version.... What....1st quarter of 2016???!!!!!

Four months and they still couldn't fix it?? Did they even try to do or they were too cheapskate to pour resources into patching the game up?
This is it, never gonna buy a PC on day 1... Posted via the Windows Central App

The team was probably one guy who has basic experience while everyone else is working the next game.

Iron Galaxy had 12 members, but after release Rocksteady studios started work on the PC version I guess... But there's been a steady supply of stuff requested by fans so there are many in Rocksteady probably still working on the console versions Posted via the Windows Central App

This is the worst scenario of a console port being expanded onto PC.

I'm not saying that console ports are a bad idea.

Did you not tell her about 6tag for instagram? My girls Ativ S died and since there's no wp phones at any carriers, she had to borrow an iphone. She says she prefers Facebook and instagram (6tag) on wp over their iphone counterparts

Does anyone else find it extremely ironic that the PC master race cant play a game that's been out for consoles due to continual bugs and performance issues.

"issues that we can not fix"? How could there be issues they can not fix?

There is no such thing, but they only want money in the easiest and quickest way possible. And whoever cares for the gamers... Batman fans will buy anyway... :\