Batman Arkham Knight has been pulled off Steam.

There are reports of Batman Arkham Knight being pulled from the Steam Store. This is a great step in the right direction imo. As a long time Giant Bomb fan, I can't help but think of poor Iron Galaxy.

https://community.wbgames.com/t5/Support-for-PC/June-24-Update-on-PC-Version-of-Arkham-Knight/m-p/575332#U575332

or

http://steamcommunity.com/games/208650/announcements/detail/145587678167685991

Important message about work on an updated version

JUNE 24 - GARY.LAKE-SCHAAL

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 (http://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 athttps://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.

@gizmo88: What did the Dave Lang and crew do? I am missing the reference. I wonder if Batman Arkham Knight got pulled temporary cause of the latest patch. I can't recall the last time a games got pulled cause of its broken state, I don't even think MK X got pulled and from what it sounds like that was way worst.

Apparently, Iron Galaxy was responsible for the PC port. They can't shoulder the blame, but they certainly can share it.

I retracted my post because that post mentions "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"

I imagine it will come into effect shortly.

@melvargh: Ah well that sucks. I remember Origins being completely broken on PC before some patches fixed it. I liked the Arkham Asylum games so hopefully this won't be the general reason for the disdain for this game.

Great news, Iron Galaxy were the one's who did the port of Origins for PC. Where there's smoke there's fire I guess. I wonder if this will damage their reputation much. Poor Dave Lang, never can catch a break.

And then PC people wonder why some of us stick to consoles.

I wonder if they considered it for MKX as well. They definitely should have.

Makes me wonder if this is related to Steam Refunds somehow...

Maybe they should have just delayed the PC version?

Oh well, Rocksteady and Iron Galaxy will continue to be villainized online, while Warner, the publisher with all the power, gets to look like everyones friend.

@i_stay_puft: Iron Galaxy did the port for Arkham Knight. SteamDB shows that Iron Galaxy received a CDkey 2 months ago. Rumored is that they only had 2 months for the PC port.

I have no idea what it takes to port a game of this magnitude but that doesn't sound like a whole lot fo time.

It's now completely gone for me. The price disappeared.

Origins bugs were more universal, stuff like scripting and environmental issues. Performance wise it wasn't any worse than Arkham City. Arkham Knight is a whole different kettle of fish, that shits just on fire.

What a weird year for the PC. It used to be that consoles had the shoddy ports now it's the other way around. I don't know if some of the issues I heard should have been enough for them to take it down but they have obviously been getting enough complaints it makes some sense.

Hopefully it gets fixed soon. It's a fun game

Yep, same. Can still buy that season pass though! I wonder, the game is current 40% on sale at GMG do you think I could buy a key and still redeem it on steam?

Most likely yes, all keys should still be available to redeem.

Let's not forget that PC ports have been doing a relatively bang-up job for the past few years, and while the MKX and Arkham Knight situations are far from minor, they don't necessarily indicate a trend back to the horrible, awful PC ports we got in the beginning of the last console generation.

I couldn't agree more, I was really worried about GTA V being a steaming pile, but I think everyone was surprised with how good it turned out.

@rangers517: The SteamOS, Linux and Mac versions were always marked as coming later in the year. I suspect they'll have the updated Windows version available well before then.

Ah, thanks for pointing that out. Completely misread that. deleted that post so I don't confuse anyone.

Yes they have removed Arkham Knight from steam. Dave Lang seems like a nice enough guy and Divekick and Killer Instinct have been solid but maybe port work just isn't in there wheelhouse. Don't remember hearing good things about the Vita Borderlands port either.

@hippie_genocide said:

lmao, the fact that reviews where embargoed until release date was a sure sign.

@gizmo88 said:

@hippie_genocide said:

lmao

*slow clap*

Well at least Lang cant get the calls that are most likely coming in right now.

We all know who is truly to blame for all this:

@crembaw: totally . Even Mac ports are getting better.

Its a shame this even had to happen but good on 'em for owning up to it.

Man, what a ginormous mess this whole thing has been. Even for fucking Warner Bros., this is a new low.

At least they're taking steps to fix the game, and basically apologizing for releasing a game that needs work to be finished by removing it for sale from steam. It could be just be because of all the returns, but who knows.

This could become a trend now that steam games can be returned for a refund. Stay tuned!

@gizmo88 said:

@hippie_genocide said:

lmao, the fact that reviews where embargoed until release date was a sure sign.

Sure sign of what? Embargoes that end on release day happen all the time and has nothing to do with the quality of the game. Thats not always the case but it's not a concrete thing you can point to and say "this game is probably shit or broken because we cant talk about it till its out".

@fatalbanana said:

@gizmo88 said:

@hippie_genocide said:

lmao, the fact that reviews where embargoed until release date was a sure sign.

Sure sign of what? Embargoes that end on release day happen all the time and has nothing to do with the quality of the game. Thats not always the case but it's not a concrete thing you can point to and say "this game is probably shit or broken because we cant talk about it till its out".

True, but common sense applies most of the time. What's even worse is some Publishers will hold a launch day embargo, but will allow you to publish a review early if you reach a certain score. 9 out of 10 for example. This gives review sites an incentive to score a game higher than they previously might.

Guess I'm now part of the QA department for the PC port.

@gizmo88: Though there is plenty of evidence that Warner Bros only sent out the PS4 versions for review to most sites.

Of course, it would be interesting to see the scores of PC only sites.

You'd think they'd perform some sort of QA testing internally prior to selling a broken game to the public. Wonder who let that one slip.

At the very least, good on them for communicating with fans relatively quickly. Suspending the game from being sold is the right decision and at least people can be refunded.

It still sucks that people were anticipating the game, only to have this happen.

i think this will only add fuel to the fire, sadly. score one for the frothing masses on steam forums, i guess?

also did we change the definition of broken? cause last i saw a ton of people appeared to be in game on steam.

well hope once it comes back up the somewhat irksome graphical issues are mostly remedied, at any rate. sorry it's such a sticking point with many of you.

seems like warner needs to find better companies to do their porting mkx was also a buggy mess on pc when it released

still tempted to get a key off gee emm gee and see for myself how bad it is (if it will even be redeemable and/or they'll honor me with one). gameplay videos with my card seem to show it's not that bad.

I think this makes things clear. Warner Bros. is to blame for outsourcing and rushing PC ports for simultaneous release. Hopefully the bad press won't sink Batman like it did MK, although competition isn't a thing for Batman. I hope they learn their lesson with these 2 releases and allocate the time and resources for a proper release next time.

Maybe all the blame on HVS was unfair. Maybe they were given an impossible task by their publisher.

This all has really sucked, but at least it gave me the opportunity to try out steams refund service. I'll just try this game again in the future when its fixed and on sale. Going to be much more cautious about PC ports from warner bros. from now on.