@spacecouncil: And if thousands of PC customers complain about unacceptable framerate and poor performance, then maybe that's a not-so-subtle-hint to the developers and shouldn't be dismissed as something trivial.

As for Ubisoft, they should have pulled Unity till they fixed it. Same with 343 and Master Cheif collection, rather than continually to take money from a broken product. Recalls exist for other products, I don't see how games get some special exception.

I was just thinking the same thing.

Locking the frame rate to 30 on a PC game in 2015 is probably the biggest red flag of them all.

It also reads of the higher ups at Warner Bros. being like "the PC version isn't where it should be? It will be fine, nobody will care."

It sounds like this game definitely has common technical issues and the onus is on WB to fix them. But it brings up the related issue of setting expectations for a PC release. I'm on the waning end of the PC platform (I can usually play new releases, but not for much longer without replacing just about every component of my rig), so I haven't been very invested in high-end graphics options for the last 5 years. Everything I read about AK pre-release from WB and nVidia touted it as a premium PC experience, so the following is all a hypothetical.

Lets say a publisher was looking at their resources and deciding whether to pursue a PC port for a console-focused developer's game. If they offered a clearly defined choice between an average-hardware-required 30 FPS 1080p experience on par with the console's, or simply not pursuing the port, which would the market choose? I would probably go with the first option, especially if I didn't have access to the console.

I guess the question I'm struggling with is whether unlocked framerates, advanced graphics options, and headroom for high resolutions are strictly required for the PC platform. Could a publisher still put out a minimal PC port without facing a backlash as long as they stated their goal (bringing the console experience to average PC hardware) explicitly?

If their stated goal was that, there would be backlash, and the sales on PC wouldn't be great, but I'm sure a lot of people would still enjoy the game. But that's not the case with this. If Rocksteady came out and said that the PC version would be the same as the console version, people would be upset, but those that really wanted to play Arkham Knight on PC would play it. The impression leading up to release was that the PC version would be the definitive version of the game, including that nvidia GameWorks video that was released showing the game running at a steady 60 FPS with way more graphical effects than what was released.

Laaaaaaaaannnnnnggggggggggg!

@jedikv: No one should have to pull anything. That is a courtesy from WB or or whoever in another case. You bought their product. It does work and operate. If it is not up to your standards of performance that's not their issue (of course if they want to stay in business it is I'm saying as an example) No one should be forced to pull something. Its their product and no one forced you to buy it.

And yet, people keep pre-ordering games.

The amount of sheer idiocy in what you just typed is ASTOUNDING. Just stop... you're only showing everyone just how disconnected you are from rational thought.

@frostmute: Seems like your astounded by basic logic then. Buying a product doesn't give you the right to demand additional performance. As I've already stated. It would be wise for them to heed to the complaints but AGAIN. No one forced you to buy their product.

@spacecouncil: I don't think whether anyone was forced to buy the game is relevant.

I agree with Jedikv that Unity and MCC probably also should've put their sales on hold while they fixed the deep deep problems with those games. That's not me saying that legally someone should've forced them to pull the games; no one's suggested that explicitly. But, there were clearly such terrible problems with those games that the experience of any purchaser would be incredibly frustrating and sub-par. Unity was a hot mess for some time after release, and the multiplayer in MCC simply didn't work for months.

The smart long-term decision in my view would have been to stop selling the games, so that no additional consumers faced such a bad experience. I imagine they didn't do that because it would've cost them serious sales numbers during the holiday buying period. As a result, they've damaged their credibility among consumers.

Let's also not let WB off the hook here. This experience is not as advertised and WB did everything they could to obfuscate what was going on with the PC release. WB waited until the day before release to change the minimum specifications for the PC version. The game would have already been gold for weeks at that point. WB sent out 0 review codes for the PC version. That left consumers with only previous promotional material to rely on, including that NVIDIA video showing 60fps performance and advanced graphical features not in the final release. And that release isn't even comparable to the console release that consumers were able to read about.

Now, WB doesn't HAVE to send out review codes or show video of the game and give detailed specifications before launch. Consumers can and should wait until after launch to purchase, but wouldn't it be better if we didn't have to? If we could buy products on day one with confidence? That said, I and other consumers should complain about these things because they provide consumers with obviously necessary information to make an informed purchase. If we don't complain and require these things as consumers then we'll continue to walk blindly into poor ports and that's not acceptable to me.

@anytus2007: I believe its entirely relevant. I will state again and for the last time. Buying a product does not give anyone the right to demand ADDITIONAL performance and AGAIN this is not to say you are all wrong, it is to say that WB would and IS being wise in fixing the problem. But no where does "I bought this therefore.." mean that it should run at specifications desired by someone else. Yes, it runs poorly. and that sucks. Maybe you shouldn't have bought it.

So, If my car has flat tires when I go to drive it off the lot, I'm not supposed to express my disapproval of the situation and demand that it be fixed? If that is your 'basic logic' you need to go back to whatever educational system failed you and start over.

AGAIN, Buying a product that is broken and doesn't work gives EVERYONE that purchased it the right to demand additional performance. Where the hell do you pull your logic out of? Oh I know where...

AGAIN... we all hear what you are saying and we are all telling you you're fundamentally incorrect and your reasoning is illogical. You can stop repeating your asinine viewpoints that don't make ANY sense.

@frostmute: Cars do not work without tires. This game, Batman: Arkham Knight does work. Just not optimally. Have a good day. EDIT: TRY to have a good day

I also have no issues whatsoever. I can see frame rate dips very well and didn't notice any. Then I ran fraps to be sure, and sure enough, it never drops a single frame below 30. Even in the Batmobile which has been reported to cause the most problems.

I didn't have any space on my SSD so I actually installed it on my regular drive, so that can't be it either. Drivers are up to date, though I assume that's the case for everyone. 980GTX, but people with issues also report having that card.

I am really curious to know what it is though. I've been there were my PC was more than powerful enough, yet I had issues. So I can relate in this case. I guess Alienware isn't as shit as people claim it to be (joke).

This game does not work. I can not play it. You are living in a fantasy world and it's time to grow up.

Have a "great" one.

And here I was looking forward to KI on PC but this was only handled by 12 people, I wondered why they only put so few people on the project? This is a multi-million dollar game and it's Batman. It doesn't even match up to the console versions with no ambient occlusion, bokeh DoF or rain effects (although the PC version does have Nvidia Enhanced Rain). The graphics options menu is also sparse. AA is either on or off with no choice for FXAA, FMAA, SSAA etc or even the level (2X, 4X etc), texture quality maxes out at normal, there's no option at all for anisotropic filtering and there's no way to turn off the motion blur. Let's not forget the framerate is also locked to 30fps. You can edit a lot of this stuff in the ini file but it's 2015 and we shouldn't need to still do that.

They probably should have done what Rock Star does and release each version of the game when it's ready for that platform.

And this is why i buy AAA titles 1 year after release and if they still have glaring bugs in them then there not even worth me time and money and i skip them for ever.

I don't mind paying to be a beta tester World of Warships and stuff but then i do know i am a beta tester I just don't like being a beta tester and not being told about it.

@spacecouncil: Thankfully, I haven't bought the game yet. But, I really think for many people the game simply isn't working as intended. I mean there's some grey area here (is 30 fps too few? how about 20? What if its 40 most of the time but dips to 10, etc.), but I don't think there's any question that many consumers on PC are getting an experience that's substantially worse than those on PS4. There's no overall, complete specification of when a game works and when it doesn't. I mean the weakest definition would probably be that the game runs and you're able to complete it. But that allows for say, 5 average fps and crashes every 20 minutes. I'd hardly call that working. So, there's a continuum here and the best I can say is that the game works significantly worse than your average AAA title on PC, it works worse than most consumers expected, and it works worse than WB implied in their promotional materials. If WB clearly stated the performance level pre-launch then I'd have a bit more sympathy. But, as it stands, they knowingly used unrepresentative and misleading promotional materials to advertise their game, and they sold a product that doesn't conform to the standards generally expected in the industry, set by their promotional materials, or set by their offering on other platforms. I don't think that imposes any legal requirement on WB, but I do this it imposes and ethical requirement and consumers are justifiably demanding that ethical requirement be fulfilled.

The issue of force doesn't enter into my assessment. In the case of a completely nonfunctional product or a fraudulent transaction, it is still the case that no one was forced into the purchase. But, consumers can and should demand compensation for nonfunctional or fraudulent purchases because when you sell something you express an implied agreement that you're accurately representing your product and it fulfills a certain purpose. That implied agreement is the source of the ethical requirements on the seller. Without it, fraud and scams would be totally permissible, forced or not.

@spacecouncil said:

If a car doesn't work optimally (doesn't quite accelerate right), stereo doesn't work, seats aren't the right trim - you are still entitled to a refund/replacement or if it's systemic, there would be a recall. Games should be the same, I don't see how you're able to defend such an anti-consumer practise.

In 2015 the standard requirement for PC games should be 60fps (Stick of truth probably gets a pass given the nature of the game). Just like games on consoles should operate at least with a resolution of 720p (cos apparently 1080 is kind of stretching it these days :/ .). Every platform has a minimum standard that is informally (or formally in terms of marketing of the consoles) agreed upon.

Noticed I got mentioned so I did some digging and this seems to be the source for the 8 weeks claim. Apparently an "Iron Galaxy Dev" code was added 2 months ago (which I can only assume means they put a build on Steam they could generate keys for), which seems to imply that they were given the project then. I am not a developer, nor do I know the dev end of Steam. Steam DB

@jedikv: I'm able to defend it because you bought what was sold. No one one promised you 1080p 60fps consistently . They promised a game that ran and it does.

D Leazy, how you gonna do a brotha' like that?

It really has been a horrible launch. One thing after another. Too bad, too, for such a great game.

This is what was promised - full effects & textures running at stable 60fps. They have not delivered it in any shape or form. Caveat emptor is an poor excuse to cling to and rightfully considered legally indefensible in most civilised countries.

I can't help but wonder how much of this decision is so that when it comes back to Steam, they have a clean slate for user reviews Marvel Heroes-style.

what's really bizzare is that the performance seems random. I'm running an OK not top of the line setup, and I've not had any problems with stutter or artifacting whatsoever. If i'm tearing ass through the city and stuff is blowing up around me, my fps drop to around 40, but otherwise everything is nice and steady. Admittedly I'm only playing at 1080P, but still.

But compare my specs to some rigs the RPS guys were trying to use, and they are basically identical. Their copy apparently runs like hot garbage. So weird.

WB dropped the ball in some way on this, even if LangCo screwed the pooch, it seems like this thing runs poorly for a huge number of people.

Final thought: yes it's dumb that they limited the fps in an ini file to 30 (i assume to try to coverup/account for the poor performance), but it's a 2 second process to change the value to 60 or 120 or whatever you want. YES it's nice when a developer doesn't obfuscate that stuff, but it sounds like that's a damn small problem. At a certain point, I feel that if you are using a pc to play games, running a google search is not beyond the pale.

My initial thought was that Nvidia needed the game to be ready in time with their new flagship graphics card, so Iron Galaxy had a shorter than required time to port the game. Co-Marketing bucks are big money for WB and Nvidia.

@ajamafalous: @atomicoldman:

Crap, you guys are right. That's 100% my bad. I didn't read it closely enough when I was multi tasking.

I went ahead and edited my old post, I don't want to spread unintentionally spread misinformation. Thanks for the catch and correction.

It's disgusting that video games are pretty much expected to be broken at this point. Fuck.

I bet the fact that steam is allowing refunds now has something to do with this decision. I hope they will get it up to standards soon and that this will be the last time a AAA game gets a launch like this on PC. (SPOILERS: it won't be)

So what do you guys think is the real core of the problem here? Are people just rushing too much to meet that deadline? Should the industry adopt a more "When it's done" mentality? I understand that games have gotten WAY more complicated, but this isn't a problem that's going away. And I refuse to believe this is just general incompetence.

I think that there is enough guilt to go around to both Warner Brothers as the publisher of this game and to the Iron Galaxy as the PC port developer of this game.

1) Warner Brothers should have developed the PC port themselves (Rocksteady) rather than deciding to outsource the port to someone else. This is major flagpole product among their franchises which should have meant that everything is in top shape. Not only that but they probably chose Iron Galaxy as the port maker because that developer is probably pretty cheap compared to some other developers who make PC ports. At least they should have delayed the PC port when it came apparent that it wasnt ready to be published.

2) Iron Galaxy shouldnt have accepted the deal to make the port. Some people have said that Iron Galaxy wasnt given enough time to develop the game. But i think that it is highly improbable to assume that the deadline for the finished port wasnt included into the contract that was made between Iron Galaxy and Warner Brothers. Those contracts are pretty detailed and the port makers are probably sanctioned in someway if they arent ablet to meet those deadlines.

3) Iron Galaxy´s reputation for making good PC ports isnt particularly high. Their previous Batman PC port (Batman Arkham Origins) was also pretty problematic when it came out. It has been patched up quite a lot so it runs much better now than it did at launch. Judging from their wikipedia page they have been mainly doing ports to Xbox 360 and PS 3 with a smattering of IOS ports. So it is doubtful that even given more time they would have made a much smoother PC version given how small their development staff seems to be for what is a triple A title. Their experience seems aimed more towards making console ports for older generation of consoles.

Finally I must say that I am disappointed in how Austin omitted any mention of Iron Galaxy from his article. Lots of other sites (eurogamer, polygon, kotaku, gamespot) have mentioned Iron Galaxy as the maker of the PC port but not Austin. This seems to me to be more of a case of how closely tied Giant Bomb as the site is to Iron Galaxy than it really being a case of having a hard time to figure out who developed the different versions of the game. Since Iron Galaxy did the PC port for the Batman: Arkham Origins it is pretty logical to conclude that they did this port too especially when their name is in the credits of the game.

After the Master Chief Collection disaster I have learned to not go anywhere near a midnight launch of any video game. It's absolutely pathetic how many broken AAA games have been released the past few years and nothing seems to change. People need to stop pre ordering games and then maybe they will get the message. Some of the comments in here that are actually defending these guys are blowing my mind. This trend of complete lack of dedication to quality and this DLC nonsense is what's gonna turn people off from gaming completely.

Maybe the market should crash again.

now after 46 hours playing it. I can't start the game now because of an fatal error what the fuck is this?

Broken games are still getting released, I see. Poor show.

Wow wow wow.

@nardak: Austin has stated why he didn't mention Iron Galaxy in the comments.

Remember when they told us this would be out in 2014?

PCs aren't limited to those that know their way around .ini files and there's a huge risk when it comes to directly modifiying game data like that. It's still an issue if the developer is unable to implement basic options in an easily accessible fashion.

C'mon guys, just because Dave Lang's company worked on a broken ass game doesn't mean he can't be your friend anymore. There's zero need to clutch at straws defending a company that simply did a shoddy job, Iron Galaxy or not. They should've either done a a better job or not accepted a contract they couldn't fulfil without compromising the quality. Game's busted, and all parties involved deserve be called out.

If I were WB, I would sooner delay my PC port and let the game get the good press it deserves than release for a distraction like this.

I didn't find that reply to be very convincing as it stopped being speculation quite quickly when Rocksteady revealed Iron Galaxy was their partner early on (bad form to do that in my opinion). How much of it was Iron Galaxy's fault is a completely different question but that doesn't stop them being a part of the story.

@spacecouncil:

They shouldn't have to suspend sales. But, if you aren't happy with the product you should be able to get a refund. And you can, so, yay.

@ds9143: I don't see how sales shouldn't be suspended. If the product is busted, you take it of the (virtual) shelves.

I am sort of against this. Stop giving them money up front so they'll learn not to release broken games; I get the idea behind it. But really, they should just accept pre-orders and make the game work. We as a community have already proven that speaking up works, voting with our wallets doesn't. For every person that doesn't buy the game in question, two others do. We've seen Destiny change even with the tremendous sales numbers, by speaking up.

I don't want this world where we never buy new games that come out, all wait for reviews, then one of us buys it a day later, informs the rest of us, and then we all start buying it slowly the next week. I like being hyped up for a game, getting it the second it's released and playing it without having anyone tell me their experience with it first. That shouldn't go away, simply because it doesn't have to. If we speak up, this will change.

In fact, we could've all bought Arkham Knight and then all posted that the game is busted beyond belief. It would have done a hell of a lot more than a couple of thousand people not buying it.

I think the idea of 'voting with your wallet' is tremendously flawed, because you have no influence over what anyone else does with their wallet. 'But if everyone did that...' let me stop that idea right there: that's never going to happen. We're far beyond the point of hypotheticals.

That's an ideal/naive world scenario that doesn't really work. Most people don't buy cars, televisions, phones etc without reading reviews or testing it out, games are not some special exception. Like the aforementioned items, there's a lot of moving parts in a game that need to be evaluated before one can make an informed purchase. (Books and movies don't have the same issue). Not to mention the fact that in a lot of places, getting a refund for a game is still pretty hard outside of Steam and Origin.

I'm not discounting vocal feedback from customers (it works when it's organised and large enough e.g. Xbone DRM), but ultimately, money is what keeps these companies running. When they see their revenues slip, they're more motivated to take action.

Aside from pre-ordering in this day and age being completely stupid, if you want to buy a game day one and fall for all the hype and that circus, go ahead - but it's not the most wise move to make as a consumer.