WB knew Arkham Knight PC was a mess months ago says company employees (Updated with Video source)

[Master Disaster]

Some employees of Warner Bros have spoken out about Arkham Knight PC port and its not good reading. They claim WB knew what state it was in and had done for almost a whole year before release but they did nothing to resolve it and instead just released it as is.
 

You can’t buy Batman: Arkham Knight for the PC right now. Warner Bros. pulled it from digital and physical shelves last week, after players found that the PC version had critical performance issues. From what sources tell Kotaku, however, this shouldn’t have been a surprise for Warner Bros.

“I will say that it’s pretty rich for WB to act like they had no idea the game was in such a horrible state,” said one quality assurance tester who worked on the game for years. “It’s been like this for months and all the problems we see now were the exact same, unchanged, almost a year ago.”

Two sources, requesting anonymity to avoid jeopardizing their careers, spoke with Kotaku over the past week in hopes of explaining how the broken PC version of Arkham Knight made it out the door. They both said that Warner Bros. was aware of the many issues facing Arkham Knight on PC and that the publisher chose to ship the game regardless, not to maniacally screw over customers—but because they believed it was good enough.

Warner Bros. did not return my multiple requests for comment.

After suspending sales of Arkham Knight on PC last Wednesday, the company pointed fans towards Steam’s refund page and promised to do right by players:

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.

The article goes on to say both the dev team and the QA team knew and were logging hundreds of bugs everyday but the dev team were told to concentrate on the console version with a 90/10 console/PC split of the 100 strong dev team being implemented.

It also notes Rocksteady used 720p as the benchmark during development.

Lastly there's unsubstantiated claims on Steam from users who claim they work at various retailers saying that WB have instructed brick & mortor stores to throw retail discs in the trash as the game is so broken it will have to be re issued once it's finished.

Full article = http://kotaku.com/sources-warner-bros-knew-that-arkham-knight-pc-was-a-1714915219?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow

 

Video Source

 

If this is true it's disgusting. WB should end up in court over this.

[Kherm]

Of course they new about it. Filthy bastards.

[Jaybird]

we should stop buying AAA titles and focus our moneys on indie developers and smaller companies. 

[Sidiox]

If course they knew it. Its just the more horrible because of it.

They surely had some test systems and I do not believe that the game ran well on their test systems. 

[sgloux3470]

Of course they knew about it.

 

That said the games flaws are mostly technical issues.  I've been able to play and enjoy the game at a fairly stable 30 FPS at 4K without any major glitches or bugs with the actual gameplay.  My sister gets some weird 10-15 FPS dips with the batmobile/batclaw stuff on her 290 though, but I haven't experience too much of that.

 

Still not as bad as Saints Row 2... that port was so bad it made Saints Row 3's mediocre PC port look amazing.

[Nexxus]

Paying for it now.

[Humbug]

Of course they knew.

They just didn't count on such a major backlash, negative reviews and refunds. It got so bad that they ended up with a red sign on their steam store page that said user reviews- mostly negative, driving away potential buyers. So basically it came to the point where it made business sense to suspend the game and fix it. That way they have to wait a few weeks but they have the chance to get positive reviews which will drive more sales and people will stop asking for refunds.

[mattebad]

I smell a class action lawsuit brewing. They not only knew the game they were releasing was broken, but Nvidia marketed the game as being playable at 60 fps which was not true as it was locked to 30fps. Now we have an actual statement from QA testers stating what we suspeced, all we need know is a law firm that would be willing to take this case to court. This was false marketing and deception at least.

 

If someone more knowledgeable on law could step in and explain what exactly WB could be sued for that would be great

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

it's been proven time and time again, seriously how foolish do they they think of PC community ? you can't half hat a game on PC and except sales.

[dragosudeki]

It would be sad if they didn't know. I think this is what we are going to expect from most publishers/developers because they see that all the early access games are doing pretty good sales, so they don't find it bad to follow suit. They see that PC gamers are find with spending money on a game that is not complete, so they probably find it normal to release their own incomplete game. Even now, many have the mentality that "Oh just wait till they fix it and then we will buy in" but that's the mentality that sorta allows the gaming industry to do shit like this.

[mattebad]

Of course they knew.

They just didn't count on such a major backlash, negative reviews and refunds. It got so bad that they ended up with a red sign on their steam store page that said user reviews- mostly negative, driving away potential buyers. So basically it came to the point where it made business sense to suspend the game and fix it. That way they have to wait a few weeks but they have the chance to get positive reviews which will drive more sales and people will stop asking for refunds.

Most people didn't ask for refunds, they just went ahead and refunded themselves using Steam or GMG. And I'm pretty sure retail stores have a 7 day or 14 day return policy as long as the item is not damaged or tampered in any way.

[The Gaige]

 

With WB!!!

[Nowak]

Oh man. The PC version of Arkham Knight is just the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it?

[Shaade]

we should stop buying AAA titles and focus our moneys on indie developers and smaller companies.

 

Yeah, because they're all so much better...

 

Not really.

[Jaybird]

Yeah, because they're all so much better...

 

I lick my dogs ears.

Depends on what you like. Personally I like ksp, and other indie games.

[Shaade]

Depends on what you like. Personally I like ksp, and other indie games.

 

I was referring to the developers/producers of said games. 

[EarthboundHero]

we should stop buying AAA titles and focus our moneys on indie developers and smaller companies. 

That's the worst solution to anything I've ever heard.

[sqwidee]

Gotta be honest guys...

 

I love my graphics and I love my super fast PC...but I really am sick of how often PC gets shafted as a platform.

 

On any console or handheld I could be getting functional and perfectly decent-looking games to play without all this shit. Real talk.

[Master Disaster]

It's one thing to assume they knew, I mean you'd have to be blind to not know how bad it was.

It's another entirely to be told they knew but chose to ignore it and release it broken assuming it was good enough.

The fact they dedicated 10 employees to the PC and 90 to the console version is mind blowing. It shows us in what stead WB hold PC gamers and its so low its reached the bottom of Ubisoft digging hole from last year, the ladder is so far above us its totally out of sight.

[RagnarokDel]

we should stop buying AAA titles and focus our moneys on indie developers and smaller companies. 

but batman.

[UnknownEngineer]

Of course they knew about it.

 

That said the games flaws are mostly technical issues.  I've been able to play and enjoy the game at a fairly stable 30 FPS at 4K without any major glitches or bugs with the actual gameplay.  My sister gets some weird 10-15 FPS dips with the batmobile/batclaw stuff on her 290 though, but I haven't experience too much of that.

 

Still not as bad as Saints Row 2... that port was so bad it made Saints Row 3's mediocre PC port look amazing.

FPS aside the game still has serious issues. I cannot complete riddlers case unless it is patched, see one of the 243 riddles doesn't work.

MINOR SPOILER YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

At the front of the riddler's hideout there is a trophy, I can complete the riddle as it is supposed to be complete but I cannot pick up the trophy because it is glitched, I have tested several times. I can almost be inside the small ball that contains the trophy, but no prompt to pick it up.

The interaction is buggy in other places as well, I need to stand in a certain spot to interact with the firemen.

[Master Disaster]

FPS aside the game still has serious issues. I cannot complete riddlers case unless it is patched, see one of the 243 riddles doesn't work.

MINOR SPOILER YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

At the front of the riddler's hideout there is a trophy, I can complete the riddle as it is supposed to be complete but I cannot pick up the trophy because it is glitched, I have tested several times. I can almost be inside the small ball that contains the trophy, but no prompt to pick it up.

The interaction is buggy in other places as well, I need to stand in a certain spot to interact with the firemen.

Have you tried using the batline (don't remember its name) to grab it?

[zacRupnow]

WB is digging, for the time being Ubisoft has stopped (aside from still requiring Uplay).

[Humbug]

Most people didn't ask for refunds, they just went ahead and refunded themselves using Steam or GMG.

That's what I meant. Either way it was bad business- negative user reviews and having to give money back to those who did buy it.

[UnknownEngineer]

Have you tried using the batline (don't remember its name) to grab it?

Yes, that doesn't work on trophies that are inside spheres, it only works on exposed ones. Also the ball cannot be destroyed, not even with A FUKING 60mm CANNON!!!!