'Batman: Arkham Knight' PC Players Slam Rocksteady Studios' Free Game Compensation Gift [Update 14]

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

Update 14 - "Batman: Arkham Knight's" broken PC port has been problematic since June, and its developers at Rocksteady Studios have offered a gift to those still putting up with its issues. The problem is, many users aren't happy with the compensation.

 

The news comes to Design & Trend via a post in the "Batman: Arkham" Reddit community and Rocksteady's official announcement from October. It states that PC gamers have essentially been given the "Batman: Arkham Collection" as a token of appreciation. This setup includes complimentary copies of "Batman: Arkham Asylum" "Batman: Arkham City," "Batman: Arkham Origins" and "Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate." The titles are available to those that purchased "Batman: Arkham Knight" before Nov. 16.

Getting four games for the price of one hardly sounds like a raw deal on the surface, but the series' most diehard fans aren't thrilled by the promotion. For one, it's likely that many gamers that bought "Batman: Arkham Knight" might have those older titles in their libraries already. This is especially true since Knight is the final game in Rocksteady's trilogy. In a sense, a person isn't likely to hop into the new entry without spending some time with the previous ones.

 

Another unquestionable flaw comes in how the free games were delivered. The titles were essentially just dropped into a qualifying user's library without asking them what they'd like to do with the downloads first. Those that already owned the Arkham games feel that they should have had the option to gift the items to a friend. Instead, they were simply given whatever portion of the set wasn't already present.

 

So if I already owned all of the games, I get nothing? Not even the games put into my inventory so I can give them to friends? 

 

Source : http://www.designntrend.com/articles/66034/20151205/batman-arkham-knight-pc-slam-rocksteady-studios-free-game-gift.htm

 

Update 13 - 

It looks like the Arkham Knight PC saga is finally over, though it looks like the game was too broken to get all of the features it promised working properly. While Arkham Knight has been available to buy on Steam once again for a few weeks now, we were still expecting one last patch for multi-GPU support, unfortunately, it looks like it won’t ever be coming.

 
The game runs okay at this point on single cards but Warner has also been promising an SLI/CrossFire fix since it began outlining its patches over the summer. However, according to one of the developers over at WB, the team just didn’t want to risk it anymore.
 

Answering a question on the Steam Forum, a WB developer account said: “We’ve been working with our development and graphics driver partners over the last few months to investigate utilizing multi-GPU support within Batman: Arkham Knight. The result was that even the best case estimates for performance improvements turned out to be relatively small given the high risk of creating new issues for all players.”
 
Since the gains were minimal, likely due to deeper issues with the game and the way it was created from the beginning, the team stopped pursuing multi-GPU support in-case it caused any more issues, just after finally getting the game working to an acceptable standard.

 
Update 12 - 
Batman: Arkham Knight back on Steam, WB giving away free Arkham games
 
The Windows PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight, as promised, is back on Steam. To commemorate the game's relaunch, publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is giving away a bunch of Batman games and other freebies to anyone who already purchased the game or purchases it by mid-November.
 
Warner Bros. will give away free digital copies of Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, Batman: Arkham Origins and Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate to Steam users who bought the PC version of Arkham Knight before 11:59 p.m. PT on Nov. 16, 2015. The games will be added to Steam users' libraries sometime in December, WBIE said in a post on Steam.
 
Developer Rocksteady is also working on a Community Challenge Pack that will be given free to owners of Batman: Arkham Knight in January 2016. Players who own the PC version of Arkham Knight will get that add-on pack earlier than console owners will


http://steamcommunity.com/games/208650/announcements/detail/128710596369779495

We are very sorry that many our customers continue to be unhappy with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight. We worked hard to get the game to live up to the standard you deserve but understand that many of you are still experiencing issues. 
 
Until the end of 2015, we will be offering a full refund on Batman: Arkham Knight PC, regardless of how long you have played the product. You can also return the Season Pass along with the main game (but not separately). For those of you that hold onto the game, we are going to continue to address the issues that we can fix and talk to you about the issues that we cannot fix. 
 
 
Thank you, 
 
Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment 
 
 
EDIT BY VALVE: For users still running into playtime based refund rejections, we are looking into what is causing those. Please wait to re-submit your refund until we have this resolved. Thank you.

 
Update 11 - 
After four months of sale suspension, Warner Bros. brought Batman: Arkham Knight back to Steam. The new version is the most updated one, having received two patches to iron things out and deliver an acceptable port.
 
However, according to the publisher, two of the issues the game suffered initially have not been fixed in the new release. “After extensive testing, a hard drive paging issue with some GPUs on Windows 7 may occur after extended gameplay sessions,” reads a new update by Warner.
“If you encounter this, simply re-launching the game will resolve the issue.”
 
This paging issue is one of the key reasons most PC users suffered from hitching and and stuttering, which was arguably the most egregious and hard to put up with out of any of its other problems.
 
Furthermore, the new blog post advises users on Windows 10 to have at least 12GB of RAM for the game to “operate without paging and provides a smoother gameplay experience.” The game’s recommended specs still ask for 8GB of RAM.
 
Looking over Reddit, as well as the Steam forums, reveals a bleak picture as well. A large number of users are reporting massive performance issues, with some claiming the new patches have made things worse.
 
Crucially, key issues such as stuttering, freezing and dropped frames still plague the game, despite it mostly achieving 60fps on high-end hardware, according to a few Reddit users.
 
Some fans are cynically believing all the re-release achieved was deliver add-on content to those who own the season pass, not to mention add support for future DLCs.

 
Update 10 - 
Four months after being pulled from sale due to poor performance, bugs and various other inadequacies, the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knightgoes back on sale next week, along with all the DLC early PC players have missed.
 
Warner Bros. promised the end of this month, and here we are. The game goes back on sale at 1 PM Eastern next Wednesday the company said in a statement on Steam, coinciding with a release of a content patch that includes Photo Mode, Big Head Mode, character selection and AR challenges. Season pass holders will gain access to all of the story packs released so far, excluding console exclusives.

Source : http://steamcommunity.com/games/208650/announcements/detail/128710064900030355
 
Update 9 - 
Batman: Arkham Knight patch released, removed , might be close to releasing the fixed game on PC. 

Steam users who opted into the beta version of Batman: Arkham Knight managed to get hold of a patch yesterday that apparently fixed a lot of the problems the game had at launch. As of writing, however, the patch is no longer available.
 
Many of those in the forums who did manage to try the patch have said it makes the game run "butter smooth", with one reporting that it adds lots of graphics options and "even a bar to show how much Vram is being used". Another says they got constant 60fps, with possibly only a minor drop when driving.
 
Warner Brothers did say recently that we'd receive a new patch in the next few weeks, one that would fix the worst issues and expand the graphics options, so hopefully that's what these beta users managed to get their hands on and the rest of us should get it soon. Maybe then the game will be re-released, and then we'll get our hands on that Batgirl DLC.
 

 
Update 8 -
 
Batman: Arkham Knight On PC Won't Be Back Until Fall

 

 
 

 
Update 7 : 

Warner Bros. Knew That Arkham Knight PC Was A Mess For Months : http://kotaku.com/sources-warner-bros-knew-that-arkham-knight-pc-was-a-1714915219

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/398254-wb-knew-arkham-knight-pc-was-a-mess-months-ago-says-company-employees/

 

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.

Rocksteady and "external PC development partner of 12 people" investigating Batman: Arkham Knight performance issues

 
Update 6 : 



The first patch for the game comes in at 67MB and brings some important fixes to the mix, such as allowing motion blur to be disabled in the .ini file, allowing users to verify their game files in Steam without having to re-download the whole game and fixing up a bug that disabled rain and ambient occlusion effects that are present in the console versions of the game.



Update 5 : Warner Brothers suspends sales of PC version suspended until its fixed : http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/393463-official-batman-arkham-knight-pc-sales-suspended/



Update 4:  http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/392827-batman-arkham-will-not-be-uncapped-beyond-30-fps-anytime-soon-on-pc/

Update 3: https://steamdb.info/app/208650/subs/




Update 2 : 

The twelve people credited for working on the PC version of Arkham Knight work for Iron Galaxy Studios, a lesser known developer that has primarily developed for the last generation consoles and iOS. This is the team that worked on Destiny for the PS3, the PS Vita version of Borderlands 2 and helped out in the development of Batman: Arkham Origins, which also suffered heavily on the PC at launch.



Now obviously someone at either Rocksteady or Warner Bros made a huge mistake outsourcing the PC version of Arkham Knight. The team that worked on the PC port was made up of just 12 people and the studio definitely does not have a background in PC development judging by their list of projects.

Update 1: So QA you say....



Batman: Arkham Knight developer Rocksteady has acknowledged that the game's PC version has launched with serious performance issues.

as reported by many users already on the forum : 
http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/392112-arkham-knight-30fps-lock-and-multiple-gpu-issues/




 
In a statement posted to its official support site this afternoon, the studio said it was now working with its "external PC development partner" on a fix.
 
Rocksteady does not name the studio that is working with, but users report that the game's credits point to Iron Galaxy Studios as responsible.
 
That company previously worked on the PC version of Warner Bros. Montreal's Batman: Arkham Oranges, as well as the recent Killer Instinct: Season Two.
 
 

Rocksteady has finally got its act together and is working closely with the team over at Iron Galaxy Studios in order to get the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight up to scratch after its initial release fell flat and had to be pulled from Steam entirely.

Batman Arkham knight will be remain Capped at 30 FPS and have no plans to unlock it by the devs : 

Seems like the company Iron Galaxy Studios Dev Comp had 2 months to Port the game to the PC. 

Now we are starting to get a clearer picture of where things went wrong on the development side as Rocksteady has revealed that it used an “external PC development partner” to make the PC version of the game. Not only did Rocksteady not have a hand in the PC version but development was outsourced to a small studio made up of just twelve people.

"We're aware that some users are reporting performance issues with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight,"

Rocksteady community manager.
 

"This is something that Rocksteady takes very seriously. We are working closely with our external PC development partner to make sure these issues get resolved as quickly as possible.
We'll update this thread when we've got more info to share."

 

 
PC owners have taken to the game's Steam page to leave nearly 2000 negative reviews since the game went on sale earlier today.
 
Digital Foundry is currently working on a full PC treatment. Perhaps tellingly, no PC code was supplied to press prior to the game's launch today.

It's also reported the game runs at 60 FPS during the benchmark but returns to a 30 FPS lock back in the main game.

I still don't get why PC users are treated any differently if we are paying the same game, i can understand they delayed the game a whole year to polish, you'd think rocksteady atleast played the game once before release, this all becomes shady as Rocksteady changed the system requirements right before the launch as well. 

http://www.pcgamer.com/batman-arkham-knight-system-requirements-updated-just-ahead-of-launch/

Source : http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2015/06/23/rocksteady-wb-games-acknowledges-batman-arkham-knight-pc-problems.aspx

http://community.wbgames.com/t5/Support-for-PC/PC-Performance-issues-we-hear-you/m-p/571341
 
 
Why Pre order needs to die : http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/376554-pre-orderexclusives-this-practise-needs-to-die/

[Unlikelyjoker]

Well im sure they had a hell of a long time to at least test their own game.

[werto165]

I would refund, then again I bought it off green Man gaming fucked either way. Oh the joys, bought this game for my brother and i to play together bitterly disappointed.

[Aytex]

early access steam much

[Techhog]

early access steam much

Most early access games are more complete than this. This is a beta release.

[Tech_Dreamer]

[Aytex]

Most early access games are more complete than this. This is a beta release.

more like pre alpha ingame footage lol, my friend who is playing it right now says it runs like shit buts its a 7/10 for gameplay

[Aytex]

 

you can actualyl change it

[Techhog]

more like pre alpha ingame footage lol, my friend who is playing it right now says it runs like shit buts its a 7/10 for gameplay

Yeah, I meant to say alpha. The gameplay is good when you're not in the tank doing a battle where you're completely surrounded and can only attack more than one thing at a time if you have a very long combo going. Frankly, the tank is the only gameplay issue, but there's a lot of it. 8.5 at least. GameSpot probably gave that 7 because they were frustrated by the battles.

[dragosudeki]

 

I thought it was locked after a certain part? You would also think these issues would be noticeable the first playthrough of the game? Sorta makes you question the studios' ability to do their job... Or at least their ability to actually design a good game. In both cases, it is only their fault for the bad feedback.

[DaRk0]

But but but... isn't all Nvidia's fault?

[qwertywarrior]

do people even enjoy this game ?

i didnt even bother playing it

looked like your average fighting game but without guns

[jaggysnake57]

its a shame i had high hopes for this game looks like i will be waiting for a steam sale for this

[jaggysnake57]

do people even enjoy this game ?

i didnt even bother playing it

looked like your average fighting game but without guns

 

play arkham city and see by far the best of the bunch

[spartaman64]

people will still find a way to bash amd for making them outsource to a 12 people team

[Mulsanne]

people will still find a way to bash amd for making them outsource to a 12 people team

I don't get what AMD has to do with this and your comment only serves to create needless drama and flaming, please don't

[spartaman64]

I don't get what AMD has to do with this and your comment only serves to create needless drama and flaming, please don't

i dont get what amd has to do with this either but still people insist that its all amd's fault for not magically fixing everything with a driver

[zMeul]

the 3rd party seems to be Iron Galaxy Studios and looks like they only had 2 months to port it: https://steamdb.info/app/208650/subs/

[Ktwo]

I refuse to make another thread highlighting this, but there's a graphic comparison video that outlines that the PC versions Ambient Occulusion seems to not be working at all. Here's the link to the video:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BcV6LWVDaw

 

In the description:

''We compare Batman Arkham Knight on PC PS4 and Xbox One. PC is set to maximum settings with 60fps enabled in the config.ini. The PC version has no or only a very slight ambient occlusion. You cannot set ambient occlusion in the graphics menu. But we checked the config files and it was always set to TRUE. So maybe it is a bug that will be fixed soon and this occurs whit and without 30fps cap. There were frame drops while driving the car or in cutscenes. Another time I had extreme textures loading issues. This seems to be a bad PC launch.''

[Mulsanne]

 

 

Only 12 men, eh? 

Was a Bolton heading the port process? 

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

 

Only 12 men, eh? 

Was a Bolton heading the port process? 

that would actually mean 20, so no.

[Mulsanne]

that would actually mean 20, so no.

 

Well, budget cuts probably prevented him from getting the 20 good men he needed. 

 

I need to stop watching GoT, this off season is going to be brutal 

[Castdeath97]

So they pulled a full ET on it? Exactly the same lousy behaviour that ended up crashing Atari.

[MrDynamicMan]

12 people... To build an entire PC port!? For a AAA game? Are you out of your fucking mind! They don't even have any major PC releases! Jesus Christmas...

[iMikeTheKing]

I have to give it to the port team. 12 men and two months to port a AAA release is a great job even though it has it's bugs.