Batman: Arkham Knight's Big CE cancelled one week before game launch

[Bouzoo]

 

This is a great example why we should not pre-order games (I still stand behind my statement that I would pre-order ME:A if they shipped Lego Normandy with it) because no matter how big the game is, customers may end up being hurt the most. Read the whole post before commenting, you might miss some details.

 

So what happened? The CE at talk was Batman: Arkham Knight Batmobile Edition which, as you see above, included a statue of Batmobile. The problem was, somewhere in manufacturing things went wrong and the Batmobile ended being far worse quality than it was expected so Warner Bros decided just not to release the product. The bundle was priced at £170 / $200 / €200.

 

This is the statement from Warner Bros.

 

Dear Batman: Arkham Fans,

 

We regret to inform you that we are not able to release the Batmobile Collector’s Edition of Batman: Arkham Knight due to unforeseen circumstances that greatly compromised the quality of this extremely limited run of product. We are deeply apologetic for this unfortunate outcome. If you did pre-order the Batmobile Collector’s Edition, please go to the retail location where you pre-ordered the product and you will receive a full refund of your deposit or it can be rolled over to another Batman: Arkham Knight edition or another product of your choice. We will be providing everyone who purchases Batman: Arkham Knight with the New 52 skin pack, including Batman, Robin and Nightwing, free of charge.

 

 

This is what Amazon send to it's customers

Hello,

 

We’re contacting you about your pre-order XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXX for Batman: Arkham Knight Batmobile Edition - PlayStation 4. We recently learned this item will no longer be released by the manufacturer as expected. As a result, we canceled your order and you have not been charged. We apologize for any disappointment or inconvenience this may have caused.

 

Substitute items are available under different item numbers. To place a new order for the substitute item, you can visit the product detail page here:

Batman: Arkham Knight - PS4 (Standard Edition) - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

Batman: Arkham Knight - Xbox One (Standard Edition) - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

Batman: Arkham Knight - The Serious Edition (Comic Bundle) - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

Batman: Arkham Knight - The Serious Edition (Comic Bundle) - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

To help make up for the inconvenience, we’re giving you a $20 promotional credit. You can redeem this promotional credit by entering in the code below during checkout:

XXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXX

This promotional code will expire on September 30, 2015.

We appreciate your business and hope to see you again soon.

 

Sincerely,

Customer Service

Amazon.com

 

They are giving full refunds to people who preordered Batmobile Edition and discounts for various other editions, and everyone who purchases the game is getting free DLC? This was expected so kudos there. My problem is all the people that pre-ordeered and find out about this a week before game launch, that's not a cool thing.

 

But to end this beautiful story, here is a bonus (the best part), people who-preordered the game will be getting exclusive content, that won't be exclusive as they tought.

Second, as I know many people have been asking about the details and content of Season Pass and if or when people will get the content. I hope the following makes things clear:

 

Throughout the 6 months of additional Batman: Arkham Knight content, Premium and Season Pass owners will receive all in-game content that is offered through various retail pre-order incentives. This includes the Harley Quinn and Red Hood Story Packs, as well as any Batmobile or Booster Pack that was available as early bonuses for pre-order of the game.  For those who did not receive the content with their game, these items will become available when their respective exclusivity windows expire in August/September.

 

The tl;dr version of this is: Premium Edition & Season Pass owners will receive all retail exclusive DLC after their respective early access periods expire. 

 

Let this be a lesson, do not pre-order games.

[spoiler=In the words of TotalBiscuit]

 

Sources: 1, 2, 3

[Unlikelyjoker]

Yay a discount.....

Wooooo

[Blebekblebek]

if they sucks, I expect them to ship that broken figures to their consumers.

they offer refunds, close pre-order site, what so bad about it?

[Bouzoo]

if they sucks, I expect them to ship that broken figures to their consumers.

they offer refunds, close pre-order site, what so bad about it?

People were hyped for this, pre-ordered it more than half a year ago, and they get slapped a week before launch. I suppose that's the risk they take. Also the exclusive content that isn't exclusive.

[Humbug]

A bit Off-topic but remember guys- if it stutters or is badly optimized on day 1 request a refund immediately after checking the usual suspects such as driver updates. Mention the problem and your hardware on the steam refund form.

You can buy it later when it's fixed, but it's important to send a message.

[Nexxus]

I will say its good of them to do this rather then just say fuck it and put it out the door. So good on them. But ya..dont preorder.

[Epis]

It is unfortunate that they had to cancel this (and only a week before launch, yikes) but I believe it is much better to get a refund than to spend $200 on this special edition and receive a poorly manufactured product. There is another Collector's Edition version of the game which features a Batman statue and it is still available in some stores.

[Unlikelyjoker]

People were hyped for this, pre-ordered it more than half a year ago, and they get slapped a week before launch. I suppose that's the risk they take. Also the exclusive content that isn't exclusive.

ITS OKAY THOUGH THEY GET A 20 EURO DISCOUNT ON THE NEXT ONE DOWN!

[That Norwegian Guy]

let this be a lesson, do not pre-order games.

 

Unfortunately, I'm convinced at this point that remaining game consumers who still pre-order aren't the lesson learning kind.

[WereCat]

They are refunding money back so whats wrong?

[Toddwjp]

They are refunding money back so whats wrong?

 

in the uk there the edition that comes with the art book and comic is sold out so even though they got there money back they cant buy the edition with everything but the bat-mobile. 

[Commander Llama]

Despite the rather negative bias by OP.... This sucks but what's the big issue?

 

WB is bad for cancelling an edition when they realized the quality is bad?  Isn't that a good thing?  Not ideal, but the responsible thing to do.

[Bouzoo]

Despite the rather negative bias by OP.... This sucks but what's the big issue?

 

WB is bad for cancelling an edition when they realized the quality is bad?  Isn't that a good thing?  Not ideal, but the responsible thing to do.

The responsible thing yes, I agree, and cancelling also I agree, but they had (the company the makes the statues) half a year to make them properly and they cancel it now, many people were hyped for this and they were let down a week before the launch. But thumbs up for giving the discount and refunds. The bigger problem I find to be saying the pre-order content is gonna be exclusive when it's not, exclusive should be then only for pre-orders (I don't like that fact but it's what it is) but if you're gonna advertise it then they should say what's what. Now others are gonna get it too (you saw the first post). Biased? Yes, I am completely against pre-ordering but can't tell the people what do with their money. Here we see pre-ordering that doesn't give exclusive content that it should (I find exclusive to mean only you get it, glad that others are gonna get it but then if people pre-order just to get that content when they could get it another way, what's the point of pre-ordering then?) and cancelling a week before the launch. I think it's a better thing to wait and see what's what, but that's just me.

[moustacheman]

if this is a recent development then why did it take so long for them to realise the poor quality of the models? 

[Guest]

Well to be fair, it was most likely manufacturing issues - not WB just 'deciding' to cancel it - that made this happen. Likely they were trying to resolve it for a while, which led them to have to announce it so close to release.

 

Good news? Everyone gets the New 52 pack. More good news? The also recently confirmed all retailer-exclusive content is coming to anyone with the season pass / premium edition later on. Maybe sites like Polygon and IGN can finally shut the HELL up about how 'this is such an atrocity.'

[RH00D]

if this is a recent development then why did it take so long for them to realise the poor quality of the models? 

 

This is what I was thinking. It appears they did not do any prior manufacturing tests to check the quality beforehand. They just seem to have started the manufacturing for the full batch then realized "Oh shit, the quality is horrible, we can't actually sell these, cancel the CE bundle."

 

Its good that they are doing a refund instead of releasing and poor quality product but they really should have done some quality testing before they started advertising and taking pre-orders on the bundle.

[sylarspock]

well at least the cancellation is handled properly

they could have chosen to just send the crappy product and fleece the customers

^ at least that seems to be the norm for the PC Game industry, bad, unstable ports of games and fleece us

[moustacheman]

This is what I was thinking. It appears they did not do any prior manufacturing tests to check the quality beforehand. They just seem to have started the manufacturing for the full batch then realized "Oh shit, the quality is horrible, we can't actually sell these, cancel the CE bundle."

 

Its good that they are doing a refund instead of releasing and poor quality product but they really should have done some quality testing before they started advertising and taking pre-orders on the bundle.

this whole thing seems really strange...

they would have to had to produce them month(s) a ago, games go gold a month before release, at least. I get why they didn't tell anyone, its not a good look to spray shit in your own mouth during E3, but this really dodgy. 

[Derangel]

This is what I was thinking. It appears they did not do any prior manufacturing tests to check the quality beforehand. They just seem to have started the manufacturing for the full batch then realized "Oh shit, the quality is horrible, we can't actually sell these, cancel the CE bundle."

 

Its good that they are doing a refund instead of releasing and poor quality product but they really should have done some quality testing before they started advertising and taking pre-orders on the bundle.

 

The Batmobile edition was only announced last September, after the first delay. It's not like they had final models on hand for over a year. That isn't how it works either. Things like this go through prototype phases to decide on the final design and features, which can take months. After all the prototyping is done the customer approves it for final production, which can take time depending on the complexity of the product being made. The final run units aren't shipped to the customer until the order is finished. Depending on when they got their order in it may have been too late to get things changed or they may have been trying to get it fixed and ran out of time.

[JAKEBAB]

This rarely happens and they give you your money back so who gives a fuck, im still going to pre order things for stuff like this lol.

[EChondo]

I don't get what the big deal is, people put money down for this and instead of releasing a shit product they refund everyone and make the lower editions of the game have additional content for free because of their mess up, but this is bad? Would you rather they release a low quality product?

 

I literally see no downside other than disappointment that this couldn't be fulfilled. And this whole "This is a great example why we should not pre-order games", really? This is like the first time I've ever heard of a manufacturer doing anything like this and they decided to NOT shaft the customer by shipping a crap product.

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't pre-order and I'm a huge Fallout fan, but this is one of the worst examples to say why we shouldn't pre-order things.