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[Bluth54]

Have you played a Bethesda game?

With the type of games that Bethesda makes they could test for years and still not find all the bugs millions of players will find by playing the game the first few days.

 

[Zakalwe]

Eh

They often launch in poor states and the community fixes them long before the official patches do.

 

[iNvid02]

I doubt this can be really placed on them. They were only given 8 weeks to do a full PC port. Usually QA testing takes longer than that.

That's incorrect, if you're going off that steamdb thing then it was already debunked (8 weeks was the time it was last modified, that actual entry has been there for something like a year at least).

 

[Noray]

We don't know exactly what happened between them. Small teams have achieved great things before, and huge teams with massive budgets have screwed up before. For all we know Iron Galaxy had the capability to make a decent port but genuinely screwed up or wasted time. We have no idea.

That's kind of my point, though. Even if Iron Galaxy had all the time and resources they needed (doubtful but for argument's sake) and fucked it up, it's still WB who said "well we're publishing this." You talk about responsibility, and it's exactly that - WB is ultimately responsible for pulling the trigger. The only situation I can see where this is straight-up 100% IG's fault is if they knew the game had significant issues but fronted like everything was okay and basically sold WB (and us) a bill of goods, but that's highly doubtful as that would ruin their business relationship and probably their reputation in the industry.

I'm not trying to make excuses here, but it's just how it is. The publisher should be first and foremost held accountable for a game being released in an unfit state, because they're the ones who make the budgetary calls and decide when it's released.

edit: turns out pcgamer just published a piece that goes deeper on this: http://www.pcgamer.com/broken-bat-finding-the-good-and-bad-in-the-arkham-knight-debacle/ Salient point:

Withdrawing a game from sale is an unprecedented admission of error.

 

[Zakalwe]

That's kind of my point, though. Even if Iron Galaxy had all the time and resources they needed (doubtful but for argument's sake) and fucked it up, it's still WB who said "well we're publishing this." You talk about responsibility, and it's exactly that - WB is ultimately responsible for pulling the trigger. The only situation I can see where this is straight-up 100% IG's fault is if they knew the game had significant issues but fronted like everything was okay and basically sold WB (and us) a bill of goods, but that's highly doubtful as that would ruin their business relationship and probably their reputation in the industry.

I'm not trying to make excuses here, but it's just how it is. The publisher should be first and foremost held accountable for a game being released in an unfit state, because they're the ones who make the budgetary calls and decide when it's released.

Agreed.

WB had the power to look at the PC port and delay it, pass it on to someone else if they weren't happy with the quality or give IG more time.

But they were greedy for the day one sales.

Thankfully we have Steam Refunds.

 

[Roshin]

GAME stores on the UK have also stopped selling the game on PC due to WB request, GMG is not selling the game anymore and it's given refunds to those who request it, this is more serious than I thought meaning it will be a while before we see a patch for the game cause I don't think they'll risk releasing a quick fix knowing they'll probably get an even worse reaction from people

When they release it again, everyone will tear it apart looking for bugs, so it needs to be near flawless. It wont be easy.

 

[RealityCheque]

So how long do we think it'll take for them to fix it?

Over/under 3 months?

I'll take all bets!

 

[King Gilga]

I don't really see why I should give them props for fucking up the port so bad they had tot take it off sale.

Maybe don't be cheap asses and higher a decent dev and give them more time next time?

It's their own damn fault, I have no pity for them.

 

[The Elite]

I guess this means the issue won't be fixed anytime soon.

 

[LAA]

So how long do we think it'll take for them to fix it?

Over/under 3 months?

I'll take all bets!

It could be done on a fix by fix basis though. I would think the priority is definitely the stuttering/fps/memory leak(?) issues. I would think people would be for an update to fix that ASAP so they can at least play the game, then updates to fix/add all the features missing from the PS4 version. I remember reading the possibility of a missing day 1 patch? Could this be it? What happened to the patch supposedly made in 12mins on the steam db?

 

[SeeNoWeevil]

What are you trying to accomplish with this post, exactly? Claim that everyone who didn't buy the game on Steam is as responsible for this debacle as WB/Iron Galaxy? Nice.

Everyone who bought grey-market keys is part of the problem, yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. How people can think £18 is enough for a new, big-budget game is beyond me. I guess they don't, they just hope there's enough people still paying the asking price for it to work.

 

[Lilalaunebaer]

So how long do we think it'll take for them to fix it?

Over/under 3 months?

I'll take all bets!

Under.

Rerelease in june. Added effects. Performance still utter shite.

Actually fix it? As in good PC port?

 

[d00d3n]

Can GMG even remove games that they have already given out and that have been registered on Steam?

 

[nibblemonkey]

Can GMG even remove games that they have already given out and that have been registered on Steam?

They could get WB to revoke the keys but I think that would just make things worse

 

[Zakalwe]

Can GMG even remove games that they have already given out and that have been registered on Steam?

Yeh, I'm curious to understand how this process works exactly.

 

[sflufan]

A post on the Playfire blog stated that when a GMG refund request is granted, the keys associated with the request will be transmitted to WB for deactivation/removal from Steam.

 

[d00d3n]

They could get WB to revoke the keys but I think that would just make things worse

Yeh, I'm curious to understand how this process works exactly.

So, it wouldn't really be cheating the system if you ask for a refund from GMG, while actually keeping the PC version, and buy the PS4 version as well Same amount of money paid, but access to the game I paid for as well as a working version on PS4 while I wait.

I guess you would lose out on any reward for being an early adopter on this mess, though ...

 

[M.Steiner]

Posted in the other threads but refunded GMG keys will be deactivated:

Hi folks. Just to answer a couple of questions...

You'll be able to get a refund for Premium Edition and Season Pass too if you choose
We'll be sending a list of refunded keys to WBIE for deactivation – so if you've bought the game and ask for a refund, do be aware that your digital key will deactivated soon after.

In terms of timeframe and our previous update, we've not yet received an indication of timing from WBIE. It's likely that once BAK relaunches, our standard returns policy will come into effect, but the best bet is to stay tuned to all of our channels for more info and we'll confirm changes in policy for this title here.

Thanks again for everyone's patience and the support we've received. We'll keep you posted as more info comes in.

http://blog.playfire.com/2015/06/batman-arkham-knight-pc-pulled-from-sale-refunds.html

 

[pa22word]

They could get WB to revoke the keys but I think that would just make things worse

Yeh, I'm curious to understand how this process works exactly.

This is why I suspect GMG is towing the "wait on the first patch!" line, because they probably already contacted Warner who proceeded to tell them that they'd process the refunds if people still wanted them after the patch.

As it stands, GMG has no real control that I'm aware of as far as revocation. They essentially work on the same basis that dudes over in Buy/Sell/Trade do, just on a mass scale. They buy the keys in bulk from the pub--who has them generated for free by valve--and then sell the keys to end users. This is why they have the no refund thing on distributed keys, because from their end once they give the key to you they really have absolutely zero way to guarantee the key is still safe because it's not like they can just throw it back in their stock and sell it again because you could have screecapped it and could activate it at any time and there's really nothing they can do about it at all.

EDIT: It seems they and warner have worked out a solution. Glad to see it, but hopefully this serves as a good reminder to people who buy cheap keys from them that there is in fact downsides to buying a key off of them vs buying a copy of the game directly from a storefront.

 

[sflufan]

This is why I suspect GMG is towing the "wait on the first patch!" line, because they probably already contacted Warner who proceeded to tell them that they'd process the refunds if people still wanted them after the patch.

As it stands, GMG has no real control that I'm aware of as far as revocation. They essentially work on the same basis that dudes over in Buy/Sell/Trade do, just on a mass scale. They buy the keys in bulk from the pub--who has them generated for free by valve--and then sell the keys to end users. This is why they have the no refund thing on distributed keys, because from their end once they give the key to you they really have absolutely zero way to guarantee the key is still safe because it's not like they can just throw it back in their stock and sell it again because you could have screecapped it and could activate it at any time and there's really nothing they can do about it at all.

Or you could see what was posted just above you

 

[d00d3n]

Posted in the other threads but refunded GMG keys will be deactivated:

Ahhh, that's too bad.

 

[pa22word]

Or you could see what was posted just above you

I saw it and edited my post, but I fail to see how it changes much about my post.

If anything it pretty much entirely confirms what I was saying...

 

[Chariot]

You really thought you could refund AND keep the game?

 

[PFD]

More like a pre-alpha in this game's case though.

I remember that ad. It still doesn't make any fucking sense

 

[d00d3n]

You really thought you could refund AND keep the game?

I think there are past examples of that on some key-reseller stores. I guess the difference here is the massive scale of the recall. While it did not make sense to bitch about a few customers getting a refund and keeping the game in the past, it does make sense here considering the large number of people wanting a refund.

 

[Nzyme32]

This is why I suspect GMG is towing the "wait on the first patch!" line, because they probably already contacted Warner who proceeded to tell them that they'd process the refunds if people still wanted them after the patch.

As it stands, GMG has no real control that I'm aware of as far as revocation. They essentially work on the same basis that dudes over in Buy/Sell/Trade do, just on a mass scale. They buy the keys in bulk from the pub--who has them generated for free by valve--and then sell the keys to end users. This is why they have the no refund thing on distributed keys, because from their end once they give the key to you they really have absolutely zero way to guarantee the key is still safe because it's not like they can just throw it back in their stock and sell it again because you could have screecapped it and could activate it at any time and there's really nothing they can do about it at all.

EDIT: It seems they and warner have worked out a solution. Glad to see it, but hopefully this serves as a good reminder to people who buy cheap keys from them that there is in fact downsides to buying a key off of them vs buying a copy of the game directly from a storefront.

Well this isn't true judging from WBs specific request for gmg to honour all refunds along with the subsequent statement suggesting this being new information. GMG move to wait for the first part is on them alone. That kind of outlook on a refund makes me much less interested on using GmG

 

[KingBroly]

So how long do we think it'll take for them to fix it?

Over/under 3 months?

I'll take all bets!

So before/after September 25th. Hmm...

I think I'll take the under, but just barely. It'll have all of the PS4 effects and whatnot and run at 60fps at 1080p when it releases. Anything above that is no guarantee, though.

EDIT: I'm also a member now!

 

[pa22word]

I think there are past examples of that on some key-reseller stores.

I would assume those happened because the key-seller in question decided to take the L and eat the cost of the keys as the publisher who sold them the keys refused to play ball. Warner in this case seems to be doing the opposite and actually actively helping storefronts process the refunds.

Which in spite of everything, kudos to them. They could have easily let GMG take the fall for this and eat the bad PR of not having the power to do refunds without really hurting themselves financially due to the sheer volume of BAK keys they moved.

That kind of outlook on a refund makes me much less interested on using GmG

Then honestly you really just need to get a grip.

Valve being able to force refunds without eating the cost has to do with them actually running the store and the infrastructure that Warner is using to universally distribute the game. GMG just buys they keys that lets you download the game from Valve, and has no real authority to issue a refund without taking a massive loss that they may not be able to eat.

If you don't like that, don't buy keys from a reseller and instead buy them from Valve directly. Otherwise, you're entirely at the mercy of the publisher with the case for refunds if you decide to buy from a reseller. That, or hope that the reseller even has the capital to be able to eat a refund. Which might work for the odd end indie game that someone doesn't want, but not thousands of copies of a 60$ game.

 

[holygeesus]

So how long do we think it'll take for them to fix it?

Over/under 3 months?

I'll take all bets!

I'm betting they will ship the code off to Feral and re-release it the same time as the SteamOS/Linux/Mac versions, which they are overseeing.

 

[robertlebrone]

Eh? For real? The game got taken off sale for being broken. No kudos.

My experience with the game has been issue free also. No crashes or freezing most have experienced and I was getting between 50-70 FPS on average during gameplay. I'm definitely not cool with the missing graphical features and the sub-par performance relative to my hardware though. i7 4790k and SLI 780s should be handling this game much better at 1080p when I can play the Witcher 3 on ultra and get 80fps pretty much locked.

 

[Fenom]

Sorry if its been mentioned but does the GMG refund go straight back to my debit account, or will it be credit on gmg?

 

[mbmonk]

IMO this is a very different case from ubisoft games, the last 3 batman games had their share of problems at launch but they were nowhere near unplayable like this one, hence the reason people trust them and went ahead and pre purchase the game, i just think that people is still to salty with all of this that the hyperbole is getting out of hand, WB and RS made mistake if what it's been said is true about giving IG only 8 weeks to port the game, it is impossible to get a properly working product in that time frame and believe me when i say that they will learn from this a great deal because on the long run PC games is the platform that would always be profitable to publishers, when a game stops to be printed for consoles people rely on used copies and neither publishers or devs see a penny from it, they will always see money from PC games, so this will be a learning experience for WB, ubisoft on the other hand is a company that has built a reputation of lying to their consumers and anyone who preorder games from them knows exactly what they're getting themselves in to

The only lesson WB has learned is they can't fuck over consumers too hard. They knew the game was a mess and released it anyways. It was an intentional act. So they thought they could get away with it. If that doesn't make you think twice about preordering a WB game in the future I don't know what would.

 

[Aztechnology]

Sorry if its been mentioned but does the GMG refund go straight back to my debit account, or will it be credit on gmg?

Back to your card/bank account

 

[pa22word]

Just requested my refund on GMG.

Batman: Arkham Knight 	17/03/14 	Completed

My OG order went through like the day they had it up for prepurchase, as it was still $50 and I thought there was no way it was going to stay there. Got it for like 35$ and thought I was in the clear as I thought AC was a decent enough port.

Probably the last AAA game I ever preorder. I've learned my lesson.

 

[Chinbo37]

I really happy about this.

Wb is losing a shit ton of money due to this so hopefully they learned their lesson for the next time.

 

[d00d3n]

I would assume those happened because the key-seller in question decided to take the L and eat the cost of the keys as the publisher who sold them the keys refused to play ball. Warner in this case seems to be doing the opposite and actually actively helping storefronts process the refunds.

Which in spite of everything, kudos to them. They could have easily let GMG take the fall for this and eat the bad PR of not having the power to do refunds without really hurting themselves financially due to the sheer volume of BAK keys they moved.

Yeah, if the refund-still-keep-game scheme is out of the question, I am leaning towards keeping my GMG order and not buying PS4. They seem to have made the difficult but necessary decision to fix the PC version up to the standard that is implicitly promised in the AAA PC space: the best version of the game. Additionally, it seems reasonable to expect some kind of reward for staying on board, such as a free season pass or something along those lines.

 

[Tecnniqe]

My experience with the game has been issue free also. No crashes or freezing most have experienced and I was getting between 50-70 FPS on average during gameplay. I'm definitely not cool with the missing graphical features and the sub-par performance relative to my hardware though. i7 4790k and SLI 780s should be handling this game much better at 1080p when I can play the Witcher 3 on ultra and get 80fps pretty much locked.

Mine was not issue free but I've managed to get it run with everything maxed as far as maxing go and maintain a good ~60 FPS for the most part. I think it got something to do with 16GB ram and 980SLI.

So Its working but it's hella far from kudos and far from what I expected. But then again I also got it free, but still salty.

 

[MichaelFassbender]

Way of the Samurai 4 might actually be released for PC before this is fixed.

*Might*

 

[Catdaddy]

I wonder if it was pulled by WB or if the refunds were so high Steam told WB to pull it.

 

[gutterboy44]

I imagine this never would have happened without the Steam refund system in place. They would have pleaded for more time, apologized and do the PR dance of not directly admitting it is a broken piece of shit, but I don't think they ever would have pulled the game had it not been for money leaving their bank account instead of entering it.

This is such an important example of how the only thing that matters at the end of the day is money, when it comes to influencing major decisions and trends in this industry. You want exploitative DLC to go away, we all have to stop buying it. We want broken launches gone? We actually need to stop pre-ordering, not "I only pre-order some games." No one gives a shit about Reddit PC Masterrace tantrums and public outcry when they are making money hand over fist. Refunds not only deny them the ability to sit on their pile of cash while taking their time to fix the issues, I imagine all of the processing takes some additional man power or at the very least additional credit card fees, and you know sure as shit Steam isn't going to foot that bill. If anything, they probably double dip on charging the developer/publisher.

Can you refund games on PS4 XB1 ? This small feature is a huge step in returning some consumer power back to this industry.

 

[Domcorleone]

The fact that they pulled it leads me to believe that this fix will take quite some time :-(. They are going to re-release the game aren't they...

 

[Orin GA]

I hope other publishers are watching this.

 

[Interfectum]

I wonder if it was pulled by WB or if the refunds were so high Steam told WB to pull it.

I think it's a bit of both. Steam (Valve) didn't tell them to pull it but the refunds were so high WB decided it wasn't worth keeping for sale until they fixed it.

 

[VICI0US]

yeah, this port's a wreck

people with PCs that blow the consoles out of the water, myself included, get marginally better performance than the consoles on top of the awful graphical issues (texture streaming, missing AO, missing rain on batmobile/batsuit, removing the 30FPS cap breaks the game)

not to mention their last minute upping of the minimum system requirements and recommending the minimum requirements set everything to low at 720p while the recommended specs (well above the consoles) should be happy with similar console performance.

pretty sure people aren't spending $1,200+ on PCs to get console level performance and I'm very happy the PC gaming community has a spine.

paid mods not too long ago and now this awful port. at least PC gamers are willing to stand up and make noise when bullshit starts happening.

 

[KingBroly]

I imagine this never would have happened without the Steam refund system in place. They would have pleaded for more time, apologized and do the PR dance of not directly admitting it is a broken piece of shit, but I don't think they ever would have pulled the game had it not been for money leaving their bank account instead of entering it.

This is such an important example of how the only thing that matters at the end of the day is money, when it comes to influencing major decisions and trends in this industry. You want exploitative DLC to go away, we all have to stop buying it. We want broken launches gone? We actually need to stop pre-ordering, not "I only pre-order some games." No one gives a shit about Reddit PC Masterrace tantrums and public outcry when they are making money hand over fist. Refunds not only deny them the ability to sit on their pile of cash while taking their time to fix the issues, I imagine all of the processing takes some additional man power or at the very least additional credit card fees, and you know sure as shit Steam isn't going to foot that bill. If anything, they probably double dip on charging the developer/publisher.

Can you refund games on PS4 XB1 ? This small feature is a huge step in returning some consumer power back to this industry.

You can with MS, but you have to call. It's not an easy process. Dunno about Sony or Nintendo.

I think the Steam Refunds were a pretty big part of this. MK X on PC was garbage (albeit not as bad as this wreck), and from everything I know and have heard, still is. But because the Refunds thing wasn't in place then, it never really got fixed, and probably won't since the largest portion of people who bought it can't get a refund.

 

[PHOENIXZERO]

I want to see NVIDIA comment on this too and find out WTF happened between when those videos were made and now. Also going back and forth on whether I want to refund the season pass I bought from GMG for $24 or not. I was considering buying it when all the content was released to see if it was worth it and expected a sale on it by then since I got the game with my 970 but ehhhhh I should have waited another eight hours which would've given me some time with the game and everything first.

 

[Interfectum]

The fact that they pulled it leads me to believe that this fix will take quite some time :-(. They are going to re-release the game aren't they...

I bet they do a re-release simply to wipe the 6,000+ bad reviews off their Steam page.

 

[PSiCHO]

A necessary move by WB. Now, I hope Rocksteady assigns the A Team on this task, seriously.

 

[Älg]

Under.

Rerelease in june. Added effects. Performance still utter shite.

Actually fix it? As in good PC port?

Performance really isn't all that bad once you get rif of the stuttering.

 

[Totobeni]

Dear WB, to not be in this mess again next time hire this studio for your PC ports

I hope other publishers are watching this.

yeah. It's time to not treat PC ports like second class citizens or an afterthought.