Warner Bros. Halts Sales of AAA Batman PC Game Over Technical Problems

An anonymous reader writes: The Batman: Arkham series of video games has been quite popular over the past several years. But when the most recent iteration, Batman: Arkham Knight, was released a couple days ago, users who bought the PC version of the game found it suffered from crippling performance issues. Now, publisher Warner Bros. made an official statement in the community forums saying they were discontinuing sales of the PC version until quality issues can be sorted out. Gamers and journalists are using it as a rallying point to encourage people to stop preordering games, as it rewards studios for releasing broken content.

Comments

Pre-ordering

[ArcadeMan]

Pre-ordering can be a bad thing because it allows big studios to release low-quality games, but at the same time it can be a good thing because it does help indies and small studios to pay for the development of their games.

There's only one game that's on my list right now: Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime

Re:Pre-ordering

[TheCarp]

Its funny but people who wait are the real winners. Wait until after the game is out and hits a sale. You get the game at a cheaper price AND you get the bug fixes that came out since then. The only thing it cost you, was waiting to play it a bit, and you get a better product for less. How is that not winning?

But, as you say, with Indie games, small studios.... its a different story. Hell, I will pay for early access if I like a game, I don't even mind that its buggy because I know I chose that AND I know I am supporting an indie developer who might not otherwise even be able to produce the game.

The big boys who can afford advertising campaigns and multiple major releases per year? Feel free to hold them to a high standard, they should be setting the standard not be rewarded resting on their laurels.

Re:Pre-ordering

[medv4380]

Winners? Pre-Ordering is almost always bad, but the one case where I view it as usually necessary is when I want a physical copy of a game that is in limited release. Nearly all NIS and Gust games are in limited release. Which isn't surprising because they have a small but dedicated fan base. If I wait and don't show up and get one of those limited copies I'll end up having to travel 100 miles to get a copy because I waited for the price drops. Buy digital will be your next claim, but the last time I missed set of 3 titles the first Title was no longer available for digital purchase. Luckily I was able to find that one close by, the second one was still available for digital sale, or I could go 100 miles to go get it so I did go digital in that case because the cost saving of the physical copy was canceled out by the trip. The 3rd title I just got at full new release price because I'm not going to go on a quest for finding a limited release game again just to save a few bucks. Stupid Atelier Fetch Quests suck. Your method only works on Triple A titles that are over produced to kill the used market value.

Re:Pre-ordering

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

How is that not winning?

You're enabling awful business practices by publishers to push shit out the door.

The only two games I'm seriously looking forward to are Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain and Street Fighter V.

Both of which I'm guessing won't have these problems. I don't know why Japanese devs aren't having these problems but western ones are.

Re:Pre-ordering

[__aaclcg7560]

I typically wait until the Steam Black Friday sale to pick up old games for under $5 each.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Iniamyen]

Why do you care about having a physical copy?

Re:Pre-ordering

[Slider451]

That's a good plan for most games. Just like binging on entire seasons of TV shows on Netflix where you get to skip commercials and don't have to wait a week to see how a cliffhanger resolves.

The downside is you aren't part of the conversation at the time of release. Like following sports, there is social currency value in playing at release time. For popular multi-player titles, waiting means you might miss out on the peak crowds, and the fun of discovering things on your own before all the walk-throughs, builds, maps, and cheats are posted online. Your friends may have moved on just as you're getting into a game and looking for a group.

Just playing devil's advocate here. For the most part I do as you describe and wait for a 75% off Steam sale on an already discounted price. It's great to pay $5 to play a game that released at $60 the previous year.

Re:Pre-ordering

[ArcadeMan]

The Japanese still have this concept of "pride" which seems rare in the West.

Re:Pre-ordering

[David_Hart]

How is that not winning?

You're enabling awful business practices by publishers to push shit out the door.

The only two games I'm seriously looking forward to are Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain and Street Fighter V.

Both of which I'm guessing won't have these problems. I don't know why Japanese devs aren't having these problems but western ones are.

I'm looking forward to Fallout 4 and Uncharted A Thief's End.

I've enjoyed the Fallout series plus this one is set in Boston, the area where I live. Pre-ordering is the only way that you can get special editions (i.e. the Pip-Boy edition being released this week). That being said, the Fallout games tend to have a lot of bugs on first release. Whether this is related to pre-ordering or not is still up in the air. I agree that there is likely more business pressure to release a game on time, no matter what condition, if you have customers that have already paid for the product. But I'm not sure that other business pressures wouldn't cause the same result (i.e. pressure from marketing, sales, etc.).

Uncharted has been delayed to spring 2016 to continue polishing the game. Part of this was also to more closely tie in to the movie version which was scheduled for release in June 2016. However, it's an example of a game studio delaying a game to get it right. The movie version, for those interested, just lost it's director and actor so it's unlikely that the movie will be released in 2016.

Whether pre-ordering causes games to be released before they are ready or not, it's not going away. Why? For social reasons. People who pre-order want the game first for social status, so that they can play the game first, brag to their friends, and to get the limited edition versions. You can see a similar dynamic when it comes to new Apple products. Value wise, it makes sense to wait, but for some people that rush of being the first and the center of attention, even if short lived, is worth it.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Krojack]

Collector's limited edition maybe?

There are also those that feel like they may lose their game unless they have a physical copy. Personally I feel like companies that offer digital copies of anything should be required to always have a copy of what you paid for available for as long as you are alive. They should also never have the right to take it away. It's not like Blizzard has a right to come into my home and take back the Warcraft 2 install CDs I have after all.

Re:Pre-ordering

[jones_supa]

I have noticed this as well. The culture of releasing proper, polished products seems to be still alive in Japan.

Re:Pre-ordering

[medv4380]

Cheaper, and the digital version of the Atleir series is spotty at best. I also like the Music tracks on the limited editions when they are available. Also I believe in the Right of First Sale, and like to lend my brothers the games when I'm done if they're interested. Can't really do that with digital legally, but with the physical copy I can legally sell, lend, or give away if I don't like it. Kinda stuck with it if the game is shown to be utter nonsense if it takes over two hours on steam to figure that out. I refuse to buy digital if I'm not absolutely sure I will like it.

Re:Pre-ordering

[awing0]

I regularly borrow, lend and trade games with real life friends in meat space.

Re:Pre-ordering

[aaaaaaargh!]

Bah, these indie games really make me throw my guts out. And my girlfriend hates them as well.

Only Tad-like videos with "funny" Garageband background music are worse...

I guess I'm a bit cranky today. >:[

Re:Pre-ordering

[TheDarkMaster]

You're new at this, right? Just imagine what happens if you do not have internet connection available at all times or the server where is the downloadable content goes down. Can you see now why it is necessary to have physical copies?

Re:Pre-ordering

[micahraleigh]

They also have a concept of the 60 hour work week.

Don't get me wrong ... there is a lot the West can learn from them.

Re:Pre-ordering

[medv4380]

My Disgea games without DLC have just about the same unlocks on the PS3 as they did on the PS2. They do have lots of meaningless DLC that is easily ignored. I've never once felt I needed to buy any of it. As for Gust they were Merged with their Parent company, and they have continued to do work on their existing franchises, and their latest release Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book has yet to be canceled, and didn't stop Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea which was released after that merger announcement last year so you're doom and gloom is probably just an american misunderstanding Japans weird business structure.

Re:Pre-ordering

[TheCarp]

All true, really....its a complicated relationship. Most people can only afford to buy so many full priced games. Hell, look at steam's own statistics on how many games bought on sale are even downloaded and played. Its funny what people value.

I have pre-ordered. I need turn my head about 5 degrees from this screen to see a "God of War" special edition plastic molded chachky box (my wife's actually, but I have a some collectors edition city of heros swag in a box somewhere).... and over time just, come to value that less.

The only thing I derived value from is the game, and they are very hit or miss, even amongst the titles I like. So I have to be really excited to buy it when it comes out new....like Fallout4....I live in Boston and I am already Bethesda's willing little whore..... but not much else.

Still best value per hour ever was Kerbal Space program, and I mostly played it before it was released. There are a few games where I have logged 1000+ hours on steam because I left the launcher up for days. That is not how it happened with Kerbal, and I paid under $30 for it.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Cederic]

Pre-ordering is the only way that you can get special editions (i.e. the Pip-Boy edition being released this week).

If it's a physical special edition with a limited run of trinkets, statues or books that you want, sure.

If it's a digital special edition with in-game artefacts designed to drive pre-sales and segment the player base, fuck you for supporting that piece of shit business model.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Cederic]

Your friends may have moved on just as you're getting into a game and looking for a group.

My friends are roughly my age, and we all earn enough to play new games without worrying about the cost.

We're all also sensible enough to recognise that the cost isn't justified, so we're all running several months to several years behind the curve, and tend to migrate to the same games at about the same time.

Sucks for online multiplayer games, works beautifully for co-op, isn't terribly relevant for single-player games. But we're all too old and slow for online FPS anyway.

Re:Pre-ordering

[mythosaz]

They also have a concept of the 60 hour work week.

Or, you know, a little over half that, just like us.

http://stats.oecd.org/index.as...

Re:Pre-ordering

[TheCarp]

> My friends are roughly my age, and we all earn enough to play new games without worrying about the cost.
> We're all also sensible enough to recognise that the cost isn't justified

Yup. I don't need to save up for games, I can easily afford them at full price or pre-order. I just see it as a waste, especially when I look at how many games I bought and played for single digit hours.

> Sucks for online multiplayer games, works beautifully for co-op, isn't terribly relevant for single-player games. But we're all too old and slow for online FPS anyway.

Speak for yourself old man, I still jump on BF4 once in a while and actually, I play better at 36 than I did at 24. Mostly though I think a lot of it has to do with having to compensate for slower reactions with more careful actions and, it turns out being first to pull the trigger isn't quite as important as being first to aim. I am FAR better at being sneaky and not taking the first shot available and giving away my postion all the time, or hanging back and keeping cover on my team mates.... all things I think way more about now.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Cederic]

I used to play all the battlefields that way, so not a massive difference for me.

What I can't do now is play UT and be the first to react, aim and pull the trigger.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Darinbob]

It's generally a poor idea to pre-order because you have no idea what the game will really be like. Even a fan of a series of games should wait to learn more details first. It locks you into one vendor for example, or locks you into a higher price than may exist later, and so forth. I'm annoyed that I have one game from Steam that I could have gotten cheaper and easier to use from GOG, because I didn't realize it would be available elsewhere.

It seems very strange when most games are supplied digitally only that someone wants to pre-order. The game won't run out. It's not like the old days where a store would only stock a limited number of copies. The publishers are basically taking advantage of hype.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Darinbob]

It depends on the game I think. If there's DRM, then there's no point, if the game maker discontinues the game then you're out of luck. But I have lots of older CDs and DVDs from companies long out of business and I can still install and replay them. A lot of gamers don't care about this, especially younger ones, since they don't understand about playing games when they're no longer fashionable.

Also, physical games are cheaper much of the time! It seems illogical, but game publishers are loathe to reduce prices even when there is a 0% cost to distribution. However retailers have big incentives to reduce prices on games to get them out of inventory and make room for something else. Just wait 6 months after a release and the physical copies will already start to drop in price while the digital versions will not have budged a penny. When a physical game goes on sale it almost always stays on sale, but digital sales on Steam are temporary. Even at an expensive retailer like Amazon you can find good prices compared to digital copies.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Darinbob]

I have never done this. I have a friend though who can damage a DVD in seconds... I've got 20 year old games I still play. GOG is good for the times when modern drives get grumpy trying to deal with copy protection. If the game is DRM-required like Steam, then the DVD is just a more convenient way to install if you've got slow internet, and there's zero point in making a backup unless you are brave enough deal with the world of game cracks. With bigger and cheaper USB drives it's getting pretty easy to make archival backups now.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Darinbob]

Much of the time this is not under the control of the game developer. Instead there's usually a game publisher pushing on the studio to release on time or else. The devs want to create a great game, the executives however want things released on time so that they can lay off the staff and move on. This is why EA competes with Comcast to be the most hated company.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Darinbob]

The pip-boy edition seems a bit iffy to me. There's a chance there will be some left over, but if not then that saves me $60 on a flimsy piece of plastic. The exclusive bobble heads from FO3 pre-order are available in the Bethesda store now I think (maybe not the lunchbox).

I think the phone+pipboy won't work so well in practice. Ie, the phone turns off after being idle, you want to check your inventory so you have to power it on again, enter your PIN to unlock it (many companies require this if you use your phone to read work email), etc. The touch screen on a tiny phone is just a wierd way of controlling this stuff, so a tablet would seem a better choice just for accuracy in where you tap.

Re: Pre-ordering

[wasteoid]

One word: bit torrent.

Re: Pre-ordering

[wasteoid]

Throwing too much of your guts out can make you cranky.

Re:Pre-ordering

[TheDarkMaster]

I really doubt that you are really that careless with your things, the more likely you took that from your ass to try to impress me and trying to enforce your weak argument...

Re:Pre-ordering

[lgw]

I guess you don't play many EA games, given how often they go shutting down the servers.

That's certainly true, on both counts. Has nothing o do with physical media though - if the game is written to need a server even in single player mode it's crap no matter how you buy it. But fuck EA in any case.

Re:Pre-ordering

[lgw]

None of my games that came on floppies are still playable. About half the games I have bought on CD/DVD over the years are gone or don't work now (I seem to move every few years, and long-distance moves don't always go well).

Heck, I've bought MOO2 three times now, once on physical media, once from some now-gone download, and once from GOG. Now that it's on GOG I'm very happy. (The games I'm most frustrated with are Fantasy General and Space general, as my media doesn't seem to work and no one has them for download - GOG has some of the Panzer General games, but not these sequels).

Meanwhile, I've bought hundreds of games on Steam, and all but a handful still work (some depended too heavily on GameSpy). Maybe Steam will itself vanish one day, but the risk of that seems lower than the risk of a box being lost the next time I move, or simply no longer having an OS or emulator that I can get to work with older games.

Re:Pre-ordering

[ihtoit]

This. Meatspace for the win.

The only time I actually download *anything* in the way of an executable such as a game is if I am assured I can store it offline and install it using that offline stored copy.

Example: I use Backstreet Browser (a bloody excellent site ripper) a LOT. I even paid for it AFTER gaining assurance from the publisher (who also happened to be the author) that I could store the registry file and the installer and reinstall it when needed without having to fork out for another licence or hunt down the website again. The bonus is that updates are free for life and the keyfile will (according to him) work, basically forever.

(yeah, fuckin' what?? A slashdot nerd who actually PAID for something!?)

Re:Pre-ordering

[ihtoit]

one of these days I'm gonna have to put up my DOS games collection. I've got hundreds of them preloaded on virtual drives to run through MS-DOS 6.22 in a sandbox. In other words, NONE of them, apart from the CD-based ones which necessarily come with ISO images you have to mount on the VM manager, are in any way adulterated from the behaviour or system interaction of the original. Unlike the Archive.org software library which is basically rewritten to run in a Java sandbox, which is a HELL of a lot more involved than simply dumping the image into a folder.

Re:Pre-ordering

[penguinoid]

No, silly. The game is still digital. The purchase can be of a physical CD using physical money.

Re:Pre-ordering

[TheCarp]

That makes some sense. Admittedly I started out even younger on those twitchy FPS free for alls like Quake (well I started on Wolf but, multi-player was shit before quake), so when I got into games like CS and BF, well.... I died a lot.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Pubstar]

unless you are brave enough deal with the world of game cracks.

You don't have to be brave, just smart. Takes only 30 seconds to skim through the comments to figure out if its a bad torrent or not.

Re:Pre-ordering

[micahraleigh]

Interesting ... I guess I was going a bit on hearsay there.

Re:Pre-ordering

[Darinbob]

That's like saying it's not hard to find illegal drugs, just go and start browsing in dark allies in the bad part of town.

This is why you don't pre-order.

[waspleg]

The rage on Steam over this is truly epic. If you're a fan of schadenfreude check out the forums for it. People have blamed everyone but the Pope thus far.

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[Anonymous Coward]

The rage on Steam over this is truly epic. If you're a fan of schadenfreude check out the forums for it. People have blamed everyone but the Pope thus far.

I see what you did there... It took me a second but I see the connection now.

When you think Batman, you think Batmobile. Batmobile, batmobile, batmobile, Pope mobile. Who rides in the Pope mobile? The Pope. Thus the Pope is involved in the Batman fiasco. The Pope is to blame for this truly bad Batman game port.

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[DanJ_UK]

This thread is epic - http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3228322&highlight=batman&page=1

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[Noah Haders]

By the way, the bat mobile in this game is awesome. Pull the left trigger and it turns into one of those vehicles that moves in all directions, plus a tank to boot. Also, if you're falling from a tower you can summon it with a whistle and land in the drivers seat.

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[MobyDisk]

It would be hilarious if you still died. Like how, if Superman suddenly catches a falling person, they should not only die from hitting the Man of Steel's arms, but also be liquified by the fact that they were hit by something traveling hundreds of miles per hour.

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[__aaclcg7560]

ID Software's Rage was an epic fail on my Radeon 7970 video card, the opening gameplay chugging at 2fps. I got the game three years after it came out at a Steam Black Friday sale for $2.50, and ID still haven't fixed there AMD support (or lack thereof) for this video card. I wasn't too upset that I couldn't play the game on a video card that exceeded the minimum specs for the price I paid. (I would be royally pissed if I got the game at $60 and it didn't work.) This year I got a Nvidia 720 video card and the game works perfectly fine. Go figure.

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[ihtoit]

Happy Tree Friends already did it.

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[gweihir]

I preordered on steam, I played for an hour, I asked for and got a full refund. Steam may have something to do with this move by WB.

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[__aaclcg7560]

The difference between a 7950 and a 7970 was 5% performance and $200 when it first came out. I got mine for under $150 after the card was out for a while. For whatever reason, an AMD CPU and a 7970 sucked ass with Rage. (An Intel CPU and a 7970 didn't have any problems.) Another factor might have been the AMD 690 motherboard chipset that glued everything together, but I didn't see anything in the comments regarding that. Ironically, the budget Nvidia 720 video that I got came out shortly after the 7970 hit the market.

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[drinkypoo]

Happy Tree Friends already did it.

Spider-man already did it.

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[CronoCloud]

Heh, I see someone knows their Spider-man. Thwippt! Though IMHO they should have had Emma Stone play Mary-Jane, NOT Gwen.

Re:This is why you don't pre-order.

[strikethree]

It is a shame that I do not currently have mod points. I think you are correct: Being able to return the product is HUGE. You can not do that with physical copies.

Kickstarter and Pre-ordering

[sinij]

Last I read, only 30-something percent of kickstarter projects deliver anything. Now, pre-ordering is being exploited to a much larger degree. Assassin's Creed, Batman... these are not small indy titles. Meanwhile these studios exploiting developers in a sweatshop-like conditions (e.g. EA spouse) to unprecedented degree.

If this was clothing company - you'd have people boycotting the brand. Why this case should be any different?

Re:Kickstarter and Pre-ordering

[Paco103]

I would say there's one BIG difference.
The employee working at EA is doing so for a considerable salary. His wife may not feel the money is worth his sacrifices (and I agree, but to each their own). Because of that, he has a choice, and can easily move to a different job, even if he does have to take a pay cut, and have a good quality of life.

The employee at the clothing company may be 12, may be a single mother with no skills, etc, and the job is held over them as a means of survival. They may NOT have a choice if they have grown accustomed to eating, even if it is only rice and beans.

It's really not a comparison in any way.

Re:Kickstarter and Pre-ordering

[gweihir]

Kickstarter for games usually breaks even at about 50% delivery of something good. Anybody smart understands that. I have been lucky so far and got 80% with the missing 20% still possible successes. To expect 100% on something like Kickstarter is pure insanity. And there is a reason you only pay something like 50% of what a finished game costs (where you still could be buying a lemon).

The difference is that Kickstarter allows successful creation of good games that would never have found publishers. Of course you need to look with a keen eye what they can actually realistically deliver, but that is a skill any buyer needs to have.

Re:Kickstarter and Pre-ordering

[MattGWU]

Clang: Never Forget.

Re:Kickstarter and Pre-ordering

[Coren22]

Did you buy into clang?

https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...

When Stevenson failed to deliver, he started paying our refunds. I was so shocked, I refused to apply for one as a support to him for doing the right thing.
 

Re:Kickstarter and Pre-ordering

[sinij]

This is faulty logic. So you are saying that job is not held over US tech worker in the same way? Sure, thanks to social programs maintained by the government it is unlikely that EA spouses' children would go hungry, but other than that the consequences of job loss are comparable.

You work crazy hours while getting set non-market wage is not any different if your are cranking fake purses somewhere in Asia or fake content (DLC) somewhere in US.

Re:Kickstarter and Pre-ordering

[gweihir]

I did not. But this shows one thing: On Kickstarter, reputation is everything. That means everyone going to kickstarter with a good reputation (like Brian Fargo or Neal Stephenson) will want to make damned sure said reputation stays intact even with a failed project.

I really think kickstarter is the future for anybody that wants quality, as in story, gameplay, fun. And if there is the occasional failure, I will not hold that against the makers _if_ they can either provide a good explanation or refund. That some thinks on Kickstarter must fail, is a given. It is part of the idea. You can only do innovative and experimental things if you accept some chance of failure.

Broken Content

[sixsixtysix]

Anyone else notice that since the last generation of consoles got the ability to patch games, they've been buggier upon release?

Re:Broken Content

[ArcadeMan]

I dnt'o rlaely ees wyh yud'o yas tsogmehin kiel tath.

Sent from my Xbox One.

Re:Broken Content

[maugle]

Yep, back before consoles could be expected to have local storage and a persistent Internet connection, the inability to patch games after release made QA a critically important part of development. Now the balance has shifted to rushing the game out ASAP, and only devoting resources to fixing bugs if the early buyers complain loudly enough to dissuade other potential customers.

Though I prefer the way Yahtzee put it: "You couldn't get away with releasing a buggy game in the cartridge and cassette days; you'd be trampled under the company Brontosaurus."

Re:Broken Content

[sanf780]

Just wait until my preordered Windows 10 is installed! I heard the lengthy public beta nailed down most of the bugs.

Re:Broken Content

[Tukz]

Console version is fine actually, it's the crappy PC Ports that's suffering.

Re:Broken Content

[stoned_ritual]

Yahtzee is one of the few people in the gaming press that I agree with on most things.

Re:Broken Content

[NotDrWho]

It also helps that games in the cartridge days were a LOT smaller and less complex than games today (by several orders of magnitude). I imagine that doing QA on a 64k game, with a staff of three developers, was a shit-ton lot easier than trying to do QA on a 50GB open-world title spanning an area of hundreds of square miles, with thousands and thousands of NPC's and sidequests, items, and complex combat and crafting systems.

So yeah. Super Mario Brothers 3 is easy enough to QA so you can release a perfect game. Witcher 3 could be QAed for years and would still have flaws on release. AAA titles today are simply to complex to be error free. A complex system with hundreds of developers is a different world than old school systems from the NES days.

Re:Broken Content

[buckfeta2014]

So yeah. Super Mario Brothers 3 is easy enough to QA so you can release a perfect game.

A perfect game, you say? QA, you say?

Sorry, but SMB3 was as broken as many games are today. We just didn't notice.

Re:Broken Content

[CronoCloud]

Yes, and I don't care for that one bit. Though with previous consoles, PC Gamer "masterrace" types claimed that the ability to patch was an advantage.

It can be, but it doesn't turn out that way due to laziness or being rushed.

Re:Broken Content

[iampiti]

Which is unforgivable since consoles are PCs are more alike than ever. It should be much easier in this generation to port between systems

Re:Broken Content

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know the mechanics behind the glitch, but comparing a game that can't run well on suggested hardware to a glitch that requires tool assistance to perform is a bit disingenuous at best. SMB3 didn't lock up on stage 2 for half the players.

Re:Broken Content

[sixsixtysix]

yeah, for this game, but console games, in general, have been rushed with more bugs than in the era of non-patchableness.

Re:Broken Content

[mjwx]

Yes, and I don't care for that one bit. Though with previous consoles, PC Gamer "masterrace" types claimed that the ability to patch was an advantage.

It can be, but it doesn't turn out that way due to laziness or being rushed.

We were referring to the ability to add new content after release which used to be quite common for the PCGMR.

Only since the plague of consolisation have major releases been shipped broken. Console peasants put up with it, the PCGMR does not and realistically with the Steam sales being over and picking up over a dozen functioning PC games for under A$200, I really couldn't care less about this crappy port.

Re:Broken Content

[ihtoit]

I don't WANT Windows 10. No Media Center? Fucking forget it!

New Console Hardware

[minijedimaster]

And here everyone was praising the new console's hardware platform being more PC like as a good thing. We all thought it was going to make porting these made for console games so much easier. Guess we didn't account for laziness, incompetence and being cheap.

Re:New Console Hardware

[CronoCloud]

The PS4 version has access to 8GB of what is basically VRAM on a fast bus attached to both the GPU and CPU.

I've told "masterrace" types saying that they can build a PC better than the PS4 for less than the PS4 that it isn't just the CPU and Videocard that matters. That the RAM matters as well but they always ignore that.

IIRC there were a couple of PC ports of PS2 and PS3 games that had similar issues because of those systems fast rambus RAM and fast system busses.

Re:New Console Hardware

[HuntingHades]

There are people running Batman: Arkham Knights on Titan cards with 12GB VRAM that are having problems maintaining 60 fps and other users with top of the line NVidia cards are getting frame rate drops into single digits. It reportedly runs even worse or not at all if you're using SLI. And there isn't any good explanation why the PC version doesn't even include high resolution textures, anisotropic filtering, ambient occlusion options, or any option for anti-aliasing other than On/Off, other than its a terrible port. Based on some reports, it seems that one of the biggest bottlenecks is streaming of data from the hard drive. Users with SSD are reporting less issues than users with HDD, so it seems to be severely lacking in some optimizations.

The definition of insanity

[nehumanuscrede]

is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.
Yet, folks continue to pre-order then act all shocked and offended when the title is buggy and near unplayable upon release. :|

I don't get it. What goes through the heads of folks who keep pre-ordering this crap ? " No nonononono. . . THIS time will be different. Really ! "
I wonder if anyone who actually pre-ordered this thing would realize their being the poster child of naivete the industry craves so much.

Re:The definition of insanity

[stoned_ritual]

But I payed EXTRA so this WOULDN'T HAPPEN. Said no smart person, ever.

Re:The definition of insanity

[Chris Mattern]

Grammer Nazi Edit: Their = They're

Spelling Nazi Edit: Grammer = Grammar

Re:The definition of insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Math Nazi Edit: Grammer != Grammar

Re:The definition of insanity

[theArtificial]

Code Nazi Edit:
#define Grammer = Grammar;
asserttrue(Grammer = Grammar); *runs*

My experience with it

[RogueyWon]

I pre-ordered this on Steam a couple of days before launch. As of right now, it is sat on 1h50m playtime and I'm not touching it again until either we have news on when a major patch is expected or we start to get close to two weeks after release.

Why?

Because of Steam's new refund policy. If you have less than 2 hours playtime on a game and it is less than 2 weeks since release (or less than 2 weeks since your purchase, if you purchased it post-release), you are eligible for a refund. The game in its current state is a very sorry sight indeed.

My personal experiences with it haven't been as bad as some. I have an i7 3820 @ 3.66ghz, an Nvidia 980 and 16gb of nice fast RAM. I also, crucially, have a 500gb SSD that I use for my OS and for drive speed sensitive games (as well as some big old traditional drives for everything else). Running from the SSD and with an .ini tweak to remove the 30fps cap (yes, a 30fps cap in a PC game in this day and age), I can manage a not-terrible level of performance. Framerates with all settings maxed in 1080p flicker between 35 fps and 70 fps, depending on what's happening on screen, though the wide variations do produce some ugly artefacts.

When I first installed the game to one of my traditional drives, performance was appalling. While framerates when stood still doing nothing were the same, taking almost any action in-game, from moving around to entering a vehicle or changing areas, would produce large framerate drops, hideous stuttering, broken textures and texture pop-in. This game has some serious issues with data streaming from storage drives.

The game is also ugly to look at. Ok, ok, I'm being a bit harsh there. As a bare-bones PC port of a late-cycle 360 or PS3 game, it would have looked ok. But compared with PC versions of recent efforts like Shadows of Mordor, Grand Theft Auto 5 and The Witcher 3, this looks terrible. Bear in mind that all of the above run at higher and steadier framerates with all settings maxed on my PC. In Arkham Knight, NPCs movements are repetitive and robotic, textures are low-resolution (the game will only allow "low" or "medium" detail textures to be selected, implying higher detail textures were removed at the last moment) and basic visual effects from the console versions are missing.

My experiences put me at the better end of the scale. I have a powerful PC with a single-Nvidia-GPU setup. Weaker PCs, or even more powerful PCs with multi-GPU setups or AMD cards seem to have things much worse. I've only experienced one crash to desktop - but that's as many crashes in under 2 hours of play as I've experienced in almost 30 hours of play in The Witcher 3.

A few wider points about this; while this game is particularly brutal in terms of its drive speed requirements, it is part of a broader picture that drive speed is starting to matter as much as CPU and GPU speed for PC gamers in terms of actual in-game performance (rather than just load-times). Watch_Dogs, Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age: Inquisition all suffered from in-game stuttering issues when running from a traditional drive - though not to anything like the same extent as Arkham Knight. An SSD large enough for games as well as the OS is becoming non-optional for serious PC gamers.

Second, this is the first real stress-test of Steam's refund system. To their credit, Valve seem to be honouring Arkham Knight refund requests without any qualms. And it's surely no coincidence that the first "broken" PC port to go out after the refund system was introduced has led to such a dramatic reaction by the publisher.

Re:My experience with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a refund and buy it again AFTER they fix it. Send a message.

Re:My experience with it

[gweihir]

I pre-ordered months ago, but got a full refund at 1.5h played, no questions asked.

Re:My experience with it

[RogueyWon]

Yes, pre-orders are refundable up to 2 weeks after launch day. The clock doesn't start ticking when you place your pre-order.

Re:My experience with it

[gweihir]

Good to know, thanks! That makes pre-ordering much more sensible on Steam. I have to admit that I only pre-ordered in a moment of weakness.

Re:My experience with it

[thegarbz]

That makes pre-ordering much more sensible on Steam.

Why does it? The point of pre-ordering is to ensure your place as one of the first people to get a physical copy of the game if the number of copies are limited.
That isn't a problem with digital services, so what's the benefit of pre-ordering?

Re:flag

[stoned_ritual]

Nice revisionism, son. I'm proud of you.

Not too different from the other Batman games

[MobyDisk]

The other Batman games suffered major issues at launch too. For example, Batman: Arkham Origins was impossible to complete at launch due to a bug. There was a river where the grapple would never connect so you couldn't get across. It took several patches before it worked reliably for everyone.

Re:Not too different from the other Batman games

[luther349]

yes but now we have the refund system and that's what happened people who got this broken pc release got to test steams refund. so when they had to do mass refunds there like oops maybe we should have fixed this crap before release. all i got to say is good.

Why the outrage?

[stoned_ritual]

This has been the model for the gaming industry since at least 2010. We keep buying shit before it is finished, they take our money, and move on to the next "pre-order now for useless dlc bundle!" Gamers memories must be suffering from pot smoke caffeine abuse.

Re:Why the outrage?

[luther349]

pre-order is a different beast then early access one you are waiting for the completed game the other your testing.

Re:Why the outrage?

[Z80a]

And now the consumers got a weapon to kill this model and will use it.

Re:how do you liek dem appelz?!!!

[stoned_ritual]

Blame the platform instead of the developers. Seems legit.

Time quantum of a simulated dynamic system

[tepples]

It's possible to run the physics at 60 fps even if the graphics dip below that. It's called "frameskip" and was common in emulators of 2D game consoles when PC CPUs were weaker.

In any case, how would a repeatable simulation of a dynamic system work without a constant time quantum? If you try to vary the time quantum based on the graphics frame rate, you end up with things like Quake 1 through 3 where the player can make certain jumps only at certain frame rates.

Re:Time quantum of a simulated dynamic system

[Z80a]

In case of non-emulated games you can use more advanced techniques like dead reckoning to accurately interpolate the position of the objects and not only deal with the physics running at a high frame rate while screen is running slow as dealing with slow physics with fast frame rate as well.
Most multiplayer games uses this technique to deal with the relatively slow packet rate.

Re:Time quantum of a simulated dynamic system

[tepples]

Google quake jumps frame rate brought me this page.

Defining indie

[tepples]

Perhaps the controversy is related to where to set the dividing line between "indie" and "big boys". If a studio is composed of veterans of the "big boys", is it indie? Or how much annual revenue makes a studio "big boys"?

Re:Defining indie

[Anonymous Coward]

If frat boys at your nearest university have heard of their games, it's the "big boys"

Re:Defining indie

[ceoyoyo]

If they have access to venture capital or stock market funding, they're the big boys. The only reason for pre-ordering is to provide capital for the little guys who can't get it from somewhere else.

Re:Yup, it was a hot mess

[stoned_ritual]

Fallout 3, Medal of Honor 2011, Battlefield 3, Medal of Honor Warfighter, Battlefield 4, Assassin's Creed Unity were all unplayable for thousands of people weeks, or months, after launch.

Re:Games are for Luddites.

[stoned_ritual]

Go app yourself. Apphole.

Re:Yup, it was a hot mess

[stoned_ritual]

I forgot to add Batman Arkham Asylum, Batman Arkham City, and Batman Arkham Origins were all broken on pc day 1.

Unless they're Batman apps

[tepples]

Please go install the Batman app and get out of our hair already.

Re:flag

[Holi]

Seriously revisionist. Also the "battle flag" only had 2 years use during the Civil War, after which it really wasn't seen outside of a few peoples private homes. It wasn't until the 60's when it had it's huge resurgence (placed on sate flags and such). I wonder what else happened in the 60's that caused the resurgence.

Who are these idiotic preorderers

[sholden]

Sure I understand preordering once - but when that game doesn't meet the hype (and they never do), why would you do that again?

Re:Who are these idiotic preorderers

[luther349]

yea preordering digital content what are they going to do sell out lol.

Re:Who are these idiotic preorderers

[abigsmurf]

A few places that sell downloads in the UK were offering the game for around £18 if you pre-ordered. Considering the RRP is £39.99. The prices then shoot up post launch.

The price is not going to get that low again for 6 months or so, so pre-ordering isn't that dumb.

it's more like a warning sticker

[Thud457]

It's still The Loser Flag , only displayed by losers on their F-150s and Cameros. and MOPARS, too...

Re:flag

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I defend the right to be an idiot. Yes they are racist symbols. But you have *RIGHT* to be a fucking moron.

they're intentionally a racist symbol
It didnt start out that way. It started out as a battle flag. The swastika also did not start out that way. It started out as a flag of power. The people who designed the 3rd Reich were actually very clear on why they designed things the way they did. They are *now* considered racist. To understand your foe you need to understand where they are coming from. Otherwise you just end up with a shouting match of 'my TV told me'.

I may not agree with their ideals. But I will fight for them to express them instead of trying to suppress them I try to convince them they are wrong. I see suppression of speech in any form as an affront to what I am. Do you let other suppress you?

So to answer your question? Yes I do defend it. Do I own one? Not a chance. I own an American flag. Because that is what I am. I am not a German from the Third Reich or a Confederate. Two countries which no longer exist. I do not fly other idiots flags. I fly my own thank you very much.

If you want violence stripping people of their voice is a very nice way to do it. It is HOW you end up with things like the 3rd Reich and the Confederacy. Dont think so? Read up how after WWI the world set about to strip Germany of any voice in anything. It created a crucible in which Hitler flourished. Or take for example the Confederacy they felt they were being ignored over and over in the Senate and Congress in favor of the North. Both groups were stripped of their ability to say anything which created hardline feelings in things which could have been easily resolved beforehand. Instead being PC created the very thing they did not want. Why? Because they suppressed the ideas. The ideas were not properly ended with proper discussion and became beliefs. A belief is a nearly impossible thing to destroy and usually ends in violence.

So, um, guys?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Does anyone have some kind of coherent explanation, aside from Norton Antivirus, as to how you would (on AAA budget, handling a popular franchise that is also the video game presence of a very popular character) manage to release a game on both XBone and PS4; but have it suffer crippling performance issues on the PC, reported by both AMD and Nvidia users?

I realize that PCs are quirky beasts; but they are quirky beasts architecturally very similar to(typically more powerful than, for any vaguely serious gaming system) both contemporary consoles, and even some software/dev overlap with the Xbox; and somehow other people have managed to get a game to release and have it either be horribly broken everywhere, mostly working everywhere, or at least horribly broken for 'GCN 1.0 GPUs with drivers before Catalyst 10.x' or some other well defined group of deviants.

How does this happen?

Re:So, um, guys?

[rebelwarlock]

They outsourced the PC port to a group of twelve people and gave them two months. I wish that was a joke.

Re:So, um, guys?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

So Warner Brothers either has management that hasn't learned that the only thing more expensive than doing the job correctly is totally fucking it up; or some raving lunatic who thinks that he has finally cracked the miracle of 100% efficient software development?

That's quite a brain trust. You'd think that they'd be either more bankrupt or smarter by now.

Re:So, um, guys?

[luther349]

yep its laziness and corporate shill deadlines im happy this time it came back to bite them in the ass with steams new policy's.

Re:So, um, guys?

[CronoCloud]

I realize that PCs are quirky beasts; but they are quirky beasts architecturally very similar to(typically more powerful than, for any vaguely serious gaming system) both contemporary consoles
How does this happen?

You are thinking like a PC gamer and thinking about ONLY the CPU and GPU when you compare the PC to the current gen consoles. Machines aren't just CPU's and GPU's, they have internal busses, I/O, RAM. Those matter.

And when it comes to those things, consoles are still specialized beasts.

Lets take the PS2. There were PC gamers claiming their GeForce 3 was better, their CPU faster, etc etc. That may have been true, but the PS2 wasn't an ordinary PC, it had specialized RAM and specialized internal busses. It could do things that a PC of that era simply could not do.

http://archive.arstechnica.com...

http://archive.arstechnica.com...

Watch the vector unit demos. They're running entirely on the vector unit in 16K of RAM, no CPU involved.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

IIRC, somebody came up with a Zlib implementation that ran entirely on a PS2 vector unit.

The PS3 is similar, fast Rambus RAM, SPU's, and fast internal busses. IIRC somebody smarter than me referred to it as "taking the multiprocessin ideas introduced with the PS2, further"

The PS4 is more "normal", but still has specialized RAM and internal busses. You simply can't buy a PC with GDDR5 main ram. Imagine if you had a PC with ALL of it's RAM as fast as the RAM on the video card. That would be nice, wouldn't it? But that can't happen, the PC is limited by PCIe.

The PS4 isn't.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/...

It can move data around in ways a PC simply can not do. It also doesn't have to deal with the problem that is Windows. Windows is a general purpose OS, even when it runs games.

The PS4 runs BSD, while it is also a general purpose OS, there's no need on the PS4 to keep "desktop computer services" running. The PS4 doesn't have to keep a print spool up, have a java updater constantly running, . It doesn't have to worry about the "needs" of an Office suite, or SMB shares, or Norton/Kaspersky/AVG, or any of the other things a PC does. It runs games. It can do other things as well but it's design focus is on games more than anything else.

Re:So, um, guys?

[thegarbz]

That's all fine, but then why does performance of a high-end PC shit all over the consoles in every other game released except for this one. Bonus points when you can explain that AND also explain the poor quality graphics of this game compared to other games which appear to run better on both the console and far better on the PC.

A more likely explanation is that the studio has staffed their engine optimisation department with dyslexics and gave them the wrong manuals.

Re:So, um, guys?

[strikethree]

The PS4 runs BSD, while it is also a general purpose OS, there's no need on the PS4 to keep "desktop computer services" running. The PS4 doesn't have to keep a print spool up, have a java updater constantly running, . It doesn't have to worry about the "needs" of an Office suite, or SMB shares, or Norton/Kaspersky/AVG, or any of the other things a PC does. It runs games. It can do other things as well but it's design focus is on games more than anything else.

Odd, every time I say I do not want those services, I am soundly reminded, like a child mind you, that none of those things really affect performance and that I whining about nothing at all. Apparently, you and I are just imagining things.

Re:So, um, guys?

[CronoCloud]

Individually they may not be much, but they do add up because there are a lot of them. And you never know when one of them might decide to be more active and run a scan or whatever. Sure it was worse when we didn't have quad core and better CPU's but we are not imagining things.

And every service run is one more thing one has to keep an eye on. Yeah I run Linux, but I still don't run too many services.

Re:how do you liek dem appelz?!!!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm just wondering how the game is so badly broken for people attempting to run it on an x86 with AMD drivers and Microsoft APIs, when there apparently exists an xbox version that 'works' by the standards of shrinkwrap software.

I do realize that the xbox does not run Windows(in any meaningful sense, they probably borrowed from NT rather than anything else when they needed OS bits; but it's a pretty specialized selection); But there are substantial similarities in both hardware and software between the two; and it's not as though both first and 3rd party engines, middleware, etc. weren't largely able to paper over much, much, weirder differences last generation.

Re:Pulling the game

[petermgreen]

To be fair, Rockstar (surely because of a gun Sony pointed at their head, but still-)

It seems far moe likely to me it was rockstar/take 2's own doing. The release plan they went for means the hardcore fans will have ended up buying the game THREE TIMES.

Because downloadable version is overpriced

[tepples]

Title was no longer available for digital purchase

Why do you care about having a physical copy?

Answered before you asked. In some cases, sellers of downloadable works have in the past ended redownload privileges even to paying customers without compensating them. Look at all the PlaysForSure music stores, for instance.

Second, a lot of physical stores still sell physical copies cheaper than Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, or Valve sells the downloadable version. It's like Amazon, where some print books are cheaper than the Kindle edition.

Glitches in a 40K game

[tepples]

So yeah. Super Mario Brothers 3 is easy enough to QA so you can release a perfect game.

Super Mario Bros. was 40K but still shipped with the minus world glitch. You'd be surprised at how many glitches Nintendo left in Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3. Read this thread about a hack of Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2: For Super Players (an initially Japan-only mission pack sequel to SMB1 that uses the SMB1 engine) that removes well over a dozen glitches in the game, including many depicted in this montage.

Re:Glitches in a 40K game

[dpidcoe]

A lot of those glitches were things you had to work to make happen though. The kinds of bugs that we commonly see in AAA titles today are often triggered without the player doing anything particularly out of the ordinary.

Re:how do you liek dem appelz?!!!

[stoned_ritual]

I've seen fingers pointed at nvidia gameworks over this horrible port, but other greenworks titles that run beautifully on the red team metal. This is either a problem with QC or someone really had them under the gun to get this pile out the door.

Re:Buying 1.0 release of any software is a mistake

[luther349]

before they could patch a game 1.0 was all they had so they made dam sure it was a quality release. they have gotten lazy and are pushing broken game's with the mindset we will fix it later. and what recourse did a gamer have until just recently with steam refund

In the pale moon-light

[Tablizer]

The Joker(s) runs the company. Whaddya expect?

Re:Stuttering On 970

[gweihir]

No. The problem happens across all possible hardware configurations.

Why is it because of preorders?

[Thruen]

Sorry if I missed the study, but what makes this all because of preorders? I've been playing buggy games for decades, plenty of which I didn't preorder, many of which weren't even expected to be huge hits, why is everyone so sure that preorders are why developers aren't fixing games? I'm not saying they definitely have nothing to do with it, but as someone who preorders a game about once every year or two, I'm genuinely curious what evidence there is that my actions are damaging the games. And for anyone thinking I'm a dumbass for preordering games, I like to get collectors editions of sequels to games I already enjoy because I like having cool things to put on display to represent those games. I genuinely like that extra stuff, lots of people do, I'm not saying you should but don't give people shit because they like different things.

To be honest, I think it has more to do with priorities changing at major game companies. It seems to me like the industry started off as gamers making games they enjoyed for other gamers, and making a bit of money off it. As the industry has grown and become more profitable, many of the people making the games aren't as passionate about the games themselves and are more concerned with making money. This is fairly obvious with larger companies such as Activision, franchises like CoD have a new release every year instead of even attempting to make a game one would enjoy for longer. And we've all seen the Destiny fiasco, a game I enjoy but am getting fed up with at the same time. It seems to me they're just choosing quantity over quality. That's really just me guessing, but without any evidence one way or another, I think anyone's guess is just as good.

Re:Why is it because of preorders?

[GrandCow]

A very large part of it is companies putting embargos on game reviewers; so while in the past we might have seen a review about a new Batman game coming out that plays like absolute shit and the buyer deciding to wait, now the developers push out extra skins or bonus weapons or whatever it takes to get that first pile of cash to them before people read any reviews. So instead of holding the game back for another couple months for polish, the developers decide "well... good enough I guess" and dump the turd to the public.

After that, They can take their time patching because they've already got a massive portion of the possible purchasers cash.

Re:flag

[micahraleigh]

When I grew up people told me jack o' laterns are symbols of the occult and child sacrifice.

It's true that people who sacrifice children are into the jack o' latern stuff (and YES they do exist, please don't dismiss that under the guise of /. "enlightened thinking" or whatever), but most people who carve pumpkins are not intending to promote the devil.

Or at least insofar as they are cutting a pumpkin.

Re:How much performance does it need

[buckfeta2014]

A 68000 cpu and a OKI 6295 sound chip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:How much performance does it need

[RavenLrD20k]

How much performance does it need to growl "I'm BATMAN!"?

Apparently more than Christian Bale had. Dude seriously needed some Primatene Mist. Or at least a throat lozenge or something just to be able to understand his dialog.

Re:flag

[micahraleigh]

??

If slavery was legal in the North up to and during the Civil War, then why was there so much ado over Dredd Scott?

In terms of the law, they would have just sent him back, but the abolitionists thought they had a case because slavery was illegal in the North.

And furthermore, what was the Missouri Compromise all about? I thought that was where the Northern states couldn't own slaves?

Re:At least they handled it better than Arenanet/G

[desdinova 216]

my concern with Guild wars 2 is the Publisher NcSoft pulling the plug with little notice.

Re:how do you liek dem appelz?!!!

[theArtificial]

I'm just wondering how the game is so badly broken for people attempting to run it on an x86 with AMD drivers and Microsoft APIs,

I'm no apologist (I didn't buy this game) take a look at the Steam hardware survey Notice the processor speeds, resolution and especially the graphics chipsets. Quite a variety there and not to mention AMD is infamous for crap drivers. I'd be curious to know what the factors are, management setting a firm deadline, the port developers etc. The game industry is known to be pretty ruthless.

I don't pre-order AAA games

[Karmashock]

It makes no sense on the PC in any case because the primary point of preordering is to make sure you get a copy on launch. Well, if you're doing a digitial download then you're going to get a copy regardless which is how most PC games work at this point anyway.

Now for little companies that don't have publishing contracts? Pre-orders are fine. I pre order games from those guys all the time and have so far not been burned once. I know people get burned but I've been lucky.

I've pre-ordered everything from inexile for example. I preordered planetary annihilation. I've preordered star citizen. i pre order tell tale games that seem interesting.

That's fine. But some batman game being developed by a big publisher? Why would I preorder? exclusive content? Pfft.

The publisher does not get paid faster on pre orde

[brunes69]

I don't know why so many commentors are under the impression that PUBLISHERS get money from pre orders... They don't. The publisher doesn't get paid until you pick up the game on launch day. Until that time, Walmart or EB or whoever you ptreordered from is just holding the money.

  Think about it, if it worked the way you'd day, then cancelling a pre order or switching it to another game would not be possible. But it is, with every retailer I know of anyway.

Hell, Amazon doesn't even charge your credit card at all until the game ships.

The Bonuses

[brunes69]

The reason I pre order all games is due to the pre order DLC and bonuses, which I then promptly sell on eBay omn launch day for $10 or $15, making the game cost less. Hell, sometimes the sale of the pre order bonuses covers the entire cost of the game.

The gaming industry

[Stan92057]

The gaming industry should have to face fines for releasing games this badly coded. And its very clear the gamers are a bunch of cowards, afraid to miss out on a preorder special gun that is no more powerful they any in the game released on opening day. But even still thats not the problem the problem is fix it later created by the whole software industry, Linux included. No one has clean hands IMO for this problem but for gamers as serious as they take themselves to not stick together is ..sad and funny. that's my 3 cents worth

Hold On A Minute...

[magusxxx]

I clearly remember seeing two days before the release that the PC could be had for $35-$40. Could it be these sellers had inside knowledge and purposely sold this broken product before word got out? If so, wouldn't this be something the Feds could look into?

Were the other Batman games this buggy on release?

[Schnapple]

This story wants to be a rallying cry for the sentiment to not pre-order games, but this was, what, the fourth game in the Batman: Arkham series, right? And it looks like it's on UE3 like the others, and it was done by the same studio that did two of the previous three games.

Pre-ordering can be dangerous, sure, but I think people were reasonable to perhaps assume that this game wouldn't have huge issues, and even if one or more of the previous games had issues surely whatever it was (cape physics?) could have been worked out by now.

I know things change between games and a $60 purchase is not cheap but telling people they're stupid for pre-ordering the fourth game in a series with most of the same elements in place is like telling people who are at the opening night of a movie that's a sequel to another movie they liked that they're being stupid for not waiting for reviews. Sure, the new movie might suck but is it unreasonable to think it probably won't?

Re:flag

[Darinbob]

The southern states were the ones most often holding the legislature hostage over slavery issues. It was the southern states that pushed for and managed to get the Fugitive Slave Act (1850) enacted, with pro-southern supreme court justices defending it. The southern states were in no possible way being ignored. It took time for anti-slavery movements to gain enough political power to win Lincoln the election; a major political party dwindled and split over the slavery issue so that few remember the Whigs anymore. All the infighting up north and in the west meant that the southern Democrats had lots of political power.

Re:flag

[Darinbob]

Fact: the civil war was about slavery, pure and simple. The leaders of the new confederacy said so themselves. They required any state joining the confederacy to make pledges to maintain the institution of slavery. If there had been no slavery then there would have not been a civil war.

The confederate battle flag is being used today as a symbol of racism. The idea that it is about southern heritage is revisionist bullshit, unless they mean the southern heritage of holding slaves and denying post war blacks their civil rights. The confederate battle flag lasted for such a short period of time in history that it is absurd to treat it as a lasting symbol of anything beyond the civil war period. The flag is used precisely because it brings to the forefront the emotions of people who think they should not have lost the war that they started and instigated. The use of the flag after the war was relatively rare and spotty until it became more popular during the civil rights era (probably as a symbol of resistance against what they saw as more northern interference into their segregationist way of life).

But ultimately what it comes down to is this. Most people see the confederate battle flag as a racist symbol. Whether that is true or not, everyone flying that flag knows this. They KNOW that most people seeing the flag will find it offense and they fly it anyway.

Re: flag

[Darinbob]

Why it happened? Because they lost their long held grasp over the government and were worried that they'd have to give up slavery. They saw the writing on the wall and did not want to become a dwindling minority with no power. To them, "state's rights" meant the right to maintain the institution of slavery and to *expand* the institution to new states entering the union. Fort Sumter was attacked because they knew they were going to secede and they didn't want enemy troops in their midst.

The union had been in a bit of stalemate for a long time, slave versus free states, few were really happy overall with the situation. But the expansion into the west brought about troubles with the power balance, as well as growing clout amongst abolitionists. The institution of slavery was a horrible black mark on the constitution and the peaceful situation was not going to last much longer regardless of who had been elected president or who controlled the forts.

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Re:how do you liek dem appelz?!!!

[HuntingHades]

There is some evidence that the port might be based on the PS4 version instead of the XBox version. Namely that the gamepad options menu shows a DualShock controller as the example instead of an XBox360 or XBoxOne controller.

Re:The publisher does not get paid faster on pre o

[Zaelath]

Getting the money before release isn't really the issue.

Getting the money before people know what an unholy broken dog your product is, that's the issue.

Publishers discovered that they could guarantee X million dollars of revenue on day one, AND that the return rate wasn't purely based on it working on day one because people have a lot of inertia and would wait a few days to be reassured that their problems were being addressed and a patch was forthcoming "soon". They also discovered that advertising spend, empty promises of bonus content, the ability to download early, and in-game progression systems that reward jump starting on others meant they could massively increase the day one sales on digital download as well.

What they couldn't do was upset their shareholders and blow revenue forecasts and not release, so if it's horribly broken, it ships. Even if it didn't even start on half the systems out there, it wouldn't effect that quarter's revenue, and that's what's most important.

Not that anything's going to change, the people writing these articles aren't the teenagers who are proving the MBA scumbags right.

Re:flag

[Darinbob]

This is how it works on wikipedia. One moment you're looking up how kalman filters work and then 8 hours later you're still browsing but looking at the history of bamboo plantations.

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Arkham Asylum

[rsilvergun]

and Arkham City were rock solid stable. Origins, made by the same developer as Knight, is a buggy mess.

Re:At least they handled it better than Arenanet/G

[Dutch Gun]

Why? Guild Wars 1 is still up and running, for heaven's sake.