Warner Bros Allegedly Knew About the Arkham Knight PC Issues "For Months"

[Lizzy Finnegan]

Warner Bros Allegedly Knew About the Arkham Knight PC Issues "For Months"

Anonymous sources have told Kotaku that Batman: Arkham Knight publisher Warner Bros knew about the many PC issues "for months."

The issues surrounding the PC release of Batman: Arkham Knight have been widely documented, with the title first patch has been made available [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/141347-Batman-Arkham-Knight-Removed-From-Steam-Store] for players who have already purchased it.

While the first patch addressed several bugs, a Steam update included an extensive "to-do" list in order to make the game playable, including remedying the 30fps cap, fixing NVIDIA and AMD bug issues, and fixing a low resolution texture bug.

Now, Kotaku has reported [http://kotaku.com/sources-warner-bros-knew-that-arkham-knight-pc-was-a-1714915219] that anonymous sources have revealed that Warner Bros was aware of the many bugs, framerate and resolution issues, and glitches plaguing the PC version of the game "for months."

One source, a quality assurance tester who is reported to have worked on the game for years, spoke to Kotaku under the condition of anonymity, saying "I will say that it's pretty rich for WB to act like they had no idea the game was in such a horrible state. It's been like this for months and all the problems we see now were the exact same, unchanged, almost a year ago."

"Testing a game this big is very different from linear or smaller games," one source said. "You usually get a mission, chapter or area of the map, or pick one yourself, and just go to town. You bug everything you see. We had some testers bugging more than 100 bugs per day. Devs would fix what they could but they were juggling that with actually finishing the game so they were insanely slow. Only when the game was done and no new features had to be built could they actually buckle down. Once that happens they also restrict what you can or can't bug, to ensure that they can catch up."

"We reported literally thousands of bugs that were specific to the PC version relating to the frame rate," said one source close to production. "All sorts of fucked up texture issues. The Batmobile in particular has always fucked things up on PC."

The sources claim that Warner Bros decided to make the game available because they felt it was "good enough."

[Source: Kotaku]

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[Worgen]

I would have been surprised if they didn't know about the pc issues. Of course they knew, they just decided to push it out anyway because money.

 

[CrazyBlaze]

Any one surprised? Any one? No? Didn't think so.

 

[Janaschi]

On one hand: as if I ever trust anonymous sources in regards to production teams and code monkeys.

On the other hand: no shit the publisher knew about the state of the game before releasing it. Not really news - it is a justified generalization that video-game publishers are almost entirely made-up of business-men, business-men who know next to nothing about games/gamers, aside from statistics, who all switched over to the video-game market, knowing that there was a profit to be made in them.

 

[CharrHearted]

I love how you are all believing anonymous sources... And ontop of that anon sources... FROM KOTAKU!

No doubt warner did know about the bugs but... You dont just auto agree with dunces like kotaku.

 

[tippy2k2]

Of course they did. I suppose a source is nice to confirm but there's no way they didn't know how bad it was.

"Best" case would have been that WB is stupid and incompetent for just trusting that it was done correctly by a third party. Most everyone expected the worst case (they knew but didn't care) as confirmed here but no matter the actual reason, WB was coming out looking awful.

 

[Las7]

Of course they knew - same with MKX, it's just that now that there is a Steam Refund policy they can't just sweep huge issues under the rug not caring.

I just feel bad for the devs that ported this mess, it's quite obvious that the ball is entirely in WB Court.

 

[Hazy992]

Of course they knew, doesn't matter who ported the game WB are still ultimately responsible for greenlighting its release. If they didn't know then they're more incompetent than one could have even imagined.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

This is damage control, believe it or not. Everyone should expect that they knew. How the fuck could they not have known?

But the rumors are also floating around that the PC version wasn't even being developed until the last few months before release. That is much worse because it also means that WB made a decision not to work on the PC version, and then release it anyway in pre-alpha state, basically.

And this is from Kotaku. A website known for coming across "leaks". Like how last year they "leaked" the next Assassin's Creed game while everyone was raging about Unity's problems. The whole idea was to show something new to the public and make it seem like the next AC game has been in development for a long time which means that we're supposed to expect a working product. Kotaku is bathing in bribes.

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

well this from Kotaku and the info is from anonymous sources so one should take this a face value. That being said what the sources are saying sounds plausible.

I can easily see, Warner Bros knowing this version of game had many problem, then arrogantly thought "that's good enough", and releasing it because money. That is the worst case scenario. I would not have put it past Warner Bros to have done this since they can be just as bad as any other major game publisher.
At best if most or all of management of Warner Bros was highly incompetent. Even then someone with enough power who is part of Warner Bros must have an knew it was in poor state. I have hard time believing, it was a coincidence that no review copies provided for the pc version that happened to be a bad port.

well Either way this made them look.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

not surprising as it is the attitude of publishers nowadays as something is "good enough" and they can just fix it later. And keep in mind this was after the game had already been delayed once. Publishers need to get this through their skulls: you can't use the same model you did before when making games. When they're this big and this advanced now you can't just fart them out on an annual or bi-annual basis anymore. These are going to take more time than ever and if you want to make sure you have a big name game out yearly you're going to have to diversify your studio, increase the amount and types of IPs you have, and try and reach as many demographics as possible. But that would take actual intelligent management and of course publishers don't have that.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

"Best" case would have been that WB is stupid and incompetent for just trusting that it was done correctly by a third party. Most everyone expected the worst case (they knew but didn't care) as confirmed here but no matter the actual reason, WB was coming out looking awful.

This is the most likely scenario. They're just idiots and incompetent. Maybe the information was given to them but they were too stupid to read and understand bug reports so they cherry picked the parts they could understand and mistakenly gleaned that the PC port was somehow ready. This is why people with MBA's and no fucking idea how to read technical reports should never EVER be in charge of anything remotely having to do with technology, software or anything resembling that. I've worked under idiots like that before and it was detrimental to the job because they were blatantly ignorant as to what their employees did for a living yet felt that it didn't matter the dev teams knew more about the subject.
This is dangerous territory and its been allowed to go on for way too long, in gaming and in other markets.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

One should never underestimate the power that long management chains possess. I think it is entirely possible for WB to get the impression that B:AK was good enough for release, while the QA and dev team were trying to press home how badly functioning it was. No doubt any report to WB had to go through at least half a dozen middle managers, all who had their own problems and made their own assessment of what was important to discuss until it all looked like a game of whisper and so the QA said "NOT READY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" but what the responsible execs at WB got told were "It got some problems, but is basically runnable" after the entire thing had passed through the chain of management.

As someone who works in an organization that's rife with middle managers and serious problems (public healthcare) I can empathize with the situation in which the people at the top are completely unaware of just how bad things are "on the floor" simply because all the information they get are filtered through a bunch of middle managers who all have their own agenda (and want to look good) and are themselves increasingly unaware of the conditions in the places they are supposedly responsible for. The end result is high level management saying they are "not concerned about patient safety" while the people at the bottom are constantly trying to put out fires because the problems they see are never picked up on by management.

Hanlon's Razor applies to WB too I think.

 

[Buizel91]

I think they may of known of a few, but not all of them. I don't think they will have of known just how bad the glitches and bugs were.

Also, Kotaku? Yeh. Some of you people are gullible as hell xD

 

[gigastar]

Ok while there is preceedence for WB releasing buggy messes on PC, it doesnt mean im going to accept a run-of-the-mill Gawker clickbait article page as a reliable source.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

*GASP!*
Devs hype up games they know are bad in a desperate attempt to move as many copies on launch before reviews and word-of-mouth can come through?
Also they embargo PC reviews to prevent launch day drops?!

Man, if this isn't the most shocking news of the day! Next you'll be saying Microsoft and Sony artificially created a demand for higher graphic games and specifically stopped making games for the 360 and PS3 to force gamers to buy a $400 console with only minimal hardware changes!

 

[Zoaric]

I trust Kotaku as far as I can throw a bus. However, it's clear that SOMEone knew the PC port was shit, considering the lack of PC review copies.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Always skeptical when I hear something like this from an anonymous source. However, knowing Warner Bros I wouldn't be surprised if it was true.

 

[ServebotFrank]

Thank fuck for Steam Refunds, otherwise WB would NEVER have tried to fix these issues. Refunds means almost no money from the PC users.