Ryan Carlson
Ryan is a passionate gamer who is conflicted about whether he should become the Ubermensch or a Ghost In the Machine. Maybe his answer will be found in the Golden Mean.
Batman: Arkham Knight is the fourth installment in the Batman: Arkham video game series, released this past Tuesday. If you bought it on the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, you could be playing the game right now. However, if you’re a PC gamer, you’re shit out of luck, as the PC version has been removed from sale due to bugs and performance issues.
Batman: Performance Issues
In a post on the Warner Brothers Arkham Knight forums, Community Manager Admin Yorick revealed the bad news for PC gamers:
Dear Batman: Arkham Knight PC owners,
We want to apologize to those of you who are experiencing performance issues with Batman: Arkham Knight on PC. We take these issues very seriously and have therefore decided to suspend future game sales of the PC version while we work to address these issues to satisfy our quality standards. We greatly value our customers and know that while there are a significant amount of players who are enjoying the game on PC, we want to do whatever we can to make the experience better for PC players overall.
There is currently no timetable on when this new Batman game will be available on the PC. Considering this game was released three days ago, this is absolutely embarrassing for the developer and publisher.
Broken Games
PC gamers who were unlucky enough to play Batman: Arkham Knight on release experienced performance issues like a sluggish framerate and game-breaking bugs. It clearly was not ready to be sold on PC.
Unfortunately, it is common nowadays for video games to be released with all sorts of problems. Video game franchises such as Fallout, Assassin’s Creed, Dragon Age, and now Batman: Arkham have released games with bugs. This is the current state of the video game industry.
If Rocksteady Studios couldn’t get the PC version of the game ready by the scheduled release day, then they should have pushed the release date back. That was the only sensible solution. Now that they’ve pulled the PC version of the game from Steam and other distribution platforms, they’ve only succeeded in confusing and alienating their customers. Thanks to this debacle, more and more customers will be careful to not buy video games on release day.
PC Gamers
The PC is the gold standard in video games. With their superior, high-end technology, you can build a computer that will play any game you want at max settings, provided you have the cash. Current PC technology can make video games look close to what we see in real life. Because of this, there is no excuse for a developer to release a game that performs poorly on the PC.
Publishers charge customers a lot of money for video games. The $65 price tag that most new games have could go towards any number of other things. It is outright theft for the game industry to charge $65 for a game as broken and unplayable as the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight. They are charging full price for a highly anticipated game that barely functions. Because of this, I won’t even buy the game when the developers finally do fix and re-release it.
There is an old saying that is useful for gamers to remember: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Don’t let Rocksteady Studios fool you twice by buying or playing this game.
Read More: Does Batman: Arkham Knight Deserve An “M” Rating?
