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Earlier today we discussed the poor state of Batman: Arkham Knight on the PC. Now we are starting to get a clearer picture of where things went wrong on the development side as Rocksteady has revealed that it used an “external PC development partner” to make the PC version of the game. Not only did Rocksteady not have a hand in the PC version but development was outsourced to a small studio made up of just twelve people.
The twelve people credited for working on the PC version of Arkham Knight work for Iron Galaxy Studios, a lesser known developer that has primarily developed for the last generation consoles and iOS. This is the team that worked on Destiny for the PS3, the PS Vita version of Borderlands 2 and helped out in the development of Batman: Arkham Origins, which also suffered heavily on the PC at launch.
Now obviously someone at either Rocksteady or Warner Bros made a huge mistake outsourcing the PC version of Arkham Knight. The team that worked on the PC port was made up of just 12 people and the studio definitely does not have a background in PC development judging by their list of projects.
As far as we know, the previous Arkham titles from Rocksteady were actually developed by Rocksteady for the PC. Unfortunately though, this time things went quite wrong and its the PC gamers that are suffering for it.
You can see our analysis of the Arkham Knight PC port, HERE.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: As a PC gamer and long time fan of the Arkham series, I am hugely disappointed in how Arkham Knight has turned out. However, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. Why was PC development outsourced? Worse yet, why was it outsourced to a studio that specializes in console development? And finally, whose bright idea was this anyway? Could Rocksteady not handle the workload? Or was it Warner Bros decision? Hopefully answers will be made a little clearer over the next few weeks.
They should have renamed the PC version to
Badman doesn’t run right!
What a joke. They just killed this game! How can they have an nvidia gameworks team working with them and then have no SLI profile and a 30 FPS lock?
Taking 3D out too is the icing on the cake. I bought a 980ti to play this game and it’s just a big let down.
I picked up the retail release, and it shows on the back of the box that Iron Galaxy likely ported it, the strangest part of the retail release however, is it comes with 5 discs but only installs 7.9GB from them, with the other ~28GB downloaded through steam… so what was the need for 5 discs! Fingers crossed these issues can sorted over the next few days.
This dfoes not exempt them. They should have known better. Clearly they put money over PC version
I am so happy I didn’t pre-order! Didn’t get burn this time like it happend with Arkham Origins.
Aside from the frame lock and occasional frame drop with the Batmobile, I’ve not experienced any problems. I’m about 9% through the story and enjoying it. Still, the choices made were abysmal. Outsourcing the PC development to a minimal, almost unknown team to then refuse to give PC testing codes out for professional reviewers to warn people what they are buying into, THEN changing the minimum specification requirements to play is absurdly money grabbing and a disheartening end to Rocksteady’s reign on Batman titles. No doubt the game is good, I like the story of it and the design team have done a top notch job in my opinion but the quality and marketing choices make me really dislike Rocksteady as a company
Surprise! Same studio ported Origins. You’d think that’d be enough to make sure they’re never used again.
The change in the default specs is a good reason you ask for a refund on the bases that it was sold different from origionally advertised?
Soo it’s the porting fault…. I’ve be damned.. I’ll just wait for the proper version..
“Outsourcing the PC development to a minimal, almost unknown team”
I actually suggest you look them up, they are not unknown at all.
This makes me pretty livid. You outsource the PC port (bad enough) to a company whose experience is in CONSOLE development? Was someone on drugs when this decision was greenlit?
Considering I said ‘almost unknown team’, I think that fits nicely. Especially regarding the PC community with the only AAA titles being DLC for the least popular Bioshock, The least popular Arkham game and now Arkham Knight. Aside from that, they are known for last gen and portable titles. Great place to outsource an AAA game that’s the final installment in its largely renown series. But, each to their own. I’m still enjoying Arkham Knight and unlocking the framerate doesn’t seem to cause too many issues. The drops to 40fps don’t seems to distract me as much as when it was dropping to 5fps…
No they’re not, though;
They’re just not famous for their PC porting, which I think he was aiming at.
Can’t see how a studio mainly focusing on last generation platforms and iOS.
Excluding Batman Origins which wasn’t that great for PC either, can be a good pick for porting Batman Arkham Knight to PC, they knew Batman Origins was having the same kind of feedback by PC gamers.(still have nightmares of that game.)
It’s really terrible what they’ve done with this 30fps cinematic edition of Arkham Knight. Cheers for the linkback to my benchmark video.
Yeah. That pissed me off BIG TIME. I spent 3 hours downloading 28GB only for Steam to die at midnight. When it came back up, the download started again from the beginning.
Did you just suggest BIOSHOCK INFINITE is less popular than BIOSHOCK 2? Huh?
This is what WB does. They put their A team on console development and then have external teams unequipped for the task at hand port the same code to PC.
Look at MK 9, Injustice, and MK X with High Voltage. Three times, three disasters, yet they keep going back to them. It’s just cheaper.
So look then at Arkham Origins/Knight with Iron Galaxy. Don’t worry. WB does it every time, too. Whatever follows Arkham Knight will be done the same way by Iron Galaxy.
to be fair, BioShock Infinite was ported to PC by non other by…Iron Galaxy Studios!
and for some reason, its the most optimized port by Iron Galaxy Studios yet. (after patches). something felt wrong. especially having 12 people to port it under 8 weeks before the game launched.
can any Publisher check their external developer more frequently?!
My mistake, I missed the fact they did the PC version of Bioshock Infinite. But if you read the comment I made, I said the DLC to the least popular Bioshock, since they only did the DLC and not the main game of Bioshock 2.
I feel bad for them because the Destiny ports to previous gen consoles was pretty damn good considering how little resources the PS3 and 360 have hardwarewise today. I have a feeling they didn’t have a lot of time to work on AK
So the only way to play this game is to play it at a blazing 30fps on consoles or not at all. I am basically out of luck If i want to game at 1080p 144 fps.
Guess Ill save my money for Fallout 4.
ONLY IDIOTS PREORDER.
When do people start to learn?
In answer to ‘Why was the PC version outsourced?” I think I know two reasons. First: the bean-counter morons that call the shots these days do not care about the PC. They crunched their numbers and the PC Market was listed as “do not give a shit.” Second: Since they did not care about the PC or PC users they punted the job to a third-rate group that already had a hand in ruining Arkham Origins-and that shop probably did it cheap and obviously did NO QA WHATSOEVER. AGAIN. Rocksteady just gave their fanatical and loyal fanbase a big middle finger salute. Business- in the new American style. They don’t give a crap about the product, just the numbers. R.I.P. Rocksteady, you did some good work before you sold us all out.
you were wrong twice, and the excuses just make you look worse
STOP IT
The PC market for games this year is neck in neck with the console market for profitability. When you consider that’s the entire console market (all players), that’s pretty impressive and makes it untenable to expect to get more out of development on multiple console platforms. Next year its projected that the PC market will again become bigger than the entire console market and these decision will look even more stupid.
They have actually made proper ports to PC earlier, so i can understand why they were hired now.
Its like Steam Refund policy was created specifically for this kind of crap games. LOL
Its ok. Steam Refund has your back. ;P
Pre-order + Refund go hand-in-hand.
This is a just an absolute Insult to us PC gamers. So I guess Rocksteady couldn’t be bothered to make our version as well? They had to pass it on to a company that A. is known for console ports and B are known for making bad ports to begin with? I trusted them, I believed that it being Rocksteady they would live up to the reputation they earned and the respect their games got from me and many other PC gamers. So much so I saved up and forked over 100 dollars for the Premium edition thinking that with rocksteady at the helm my money will be well and justifiably spent. Oh how i was wrong. Instead we get a crappy port that was clearly never tested until it was time to send out the review copies and they realized the oh so terrible mistake they have made. I fill betrayed and frankly I hope Rocksteady Understands the massive breach in trust they have made by showing they clearly don’t give a shit about their PC fans if they can so easily just give our version to an understaffed and un impressive company. Et tu Rocksteady.
What a shame, and it feels like Rocksteady or Warner Bros. is simply trying to force consumers to buy the console version. Sure, we’ll make a PC version, but it will suck big time. PC gamers as is so often the case get ripped of.
Guess I’m not going to buy Arkham Knight; I’m not going to buy a console version just because Rocksteady cannot be bothered to make a decent PC version.
Don’t try to verify your game files if you have a problem. It will delete the entire install and make you redownload.
Just to clarify what you said, the PC market surpassed the consoles individually for profitability in 2014. What IllogicalSpoon means is that right now the PC market is neck and neck with the entire console market combined for profitability, and by next year it’s projected to have overtaken them.
The distinction is worth making clear, I think, because they have to develop individual ports for the different consoles as well as PC. It’s not like they have a console version and a PC version. So the PC version should already be an easy #1 on their list of important versions, because it’s the most profitable.
It’s interesting isn’t it, how the refund option has changed our collective viewpoint? It used to be that preordering was anathema, but now it’s sort of OK in some ways. Just not buying the game just tells the studio idiots that the PC market is not profitable, so it encourages them to forget about the PC in general and either not make PC versions at all or just outsource them for cheap like this. Conversely, buying the game and then getting a refund tells them that there’s a market there and they messed up.
You don’t need to give a reason to steam. They will do it for any reason.
They did Origins as well…….
sadly … damn if you do damn if you don’t
< ??????.+ zeldadungeon+ *********….. < Now Go Read More
3
No one should be blaming the 12 dev team here, as a developer I feel for the guys. They have a great track record of porting games but this time it went a bit pear shaped. It probably doesn’t help when a big publisher bullies you around a bit too.
Remember it wasn’t released by them.. but WB… WB should have given IGS more time to fix the outstanding issues.
But Arkham Origins ran pretty well on PC, from what I remember (literally) everyone I asked/watched saying, even without epic new drivers. Even worked with SLI out of the box.
The REST however… they are all bad ports and I remember each one. At least this time people can properly utilize Steam Refunds for it.
PC Port outsourcing is fine. Take a look at Nixxes. Eidos Montreal outsourced Deus Ex 3 and Thief to them and the ports were stellar.
True, but I already see the whining from big publishers and steam starting to use the “can revoke this anytime if we like to do so” clause 😉
Some people got the game free with graphics cards. But some idiots don’t think about that …
Hang on a second, there’s a difference about paying up front for something not released yet and getting it for free as a bonus. I hope those people were smart enough to buy the card because of the card and not the game.
WB and RS should never have outsourced the game to this company and this company should never have taken it on as they are clearly not up to the job. They’re all to blame. I’ll be looking out for anything with Iron Galaxy on it now and avoiding it like the plague.
PC market is very profitable. In fact all the releases for PC cost nowadays barely anything, still it may mean you double the customer base instantly. Maybe even more, if you game is decent.
Take Star Citizen as an example: The game isn’t even out and already sold for over 84 millions.
If you don’t buy a product companies do surveys why. Money is the only message they understand, and paying them for bad products encourages zero change.
So yeah, while I disagree with your statement that publishers consider a market not profitable just because of poor sales, the rest is spot on. Cause they see others do fine, so obviously not the market is bad, but something with their products/services.
Why? they wanted to save money. Warner Bros are worse than Activision.
And Origins is still broken in places across all platforms. :/
this would have been a publisher decision not the development team, publishers rarely understand the inner workings of game development, they only think in dollar signs.
its why so many game teams are moving towards self publishing and staying independent.
Take a look at Warner Brothers outsourcing the PC ports of MK 9, MK 10, and IGAU.
NOT FINE.
They finally wised up and fired HVS and brought in QLOC to try to fix their mess with MK 10.
Start getting more and more used to this. It’s no longer cost effective to make games for the PC, so they have to outsource or do it with a clandestine internal team. Buh-Bye.
Fuck Iron Galaxy, their PS Vita port of Borderlands 2 is disgusting
The problem is that awesome companies like QLOC and Nixxes probably chare a good bit to port games since they KNOW they are the best. Then you have cheapskate big wigs who think porting a game doesn’t take skill and gives it to the lowest bidder. Then you end up with shit like this and MKX. Warner Bros will probably bring in QLOC or Nixxes to fix this as well. Just like what they did by bringing QLOC to fix HVS’s horrible port job.
I really hope someone was fired for this
for anyone mad here is three of the 12 people resonsible for the sht game! TALK SHT if you want
https://www.facebook.com/rakshath.kashyap?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/alicia.cano.94?pnref=friends.search
https://www.facebook.com/skikklesman?pnref=friends.search
The problem is not outsourcing. The problem is outsourcing to companies who aren’t good or dedicated enough to make PC ports. Like I said, Deus Ex 3 and Thief were stellar ports.
Admitting one mistake I made apparently discredits my original point? Iron Galaxy are a studio which have developed 2 full games for PC and ported a handful more in their time. The closest in scope to Arkham Knight would be Arkham Origins, which was infamous for being a bugged mess upon release and is still infamous for being the worst in it’s franchise. They are not known for Bioshock Infinite since that was developed by Irrational Studios and apparently Iron Galaxy didn’t even port it, simply assisted at most. So, tell me more about how I was wrong about them being an unknown studio? Would you like to refer to the successful portable or console games they’ve produced, because I’m sure that’d make one hell of a counter-argument.