Refunds over unfixable Batman bugs

Published: 3 November 2015, 03:12 AM
Refunds over unfixable Batman bugs

Warner Brothers is offering full refunds to anyone who bought the PC version of the Arkham Knight video game via the Steam gaming service.

The offer was being made because, it said, of issues with the game it "cannot fix".

It said the offer was available to anyone no matter how much of the game they had played.

The offer comes only days after a cleaned up version of the game was released for PC owners.

The game lets players control Batman as he tries to wrest control of Gotham City away from a group of super-villains.

Memory hog

Batman: Arkham Knight was released in late June, and the PC version was pulled soon after because technical faults made it unplayable for many people.

The bugs are thought to have emerged because the game was originally made for consoles and later converted or "ported" to run on PCs.

In notes that accompanied the updated release, Warner said one bug meant players on a Windows 7 PC would periodically have to restart the game to avoid crashes.

On Windows 10, Warner recommended players used 12GB of Ram - far more than most modern PCs usually require.

Many people on social media sites such as Reddit said the updated version had not cured Arkham Knight of the stuttering and freezing that had led to the original being pulled.

In a statement, Warner said it was "sorry" that many people "continue to be unhappy with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight".

It said it had worked hard to get the game to live up to expectations but understood many people were still "experiencing issues".

As a result, it said, it would offer a full refund to anyone who had bought the game via Steam, until the end of 2015.
Bug fixes would be provided for those that wanted to keep playing the game, it said.

However, it said, it would talk to these players about the issues with the game that it "cannot fix".

The refund will mean that people who bought the game in stores or other places rather than via the Steam gaming service will not be able to get their money back.