Batman: Arkham Knight is a port the PC got, but far from the port it deserves. The game suffers from performance issues galore, even on the NVIDIA GPUs it has collaborated with. That is not the end of its woes, for PC gamers in India are faced with a different problem. The retail PC version in India has shipped with Steam codes that Steam is simply refusing to activate citing region restrictions.
The game suffers from performance issues galore, even on the NVIDIA GPUs it has collaborated with.
Gamers in India who preordered the PC retail copy were in for a rude shock when it finally arrived. Steam refused to activate the code citing regional restrictions. Since Steam has recently imposed a strict region lock policy and the codes were region locked to India (as we learnt from the game’s Indian distributor, E-xpress Interactive Pvt. Ltd.), there was no workaround except to wait for the error to be rectified. This issue however did not affect gamers who had received Batman: Arkham Knight free along with their purchase of a qualifying NVIDIA GPU, since these keys were not region locked.
We contacted E-xpress Interactive Pvt. Ltd. Who are the official distributor of WB Games in India and the owners of Games the Shop to find out what the issue was with the Steam Keys. We learnt that the issue was unexpected and had been escalated to the highest levels of WB Games management and Steam. It emerged that the keys were region locked to India so as to prevent abuse of the regional pricing and all was in order at WB Games and E-xpress’ end. The issue lay with Steam itself who had failed to enable the keys, perhaps due to some mix up with launch dates.
The issue lay with Steam itself who had failed to enable the keys, perhaps due to some mix up with launch dates.
Given the poor state of Internet connectivity in India, a lot of gamers prefer the physical version as it saves them days, if not weeks, of downloading. However, we found that the game only installed ~8GB of the 33.8 GB total download size from the 5 DVDs. Those who tried to avail of the preload 1 day in advance were also in for a rude shock when Steam reset their download progress after the Day 0 patch launched. A workaround for this would be to disconnect the internet, restore the backup from discs and then let Steam update the game.
For now, those who bought the retail version of Batman: Arkham Knight must wait it out for Steam to flip the switch to finally allow them activate their keys and then begin their download. Those who have the game in family sharing with someone who used one of the NVIDIA keys or bought it from Steam itself, have a head start on the download, though Steam can upset that if a patch launches while the download is in progress. Those who preordered from Games the Shop or attended the Midnight Launch can wait it out sporting their free Batman t-shirt. E-xpress and Games the Shop must be lauded for taking this extra effort to add value to the Game through promotional merchandise.
For the latest updates, you might want to head to the Facebook page of Games the Shop or follow their Twitter. For the speediest response, you could get in touch with WB Games Support directly.
We will update this article as we get inputs from E-xpress. Until then, Be the Batman in previous games from the franchise.
Update on Batman: Arkham Knight Steam Codes
The Steam codes are now activating. You can try activating yours and if there’s any issue, try contacting WB Games support at the address mentioned earlier.
Update 2: PC version sales suspended
As per an announcement on the official Batman: Arkham Knight Steam Community Page, all further sales of the PC Version have been suspended until WB games fixes the performance issues. While this is a drastic step, it also goes to show that WB Games are taking PC gamers seriously.
Picture Credits: We are extremely grateful to Atulya Kumar Behera and Nikunj Rallabhandi for sharing the images used in this article.
