My guess is, they thought even though it is buggy, they can fix it with patches and will only get minor flack for this from the PC users. And that this would be the better choice than to anger every PC gamer by announcing the third delay.
Well, now it is clear that this was the wrong decision. They both, underestimated just how broken the game was and how incomplete compared to the console version and they forgot about Valve's newly introduced refund system.
WBGames can claim that they suspended this game for PC but if I were to venture a guess, I'd say it was Valve that suspended this game because they were tired of processing so many refunds. They would have said "A game that gets this many negative reviews and all are claiming horrible performance and missing effects must clearly be broken and therefore we shouldn't continue to sell it as it will only lead to even more refund claims."
A couple of interesting things to note: 1. They removed the PC logo from all Arkham Knight pages. 2. The company itself tells people about how to request refunds 3. The company also asks for patience while this is being worked out
The last two are somewhat contradictory to me. When a company tells customers on their own free will how to get refunds sounds like an admittance to failure and that they do not believe this can be fixed in a timely manner. And then they still ask for patience which sounds like they are working on a solution. Paired with them removing all PC logos from their promo pages for this game really seems weird.
While this announcement was leagues better than the marketing speak of the first announcement they did, I think customers still need more, clearer information what is going to happen. People who deal in software already know this but the average customer has no idea how long such things can take. Therefore they should explicitly announce what they are going to do. To me, it doesn't sound like patches will do the trick. From all accounts, this pc version sounds broken by design and the root causes are stuck deeeeeep in there. So, if they plan to fix this, then they should announce that an entire rewrite is needed and that this takes time. While at it, they should also tell us who will do this rewrite. I am sure no one wants Iron Galaxy at this again. We want Rocksteady to do it. Because we know they actually can make a Batman game. As evidenced by the ps4 version of this one and the first two games in general. Both ran fine on pc. I already heard speculation that they might try and release this in the fall when they scheduled the SteamOS and Mac version of the game. One can only hope for the sake of the windows version that Rocksteady will not be busy writing these versions and continue to outsource the windows version to the same cracksquad that arsed up this time.