[Sumac]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

The thing is though, Netherrealm have never been shy about mixing up the MK formula, so you never know what type of spin-off we may get.

2D and 3D are too different to easily move from one to another. Especially if you have popular franchise and bunch of fans.

Originally Posted by Leo656

Deadly Alliance, Deception and Armageddon all got scores in the 8s and 9s. DA ended up selling almost four million copies and got the best reception since MKII. Deception was the first fighting game to have an online mode. They all won various "Game of the Year" and "Fighting Game of the Year" awards from multiple magazines and websites.

"On the backburner" my ass. Maybe you weren't paying any attention but the franchise was doing VERY well that decade. The reboot and return to 2D definitely got them even more attention - everything feels bigger and more urgent in the Social Media Era - but you are absolutely f*cking lying, here.

It probably is bigger Right Now but to say that it was "forgotten" during the 2000s is blatantly, provably untrue. Smack yourself.

This situation was complex: MK was pretty big, but it was not that hard, since 2000s decade was a time of death for fighting games - most franchises had either died or went into slumber up until Street Fighter 4, which revived the genre.

To put it simply MK was big due to its legacy, gore, but most importantly, the fact there was almost no competition in its segment of casual fighting games. Tekken was a very big thing, but it was more complex, SoulCalibur was making mistake after mistake up until it had almost died with SoulCalibur 5 and 2D fighting games were almost eradicated, safe for Japanese indie titles like Melty Blood or Guilty Gear, which obviously didn't attracted lots of attention from mainstream public.

In fact, when MK4 ended up competing with 3D fighting games in the middle of the 90s it was crushed.

And about numbers - I've heard that MKDA sold about 2,1 million copies and each successive MK game sold less and less until MK9. Where did you get 4 million copies number?

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Yeah, but the 2000's games definitely sold less than MK1-3 in the 90's or the reboots from 2011 onward. I had Deadly Alliance on Gamecube and played it a ton, and even back then it felt like MK's time had passed. Even Mortal Kombat 4 seemed to have more of a following despite the gameplay being much worse.

Not really: MK4 was maligned pretty hard almost from the start. AFAIK, most fans considered it misstep.
MKDA-MKD-MKA were considered pretty good for its time, though a lot of people wanted MK to return to 2D.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Armaggeddon is also pretty much what caused the series to eventually be rebooted, the game was meant to bow out the series but the huge cast meant poor fatalies and characters having copy/paste movesets. I lived through that entire era, it also didn't help that Soul Calibur and Tekken were far bigger at the time.

MKA was supposed to be storyless game, but higher ups at Midway forced developers to add story. Which in the end led to reboot (well, and Midway bankruptcy, which forced developers to start from scratch to prove their worthiness to new owners).

Originally Posted by Leo656

All during an era where they had a LOT more high-end competition than MKII had in 1995, or MK11 does now.

Sorry, but its simply not true - in 1995 MK had a lot more competition, than it did in 2000s or now. It was a time when a most companies could allow themselves to keep several fighting game series active, so there was strong competition from Capcom (Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, Marvel crossovers), SNK (Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, The King of Fighters), Nintendo (Killer Instinct (produced in part by Midway as well), not to mention rising popularity of 3D fighting games, like Virtua Fighter, Tekken and SoulEdge (SoulBlade). And crapton of lesser known 2D and 3D fighting games.

In 2000s it was basically only MK vs Tekken and SoulCalibur, which by mid 00s was not a factor anymore. Virtua Fighter was interesting only for hardcore players, Dead or Alive went exclusive for XBox and everything else was either dead or niche.

And nowadays MK belongs to higher end fighting games and its only viable competition is Tekken, with Street Fighter distant 3rd and everything else being for hardcore fans or 2D enthusiasts.