Tournament turnouts are roughly consistent with past NRS games.
Even if accurate, why has Mortal Kombat not grown to the extent that fighting game franchises like Street Fighter, Tekken, and Guilty Gear have? Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, and Guilty Gear Strive have each broken attendance records in tournaments.
Look at the numbers for this year's
Combo Breaker again. How can people like you pretend that everything is fine and dandy with Mortal Kombat 1?
There's plenty of diversity among characters in terms of playstyles.
Take Quan Chi and Peacemaker. They both zone, but they play very differently.
NRS is so petrified of zoning that Quan Chi was unplayable upon release. Even with the buffs, Sonic Fox thinks that Quan Chi is the worst character in the game. Tweedy ranks him slightly higher but predicts that the character will only become worse. King Jr., who uses Quan Chi in offline and online tournaments, also claims that the character remains low tier. Quan Chi contributes nothing relevant to the meta.
Neither does Peacemaker, who now joins Quan Chi as one of the worst characters in the game. Besides, he was a top tier "zoning" character but for the wrong reason (i.e., torpedo to kameo attacks).
In terms of power levels, any low tier in this game would completely mop up the low tiers in MK9. It wouldn't even be close.
The vast majority of Mortal Kombat 1 characters barely function as real characters without kameos.
Mortal Kombat 9 Sub Zero would crush every Mortal Kombat 1 low tier character, including many top tier characters. If he had access to kameos, he would arguably become the best character in the game. LOL.