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Dead Game? MK11 Had the Highest Views of Any Game at EVO On Saturday

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
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MK11 peaked at over 67,000 viewers during the final sets, which was the highest of any game on any stream on all of Saturday.

Just to reiterate that — MK11 reached the highest viewership of of all streams of all games at EVO Sat.

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Conclusion: we need to stop trying to kill our own games prematurely, when there's life in them still! This tournament was amazing, and it shows exactly what the game is capable of at a major even 4 years in. Let's have some confidence in our own scene.. And keep torches burning until the next game sees reveal :cool:
 
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MK11 peaked at over 67,000 viewers during the final sets.

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Conclusion: we need to stop trying to kill our own games prematurely, when there's life in them still! This tournament was amazing, and it shows exactly what the game is capable of at a major even 4 years in. Let's have some confidence in our own scene.. And keep torches burning until the next game sees reveal :cool:
The game is far from dead. Mortal Kombat XL isn't dead, and neither is Mortal Kombat (2011). People need to stop paying attention to the drama queens and simply play the games they enjoy.

That doesn't mean you need to like every game in a franchise or by the same developer, but it does mean you don't need to constantly shit on something just because it isn't your cup of tea.
 

M2Dave

Zoning Master
Lulz, NRS killed this game with lack of support. If they dont give af, why should I?
Because while certain individuals in this community will always blame the fan base, I believe that company support is just as important as fan support.

Speaking of company support and EVO numbers, let us discuss a fighting game that has been supported by its company for over seven years.

Tekken 7 is a fighting game that was initially released in the arcades in 2015. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was one of the few fighting games that gradually experienced an increase in participation despite its old age. Earlier today, viewership peaked at over 135,000 as Namco announced a free update that includes balance adjustments and a new gameplay mechanic.

Supporting your fighting game works.
 
Because while certain individuals in this community will always blame the fan base, I believe that company support is just as important as fan support.
I don't feel like people are trying to blame the fan base. Just pointing out that in other communities (like Tekken) i feel like players support their scene much more. Even if the game isn't what they expected (SF5 at launch).



Supporting your fighting game works.
It does. From both sides. I don't see why NRS would even want to support the game if people were saying the game was trash and can't be fixed. Or "when's mk12" before they stopped support.
If there is no interest or the game is "dead" then why would that motivate a company support a game? This talk gets to a certain point where it isnt feedback anymore and just shitting on the game every chance someone gets. Even though the game is supposedly dead.
 

M2Dave

Zoning Master
@Savage8-8

Regardless of how people feel about Mortal Kombat 11, whether the game is good or bad, dead or alive, worthy to be present or absent at this year's EVO, the reality is that every major fighting game developer except NRS has released more content and/or balance patches since the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020. Furthermore, over the weekend, every major fighting game developer except NRS announced additional content to an existing game or teased a forthcoming project. In spite of these facts, how any sensible individual can hold the fans accountable, particularly as Ed Boon was trolling and scolding fans on Twitter last year, is inconceivable to me.
 
@Savage8-8

Regardless of how people feel about Mortal Kombat 11, whether the game is good or bad, dead or alive, worthy to be present or absent at this year's EVO, the reality is that every major fighting game developer except NRS has released more content and/or balance patches since the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020. Furthermore, over the weekend, every major fighting game developer except NRS announced additional content to an existing game or teased a forthcoming project. In spite of these facts, how any sensible individual can hold the fans accountable, particularly as Ed Boon was trolling and scolding fans on Twitter last year, is inconceivable to me.
Fair point. I do and I'm sure others do as well hold NRS accountable bc they aren't perfect. The biggest example imo was the marketing of continued support which wasn't delivered. And people making excuses for this.

What i am referring to on the fan/community side is the rhetoric trashing the game. Your always gonna have people trash anything. But when community members and fans of the series trash the game, it holds more weight. And I'm talking about straight trashing with no concrete reason other than you don't like it. Not negative feedback.

So if the goal is to improve or get a better game saying it's "dead" prematurely or straight exaggerating ain't the way to do it.
 

Son ov Timett

Bork, No Jin
Because while certain individuals in this community will always blame the fan base, I believe that company support is just as important as fan support.

Speaking of company support and EVO numbers, let us discuss a fighting game that has been supported by its company for over seven years.

Tekken 7 is a fighting game that was initially released in the arcades in 2015. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was one of the few fighting games that gradually experienced an increase in participation despite its old age. Earlier today, viewership peaked at over 135,000 as Namco announced a free update that includes balance adjustments and a new gameplay mechanic.

Supporting your fighting game works.
My main game currently is Hunt Showdown. Just to put things into context. This title came out well before MK11, and just hit an all-time high of concurrent users on Steam last week with 39k. Been playing since December, and have seen multiple patches, s-ton of content, and several special events. This is a game that most casuals haven't even heard about, yet Crytek is constantly churning out content for their small avid fan base. Imagine if Netherrealm gave two drops of Motaro piss about us and patched this game to be something more deep than bologna on pumpernickel? I'd be playing it while throwing money at Boon's masseuse. "Yea rub that back baby, don't forget them eyebrows." All we got was a contrived cash grab storyline DLC that I couldn't finish, and some custom variations that should've been in since day fn one. It's inexcusable for such a large studio to constantly pull the plug on their DNR releases.

These clowns will do the same charade come Injustice 3, expecting the community to put hours of their sweat into a release only to send it to Outerworld 18 months in. One can cheerlead for these Falcones all they want, the jig is up. Not one more dime, nor minute of time.
 

Immortal

Blind justice....
That's the name of the (game)business. It's been that way for years now with WB, it was the same - way before MK 11. NRS(owned by WB before and now ATT) is in the make the most money business not in the "support their own game for years coz... fans". That will not change. Im sure if all of the fans would vote with their wallets(didn't buy lets say Injustice 3/MK 12) it would change but being real here im pretty sure - when MK 12 drops it gonna brake the sale record once again - so from the company standpoint - why change? Lets just make more money and dust MK 12 in 2 years time and make new one which again gonna sell even better than the previous one.
 
But does a game need years upon years of support to be liked/to have it continue to be played? Look at MK9, that game received the least amount of support compared to the other NRS games yet it is the most beloved. It just feels like "lack of support" seems like an excuse for disliking a game when in reality no amount of support would make certain people ever like the game because it will never play like MK9 or MKX. And you know what, that's ok, dislike the game for what it is and how it plays and the mechanics etc... but not because of a lack of support especially when that same person probably loves MK9.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
But does a game need years upon years of support to be liked/to have it continue to be played? Look at MK9, that game received the least amount of support compared to the other NRS games yet it is the most beloved. It just feels like "lack of support" seems like an excuse for disliking a game when in reality no amount of support would make certain people ever like the game because it will never play like MK9 or MKX. And you know what, that's ok, dislike the game for what it is and how it plays and the mechanics etc... but not because of a lack of support especially when that same person probably loves MK9.
I mean look at Smash Melee.. Super unbalanced, only a handful of characters are viable at a high level, needs a patch, Nintendo dropped support. There's no way it'll be successful as a tournament game.

:cool:
 
the reality is that every major fighting game developer except NRS has released more content and/or balance patches since the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020.
  • The Aftermath expansion
  • 3 additional characters with said expansion
  • Kombat Pack 2
  • A few balances patches
  • Skins, Gear, and other misc. items
NetherRealm Studios did release content, and patches, since the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020, it simply wasn't content you wanted or up to the standards you wanted.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
SFV still getting more viewers than any other game despite being one of the oldest is ridiculous.
Having the legends Daigo and Tokido in an EVO top 8 is a pretty big event, and will draw no matter what the game is. Those guys have earned it over years' worth of amazing play, and the legacy of that scene will continue to carry it across titles.

Also, having the old guard run into iDom, who is one of the most dominant (if not the most dominant) players right now, and was putting together an amazing losers run, was a pretty great storyline.
 
Having the legends Daigo and Tokido in an EVO top 8 is a pretty big event, and will draw no matter what the game is. Those guys have earned it over years' worth of amazing play, and the legacy of that scene will continue to carry it across titles.

Also, having the old guard run into iDom, who is one the most dominant (if not the most dominant) players right now, and was putting together an amazing losers run, was a pretty great storyline.
I agree!
 

SaltShaker

In Zoning We Trust
It's been forever since I logged in since I don't play the game anymore, have to get re-acclimated to this site. This was the first NRS game I completely stopped playing having lost interest in it so thought it best to not post and trash it lol. I'll try to start posting again though. Hope everyone is well.

On topic:

I went to both CEO and Evo so sharing some thoughts. MK11 throughout the weekend of Evo specifically was super hype within the community. Seems like the guys really were into it, even talking to a couple of old heads I hadn't heard from in a while. The new players are beast, seemingly picking up the game faster than I've ever seen in any other NRS title. At CEO it wasn't as hype as Evo imo, but I paid more attention at Evo. You wouldn't even notice some of the criticism if you saw the community in a vacuum live at the event(s).

However, I think it's numbers in players don't support what the active community thinks for a few reasons.
--1, it was most obvious at both events, other communities don't respect the game. For example, this was most notable when the Robocop vs Robocop mirror was on, I was talking to ApologyMan at the time and he/we were watching and he was laughing at it calling it an "action shooter" and "a joke" while the actual MK community was hype during the match. There are many examples of this, but this is just one. Perception hurts the game competitively regardless if people want to admit it.
--2, the lack of support is legit. Tekken nearly blew the arena off, KOF dudes were literally jumping out their seats, etc. MK rolling out a big bag of nothing really hurts them when everyone else had something epic for people to return to the game after not playing, pick up the game for the first time, etc. NRS doesn't have the type of community like say a Smash game, which leads me to,
--3, people were conditioned into the "2 year cycle of new revamped game", so once there was no game, it became much easier to disregard or drop the game. Issues? "Bring the new game on". No one dropped SF or Tekken or whatever because they knew what they were getting and stay with their game and their patches. NRS would massively change each iteration, on top of Injustice games in the middle. The base is not used to "here's season 5 of your 5 year old game", nor should anyone expect them to be until it actually happens. They're used to getting a new game to replace the old one rather than fixing issues as the game developers. Once they got the result of old game with minimal then no updates, it was a death sentence for it's growth, at least temporarily a death sentence.

All in all I think the combination of these factors wouldn't ever allow the game to grow more competitively. It will always draw big $$. In the elevator some guy was like "hey what's this convention about?", And when I explained it, he said, "oh like Mortal Kombat?". Not SF, not Tekken, MK is the first thing he thought of. It's probably the most popular casual fighting game, more than SF. Maybe in the next MK they'll do what Tekken did, what SF did, what KOF is doing, what Strive is doing, etc etc, and things will be different on the competitive side.
 

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
It’s wild just how many times this conversation has been brought up. Not just about the current NRS game being dead or not, but how relevant dev support is.

My stance is the same as it has always been, and I’ll try to reiterate it as concisely as I can.

NRS has cultivated a culture where they force the competitive playerbase to lose interest when they stop supporting the game. But, it’s an interesting situation because either both sides hold some blame, or neither side does.

People forget pretty much on a daily basis that NRS is a business first and foremost, above all else. I’m pretty sure that since MK9, NRS games have been the best selling fighting games (aside from the new Smash games… if they count :coffee:). And that also, Mortal Kombat alone as a video game franchise is unrivaled in total revenue, even by Smash (not NRS, just MK). For the 5 NRS titles, they have tweaked and fine tuned their business strategy while simultaneously progressively dedicating a lot of time and resources to the competitive community, and doing the same to that and how they balance patch the game.

Whether some would like to admit it or not, the sad truth is that NRS games could have zero focus on the competitive community and any losses that would come from that would most likely be negligible. Sure, the current NRS game DOES do a lot of I guess “self promotion” when it’s super active, alive and well, and a staple part of the FGC tournament circuit. I don’t have the exact numbers to quantify just how much of an impact that has on sales, but if I were to guess, again, I’d assume the number of sales as a result isn’t worth the time (and money) NRS chooses to invest into the competitive community. I am of course not suggesting that NRS is merely treating the competitive community like a charity case, and we should kiss their toes for even trying to make the games balanced competitively and do all the promotion that they DO do for tournaments and the competitive scene and FGC. But, as I said, they don’t “need” us.

So when they go out of their way to do things that don’t really benefit them in a business sense, yeah, I feel like that SHOULD be acknowledged as them doing us a favor. Because it’s quite clear we are incapable of keeping these games alive competitively on our own. Well, we absolutely can, but the way this all works is that players have become so accustomed and spoiled by what NRS gives to the competitive scene in regards to balance patches, tournament pot bonuses, tournament series’, the stream dedicated to more of the competitive minded players, etc, that when all of that is no longer there, we kinda get that feeling that we’re left holding the bag. It’s an interesting dichotomy that I don’t think exists in any other FGC community.

With all that said, and AS I said, yes, we technically COULD keep the newer games alive for as long as we want to. But aside from all of the aforementioned points above, it goes to another point of mine about the quality of the newer NRS games as well as them not (imo) being built to last, especially in comparison to a lot of other FG’s. And the fact that all these points tie in together to creating exactly the same results we see for every new NRS game when the support for the game by NRS stops.

But this post is already long enough and it was supposed to be just a brief reiteration, lol. And since that other, last point of mine is far more subjective, I’ll leave that for another discussion/topic.
 

M2Dave

Zoning Master
SFV still getting more viewers than any other game despite being one of the oldest is ridiculous.
Just like Tekken 7, albeit more controversial, particularly immediately upon release, Capcom supported Street Fighter 5 for six years. The "definitive update" was released at the end of March this year. The general consensus had always been that the game lacked defensive options and that playing footsies was perverted by crush counters and V-Trigger activations. In complete contrast to Mortal Kombat 11 and NRS who covered their ears and ignored any constructive criticism, Capcom listened and addressed as many issues as possible. For a long time, I thought that Street Fighter 5 was a degenerate game, but the implementation of the V-Shift mechanic changed the meta for the better. I think that the game finds itself in a very good place right now, and I know many people who think the same in spite of the rough start.

With all that said, and AS I said, yes, we technically COULD keep the newer games alive for as long as we want to. But aside from all of the aforementioned points above, it goes to another point of mine about the quality of the newer NRS games as well as them not (imo) being built to last, especially in comparison to a lot of other FG’s. And the fact that all these points tie in together to creating exactly the same results we see for every new NRS game when the support for the game by NRS stops.
You mention a great point. I believe that fighting games commonly last for two reasons.

  1. The meta is initially complex and takes a long time to develop.
  2. New content and balance updates constantly change the meta.
Obviously, the first predicate applies to older, nostalgic games (i.e., Melee, 3s, MvC2, ST, UMK:3, etc.) while the second applies to any modern fighting games. Mortal Kombat 11 has neither so the game was never going to last anyway.