Future of MKX on PC; MKXL Enhanced Online PC BETA

[chris999]

My only question to you all is what you will do when the next NRS Installment is released. Knowing the history of WB and PC Support.

Will they have the nerve to port another fighting game on pc? I mean their profits from MKX PC must be more than 30.000.000 dollars and even with this amount of money they couldn't provide a version on par with consoles. I believe it's a strategical decision to drop PC as a platform in general, because on consoles they earn 10 times more money than on PC.

Either way both these companies are dead to me, as long as they continue not fixing this mess with MKX. All the people commenting in this forum and in social media for theirs failures, is more honor than they deserve.

 

[Juxtapose]

I mean their profits from MKX PC must be more than 30.000.000 dollars...

You're assuming everyone who bought the PC version bought it brand new at retail cost, which we all know is not true. Many purchased via grey sites, and then there was also Steam Sales.

But lets assume your math logic is correct and apply that to the console versions of the game. The base console versions alone would then have netted them over $315,000,000.00.

 

[-narshkajke-]

My only question to you all is what you will do when the next NRS Installment is released. Knowing the history of WB and PC Support.

keep playing sfv and vote with muh wallet,

 

[chris999]

You're assuming everyone who bought the PC version bought it brand new at retail cost, which we all know is not true. Many purchased via grey sites, and then there was also Steam Sales.

But lets assume your math logic is correct and apply that to the console versions of the game. The base console versions alone would then have netted them over $315,000,000.00.

Yep, you are right about the PC, I didn't calculate that inside this 500.000 are also the grey sites buyers. But, as for the consoles, I am pretty sure that the number you have written is true. If we consider that the game sold around 4-5.000.000 copies on consoles in the first 6 months(if I remember well, when there wasn't any price drop), this is the amount of money we are talking about.

That's why I said that it seems like a (silly in my opinion) strategical decision abandoning PC, because somebody took a look at these numbers and thought that is not necessary to support PC platform, when they earn from consoles 10Xthe money from PC.

However, right now their position in PC fighting games competition is extremely vulnerable, most of their fans are going to move on SFV or on KI or on Tekken 7, if it comes out on PC. They maximize their revenue this year, but they are going to lose much more money in the long run. Of course they can't understand it yet, because they take for granted that all their next installments will be this successful on consoles.

 

[Juxtapose]

Yep, you are right about the PC, I didn't calculate that inside this 500.000 are also the grey sites buyers. But, as for the consoles, I am pretty sure that the number you have written is true. If we consider that the game sold around 4-5.000.000 copies on consoles in the first 6 months(if I remember well, when there wasn't any price drop), this is the amount of money we are talking about.

That's why I said that it seems like a (silly in my opinion) strategical decision abandoning PC, because somebody took a look at these numbers and thought that is not necessary to support PC platform, when they earn from consoles 10Xthe money from PC.

However, right now their position in PC fighting games competition is extremely vulnerable, most of their fans are going to move on SFV or on KI or on Tekken 7, if it comes out on PC. They maximize their revenue this year, but they are going to lose much more money in the long run. Of course they can't understand it yet, because they take for granted that all their next installments will be this successful on consoles.

The sad truth though is they're not actually going to loose out as much as everyone in the PC community seems to be suggesting. Here's why:

In October, it was announced that Mortal Kombat X had sold 5,000,000 copies (all platforms). Everyone keeps going on _now_ about how the PC version has sold 500,000 copies to date; nearly 6 months later. If you do the math, that means the PC version has sold _less_ than 10% of the game's total sales to date, _and_ at a lesser price point (PC version is $10.00 cheaper at retail, not taking into consideration sales and grey sites).

So in the grand scheme of things, that's not a big financial loss at all.

 

[Sance]

The sad truth though is they're not actually going to loose out as much as everyone in the PC community seems to be suggesting. Here's why:

In October, it was announced that Mortal Kombat X had sold 5,000,000 copies (all platforms). Everyone keeps going on _now_ about how the PC version has sold 500,000 copies to date; nearly 6 months later. If you do the math, that means the PC version has sold _less_ than 10% of the game's total sales to date, _and_ at a lesser price point (PC version is $10.00 cheaper at retail, not taking into consideration sales and grey sites).

So in the grand scheme of things, that's not a big financial loss at all.

As a "cold", statistical financial loss it isn't anything big but that's only half the picture in this case. When it comes to the long term effects on the PC platform MKX and Arkham Knight pretty much cost WB the trust of the PC audience as a whole really.

According to Steamspy Arkham City sold more than 3 million copies and Arkham Origins did really-really well too (almost 2 million copies). Arkham Knight is at 531 000 now - a large portion of that are GPU bundles so my guess is that the game sold around 400 000 - 450 000 copies... and that brings it down to the level of Arkham Origins Blackgate (512 000 copies sold). MKX? 510 000 copies sold. MK9? 986 000 and since 1 year has passed since the release of MKX the comparison is very, very justified.

The last massively successful WB game on PC was Shadow of Mordor (1 868 000 copies) and that indicates that people are still not tired of the "Arkhamesque action-adventure" genre yet Mad Max, a WB game that is actually a very good port but came out after MKX and Arkham Knight is currently sitting at 657 000. Not too bad but I think the effects of a destroyed reputation are there and frankly even the fact that Mad Max could outsell MKX and AK is ridiculous, it's a fucking movie license with mediocre review scores afterall.

MKX and Arkham Knight resulted in millions of lost sales for the company and the way to crawl out of that hole starts by fixing up these two titles because:

A. They are infamous at this point: they kinda got away with the bad port in the case of MKX (thanks to QLOC it's only half-bad now - the netcode is atrocious and the stability is questionable at best but most of the serious issues were ironed out compared to the original console release) but they managed to mess up Arkham Knight two times now.

B. These are the flagship titles of the company so fixing them up will unquestionably have an effect on the market.

 

[Juxtapose]

As a "cold", statistical financial loss it isn't anything big but that's only half the picture in this case. When it comes to the long term effects on the PC platform MKX and Arkham Knight pretty much cost WB the trust of the PC audience as a whole really.

Oh, you're absolutely correct, but I can tell you that they're not thinking of the long term effects on the PC market. Many companies, especially entertainment companies these days (including gaming developers and publishers) focus more on the short term to maximize profits, not the long term. We've seen that time and time again with the odd decisions so many companies have made. Such decisions are usually done by larger companies though, which WBIE is, as smaller companies truly need every customer they can get. WBIE, Microsoft, Sony, etc. do not because they're so large.

Secondly, I've been playing video games for about 32 years now, and gamers have continually shown time and time again how gullible they are. And by that I mean no matter how much a company screws them, the gamer will still buy their shiny new product, even if they get burned again, and again, and again. Publishers know this, and they know that they can get away with things like this because of the consumers mentality. If they couldn't, companies like Ubisoft and EA would be gone by now, we wouldn't have $70.00 season passes, and we wouldn't have premium multiplayer services.

 

[ZeZe]

If companies focus on short term effects it's puzzling why they even bother making PC ports that will be bad, will get dropped less then a year after release and will add to bad PR for the company? If profit from PC market is so insignificant, why not simply not make a port and focus on consoles only.

 

[VerminatorX]

If companies focus on short term effects it's puzzling why they even bother making PC ports that will be bad, will get dropped less then a year after release and will add to bad PR for the company? If profit from PC market is so insignificant, why not simply not make a port and focus on consoles only.

Well, basically they did it through 3D era.

 

[Sance]

If companies focus on short term effects it's puzzling why they even bother making PC ports that will be bad, will get dropped less then a year after release and will add to bad PR for the company? If profit from PC market is so insignificant, why not simply not make a port and focus on consoles only.

It's simple: because fucking up these ports was not part of the plan. You can't go around saying "okay guys, let's make a bad port, the idiots will buy it anyway", these things are usually the result of incompetence and bad management. It's clear that in the case of MKX and Arkham Knight the PC versions simply did not get the time and attention they should have been handled with.

It's interesting to see that through different management the development team who apparently "messd up" Arkham Knight - Iron Galaxy - was able to make a stellar PC port for Killer Instinct. This really sheds some light on who's fault it was in reality.

 

[Juxtapose]

It's simple: because fucking up these ports was not part of the plan. You can't go around saying "okay guys, let's make a bad port, the idiots will buy it anyway", these things are usually the result of incompetence and bad management. It's clear that in the case of MKX and Arkham Knight the PC versions simply did not get the time and attention they should have been handled with.

It's interesting to see that through different management the development team who apparently "messd up" Arkham Knight - Iron Galaxy - was able to make a stellar PC port for Killer Instinct. This really sheds some light on who's fault it was in reality.

Yup. As I've been saying all long, for the issues with Mortal Kombat X (and Batman: Arkham Knight) on PC, the primary responsible party has always been WBIE. Not the third party contracted developer, not NetherRealm Studios (though they are owned by WBIE), and not Ed Boon whom everyone focuses on way, way too much.

But of course everyone loves to hate and throw business logic out the window.

@ZeZe Why make PC ports for the games? Past attempts showed potential, so they decided to capitalize. For Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition sold over a million copies on PC two years after the game original launched on console. So you'd think that the next game in the franchise, releasing on launch day, would sell even better. I'm sure that's what they were thinking. And they were wrong for various reasons it seems.

 

[ZeZe]

Maybe I'm looking at it from a different perspective. There have been for years now so many bad PC ports that sadly they are expected and nobody really is surprised anymore when they happen. People are rather surprised if they get a decent PC port day one. So "bad PC ports are not planned" - looks like giving WB way too much credit. Maybe they are not planned per se, but them being failed projects is for WB clearly something that can be accepted. With this in mind, it's still puzzling why they kept pushing Batman and MKX on PC, knowing the risks and rather clear indications that they will be major blowups. Because WB chose to hire HVS for MKX that isn't know from being a good, trusted 3rd party to port PC games. This doesn't sound like a step towards planning a good PC port. If WB really wanted to avoid bad PC port they would either hire trusted 3rd party like QLOCK or maybe task PC team from one of the devs they own.

There are articles about failed Batman launch, stating that WB knew the state of the PC port and decided to release it anyway. They new PC port is bad beyond repair, they still let it fly. This thing was planned. Nobody sane gives game to studio that has no real experience with porting PC games and gives them few days to port game like Batman AK. I'm not angry anymore tbh, I just would like to understand the logic behind releasing a game or even worse - more games in short period of time, which will be either abandonware (MKX) or chock full of unrepairable bugs (Batman), instead of aborting these projects on PC altogether and save own reputation.

 

[Juxtapose]

Maybe I'm looking at it from a different perspective. There have been for years now so many bad PC ports that sadly they are expected and nobody really is surprised anymore when they happen. People are rather surprised if they get a decent PC port day one. So "bad PC ports are not planned" - looks like giving WB way too much credit. Maybe they are not planned per se, but them being failed projects is for WB clearly something that can be accepted. With this in mind, it's still puzzling why they kept pushing Batman and MKX on PC, knowing the risks and rather clear indications that they will be major blowups. Because WB chose to hire HVS for MKX that isn't know from being a good, trusted 3rd party to port PC games. This doesn't sound like a step towards planning a good PC port. If WB really wanted to avoid bad PC port they would either hire trusted 3rd party like QLOCK or maybe task PC team from one of the devs they own.

There are articles about failed Batman launch, stating that WB knew the state of the PC port and decided to release it anyway. They new PC port is bad beyond repair, they still let it fly. This thing was planned. Nobody sane gives game to studio that has no real experience with porting PC games and gives them few days to port game like Batman AK. I'm not angry anymore tbh, I just would like to understand the logic behind releasing a game or even worse - more games in short period of time, which will be either abandonware (MKX) or chock full of unrepairable bugs (Batman), instead of aborting these projects on PC altogether and save own reputation.

Yeah. As I believe I mentioned before, I work in the entertainment industry. Not game development or publishing, but one that's similar enough. The decisions I see being made sometimes, and the logic behind them... .

They obviously didn't plan for both these games to be poor, but poor decision making made it happen. Hiring High Voltage has always been a mistake and we'll never know why they did it. Maybe High Voltage was the lowest bidder, maybe the close proximity geographically to NetherRealm Studios was the draw, or maybe they had a three game contract with High Voltage signed years ago (if you check, you'll see High Voltage did ports of Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition, Injustice: Gods Among Us - Ultimate Edition, and Mortal Kombat X. They were "done" after that game). We likely will never know.

I've also seen those articles where Iron Galaxy said they warned WBIE about the Batman: Arkham Knight port but WBIE went ahead with it anyway. I suspect this was done because they had already invested money into that so they're releasing it to make something back. I see that sort of stuff happen in the entertainment industry all the time: What you've made is poor, but you release it anyway to either try and recoup some costs or because you're contractually obligated to.

They may have hoped to fix things quickly with patching, or not. You can read one of my above posts for my comments on the attitude towards the PC game market.

I'm not angry either, and as you know I never was, but I am still disappointed. I just want an official statement, that's it. Something saying that yeah, it's done, or XL is coming but later on to PC.

I don't have any control over that though, so I vote with my wallet.

 

[Sance]

Maybe I'm looking at it from a different perspective. There have been for years now so many bad PC ports that sadly they are expected and nobody really is surprised anymore when they happen. People are rather surprised if they get a decent PC port day one. So "bad PC ports are not planned" - looks like giving WB way too much credit. Maybe they are not planned per se, but them being failed projects is for WB clearly something that can be accepted. With this in mind, it's still puzzling why they kept pushing Batman and MKX on PC, knowing the risks and rather clear indications that they will be major blowups. Because WB chose to hire HVS for MKX that isn't know from being a good, trusted 3rd party to port PC games. This doesn't sound like a step towards planning a good PC port. If WB really wanted to avoid bad PC port they would either hire trusted 3rd party like QLOCK or maybe task PC team from one of the devs they own.

There are articles about failed Batman launch, stating that WB knew the state of the PC port and decided to release it anyway. They new PC port is bad beyond repair, they still let it fly. This thing was planned. Nobody sane gives game to studio that has no real experience with porting PC games and gives them few days to port game like Batman AK. I'm not angry anymore tbh, I just would like to understand the logic behind releasing a game or even worse - more games in short period of time, which will be either abandonware (MKX) or chock full of unrepairable bugs (Batman), instead of aborting these projects on PC altogether and save own reputation.

By the time WB realized that the ports are bad they were already beyond the point of no return. A smarter company of course delays the PC release in this case but my guess is that thanks to their horrible QA department they thought it was bad but they didn't think it's THAT bad so they figured a delay would do them more harm. On a company level bad ports usually happen when they don't know what the audience expects and I guess that's what happened. Hell, you can blame guys like High Voltage and say they did bad work before too but honestly while the ports of MK9 and Injustice were not fantastic, they were fine overall, not even close to the level of shit we got with MKX and AK.

As for PC port quality overall I think that most ports come out on an acceptable level, it's just a shame that even big companies can end up with ridiculously low quality products sometimes.

 

[ZeZe]

I'm not angry either, and as you know I never was, but I am still disappointed. I just want an official statement, that's it. Something saying that yeah, it's done, or XL is coming but later on to PC.

I don't have any control over that though, so I vote with my wallet.

If there was a Business Bible and it had some version of ten commandments, complete lack of communication towards end user (especially the one who already paid full price for a product), should be considered a cardinal sin leading straight to business version of eternal torment. WB sort of explained why they cancelled MK X for last gen consoles. Them being completely silent about PC version is just beyond any comprehension. I mean, after Batman and MKX many (won't say majority, because sadly, that's not likely) PC gamers will think twice before purchasing any WB game, or will straight out pirate it or get it from shady sites. Too bad for games developed by studios who have reliable PC teams.

Personally MK is the only franchise WB owns that I'm interested in. WB infested latest Insomnia sale on GoG with their LEGO crap. It felt bad to see how they still benefit from PC market by selling some old LEGO titles, yet disrespect it in the same time.

 

[VerminatorX]

Screw MKX, I found Killer Instinct to be more fun.

 

[Juxtapose]

Personally MK is the only franchise WB owns that I'm interested in. WB infested latest Insomnia sale on GoG with their LEGO crap. It felt bad to see how they still benefit from PC market by selling some old LEGO titles, yet disrespect it in the same time.

I'm personally interested in several WBIE franchises. Mortal Kombat being the foremost among them, followed by Batman: Arkham. I also want to get into the MIddle-earth franchise at some point, and there's another one or two I'm forgetting.

But as I said, on PC at least, it's grey market for me with WBIE from now on.

 

[Sance]

Screw MKX, I found Killer Instinct to be more fun.

KI is the cure to our post-traumatic stress disorder, man. It's like going to the doctor:

"Sir, you look traumatized by the bad PC port of Mortal Kombat X. Here's a prescription for a new medicine on the market, it's called Killer Instinct."
"What does it do?"
"Well, for starters it is a western fighting game, the art style will feel like home to most MK fans."
"That's kinda nice but does it cure my lag issues?"
"Yes! The netcode is actually the best it can be, it's like if you were playing offline!"
"Too little, too late! The PC audience is smaller, the game will be dead in months!"
"But sir! Killer Instinct has crossplay multiplayer with Xbox One and the Xbox and PC audiences combined will make for an amazing community!"
"That's too good to be true! What's the catch? I'm sure they'll destroy my wallet with overpriced DLC!"
"But... but the game is free-to-play, sir! You can play one character for free if you want and the whole package costs only 50 bucks! There is no catch, you need Windows 10 to run it but that's free anyway."
"Pfff, I'm onto you here. Spill the beans: the PC port is horrible, right?"
"No, sir, Iron Galaxy did a stellar job, I've seen the game running well on a 10 years old Pentium CPU! Here, let me show you the benchmark: http://i.imgur.com/dyeOROg.png"
"Wow, you're not lying and it has a benchamark on day one! Here's 50 bucks and my eternal gratitude, finally a fighting game I can play! Umm... what's that weird crying coming from the other room?"
"Oh, those are just the monkeys from Warner Brothers and Netherrealm Studios. They all suffer from banana withdrawal, they go crazy if they don't get their daily dosage! The worst is the one called Boon, he keeps mentioning the number 500 000 for no reason if he's hungry."

 

[yowbah]

Iron Galaxy - was able to make a stellar PC port for Killer Instinct. This really sheds some light on who's fault it was in reality.

the port itself is awesome and far beyond my expectations indeed, but you need go through hell and fire (i.e. shitty underdeveloped windows services) to play it, that fucks up all the impression

 

[Sance]

the port itself is awesome and far beyond my expectations indeed, but you need go through hell and fire (i.e. shitty underdeveloped windows services) to play it, that fucks up all the impression

- You start up the Windows Store.
- You type "killer instinct" into the search bar.
- You click in the first thing it finds.
- You click on Download / Install / whatever.
- You wait till it finishes (the game needs around 30 gigs of free space).
- You play.

Sure, the login process is done through the Xbox app and that's where you can invite friends to a lobby from too but the only time the app bothered me with logging in was when I started the game for the first time and there is no client program to start up: you fire up your PC, click on the start menu / desktop icon and the game starts up pretty much instantly, the only DRM you have to sit through is the "searching for downloadable content" screen and even that's harmless because everything is automatic. Matchmaking is fast too, hell, the loading times are nearly non-existent, you only have to wait for 10 seconds max is if your opponent is an Xbox player.

Based on the things I've heard about UWP and the Windows Store I was prepared for the worst experience imaginable, then after I did everything I was like "This is what the PC community is bitching about? Man, people are horrible!" The funny thing is that everywhere I see arguments like "This should be on Steam too!" and my guess is that these guys really don't remember the early days (around 2004) of Steam: it was a horrible piece of DRM, the launch day of Half-Life 2 was one of my worst gaming experiences and just look at where they are now! UWP and the Windows Store is already infinitely better than that and they'll improve too.

 

[yowbah]

- You start up the Windows Store

that's where the story ended for me, lol, windows apps don't recognize my connection for whatever reason

i tried EVERYTHING i found online, nothing works, and the only method that worked is creating a new windows account, but it's kinda uncomfortable for me, why can't i just play from my main account, that's bullshit

 

[Sance]

that's where the story ended for me, lol, windows apps don't recognize my connection for whatever reason

i tried EVERYTHING i found online, nothing works, and the only method that worked is creating a new windows account, but it's kinda uncomfortable for me, why can't i just play from my main account, that's bullshit

If you upgraded to Windows 10 and it kept all your settings, programs and shit from the previous OS then that can lead to certain issues, especially when it comes to network settings. It's worth to troubleshoot, usually if you try for long enough you'll find the problem eventually.

 

[rolex]

Can anyone tell me if its possible to copy killer instinct files to another PC? thanks

 

[Sance]

Can anyone tell me if its possible to copy killer instinct files to another PC?

The data is stored in the "WindowsApps" folder so I guess it's possible.

 

[yowbah]

It's worth to troubleshoot

lol, that's part of the problem, every troubleshooting tool says that everything is fine, i don't even know what causes that problem