Mortal Kombat use to be household back in the 90s, the over-the-top violence and the brutality that existed in the games themselves was something that not a lot of fighters had back then. I heard it had something to do with MK4 and how it was a departure from the MK series and the Anniliation movie left a bad taste in fans mouths. I also heard it had something to do with the spinoff as well, I never played but after seeing a few walkthroughs I don’t think I will. It gained some momentum (at least to fighting game fans) with Deadly Alliance, Deception and Armageddon but other than that it lost lot its luster over the years. MK9 pretty much changed that but my question is, why did it fail in the first place?
Also, I am not sure if this is the right forum put this in.
It failed because of Midway. Believe it or not the switch for deadly alliance was well received, the rehashing just hurt it. The problem was Midway was only really making money from mortal kombat, so they forced out annual releases in order to keep them afloat. They didn’t have the time to change much, so they focused a lot on the bonuses and left the gameplay alone. The time restraints showed when they made mk vs dc, where they switched up the gameplay, but didn’t have time for their usual bonuses. That’s my theory. I mean look what they accomplished when Warner Bros. gave them time to work.