This actually has me really worried.
That’s considered the second largest tournament of the year next to EVO, and the organizer for this even works on the game.
Yeah, we will. Just because our numbers are low, doesn’t mean it’s automatically in danger. We already have a confirmation of a KI World Cup 2016/2017, no worries!
Plus, KI is really hype, and is arguably the hypest fighting game out in the world. Season 3 just started, and I’m sure more people will join. 
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there were a bunch of ppl on stream last tournament that were going wild with the action. they were all swooning over the killer (no pun intended) soundtrack too and some freakin out there is a PC version. KI is growing, i wouldnt worry about EVO. we’re gonna see it this year and likely the next. remember, this time last year in 2015 everybody was worried this would be the final EVO tournament for KI, that is not the case
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Community needs to put in the work though. Wizard and the Cannons won’t put it in over other games, especially if they get higher numbers, just because. These were the EVO entrant numbers for last year:
Ultra Street Fighter 4 - 2,227
Smash 4 - 1,926
Super Smash Bros. Melee - 1,869
Mortal Kombat X - 1,162
Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- – 968
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 - 816
Tekken 7 - 458
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax - 437
Killer Instinct - 397
Keep in mind that Tekken 7 didn’t receive an console port last year, and still hasn’t, and there’s no arcade cabinets for it outside of Japan.
Even though KI’s numbers were up from the previous year, KI still had the lowest amount of entrants.
KOF XIV is coming out this year, as well potentially more games, so KI will be fighting for space on the roster.
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I agree that KI is hype. But other players say the same thing about their own games. And hype alone doesn’t keep a game in EVO, otherwise KOF XIII wouldn’t have gotten dropped.
The EVO organizers aren’t going to give us precedence over other games with higher numbers just because. With KOF XIV releasing this year, as well as other games afterwards, there’s a danger it might get pushed out.
Given that USF4, Melee, Smash 4, and MKX all passed the thousand entry mark last year, while Guilty Gear Xrd and even Marvel got close to that number last year, and that the tallies for each of those games this year (with SFV replacing USF4) seem to be increasing this year, KI need to at least hopefully reach the 1,000 threshold this year to guarantee it a slot next year.
If KI is still being updated next year, I think it will be back.
But KI having such good online actually kind of hurts its tournament numbers, sadly. For most of the other games, because their online isn’t that great, they need to go to locals and they need to go to tournaments to play against the best players. If you can do that from the comfort of your home, why would you travel across the country to play the game?
But yeah, I’m pretty sure KoF14 (unless it’s a total disaster) will get a spot at Evo next year. I dunno what game they will drop but KI is probably on the list of candidates, especially if it gets the lowest number of entrants this year. All the other games are, I think, pretty self-sustaining. SFV is a no brainer, you need Xrd Revelator there, you need Tekken there (especially with Markman now being on Evo’s staff), MKXL or whatever NRS game is out at the time will get a spot to bring in those people, and you can’t dump either Smash game if you’re a smart businessman at all. Marvel is probably the only other candidate and Mr.Wizard has a soft spot in his heart for that game, so I imagine he would cut KI before that if they are both in a similar position.
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This is pretty weird though.
Hasn’t literally EVERYONE… developers from multiple companies (including for KI), tournament organizers, players and communities for multiple games, Ultradavid, James Chen, Alex Valle, Maximillian, etc. been repeatedly pounding that good netcode is an important key, if not the most important, for offline growth?
Didn’t KI have the second most entrants at Texas showdown? We were second only to SFV. If that doesn’t show growth idk what does.
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It is a double edged sword, on one hand you have good netcode so practicing online is a good way to prepare for tournaments (as long as you play against high level people) but on the other hand it is discourages people since they don’t want to spend the money just to play the game but instead being face to face with your opponent.
Yeah, and I believe it is. It’s just that… KI is the first game where you really can stay at home and play and level up in much the same way as offline. Not quite the same way, but pretty close. I think once every single game can do that, we’ll start to see the benefits of how it grows the scene, but until then, KI will probably have a weaker presence at offline events because it is the outlier, not the norm.
Yeah, it did. Texas is a hotbed of KI players though, so it makes sense they would show up for this event. Not to take away from the accomplishment though, it’s great. It’s just unlikely to be duplicated at other majors.
I was actually pretty happy about that. Though, I’m not really sure how much of an indicator it is, since MKX, Melee, Smash 4, and Xrd are usually more active, and Melee and Sm4sh have each already passed the 1,000 mark for EVO. And the CEO numbers… not so good.
Though, I’m hoping it could be the start of something.
It’s kind of ironic. Bad netcode is usually cited as the reason certain games die offline.
I know the CEO numbers look bad, but try not to worry about EVO. It’s tons bigger than CEO. 
Plus, some pros are actually going to play KI @ CEO. If I’m not mistaken, I think I saw Justin Wong as a contender in this year’s CEO KI Competition… I know because I signed up as well, and I can access the list of people who have signed up. 
So if Justin is there, people will follow.
There were a lot of last month and last minute registrations for KI last year.
I hope so. You’re right that people follow big-name players and thus play, good or not, whatever they play.
The numbers I posted for Evo2k15 were the final numbers though. And even then, I’m not sure it would have been enough to leapfrog Persona.
I was just making an observation, not trying to prove any particular point
Nah, you good. No big deal.
Again, I just wish there was something outside of prize pots to conistently build up numbers.
I’m just not sure what it is.
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There’s also the Saucy Suite events after the finals. Since I’m going to EVO for KI this year, that’s the part I’m most looking forward to. Just getting to hang out and play/chat with everyone who really enjoys this game.
Actually KI has been in danger of not showing up at EVO for a two years now. Only reason last year and this year it got a spot was because it had a new season and Joey, the EVO coordinator said it himself during the reveal both years that the reason KI is back on is because it had a new season which gave it continued support. I mean games like Blaze Blue and KoF had better showing during the years KI appeared but those game weren’t put back on because the support for the games ended with no new content.
Every year when the EVO games line up is on everyone is on their tip toes praying to the gods that it comes back.
There was also a lot of people in that same stream that were bashing on KI pretty hard. You can chalk that up to Twitch chat being Twitch chat, but the amount of people disliking it was staggering. I don’t know if this was also because it was the last game before SFV, but man, it hurts to read that.
Don’t mind the trolls. KI is doin just fine, even if we don’t get evo next year we still have the world cup