This is just from my personal perspective but I think the reason Melee is still going strong is because it came at a time when there was no online. People literally had to get off their butts and go form local scenes to play, and honestly for the game that’s still the case because it’s old. Compare this to now a days where if you can’t play online then more than likely you’re not getting out of your chair. Their mentality carried over and thus Melee still lives.
While still possible of course I think it’s being rather unrealistic to think KI could become the next Smash oddity.
I feel the same way I felt the game was going to continue after its “completion” like stages and everything. I’m one of the people still waiting for ultimate’s and a better story (even though Shadow Lords was the stories conclusion) because I dint enjoy the fact that shadow lords was the stories conclusion it should have been just a separate mode all together.
Well to be fair that’s a pretty exaggerated statement from the start. If I were to keep playing KI for 20 years I would not expect new content to come out throughout that whole time period no matter what game it is.
That’s pretty fair to point out. I’m sure there was a caveat to that statement they made way back but at the same time I think they cut it a little short. There is still an active online scene, we just had two major tournaments back to back with a couple more on the way and they themselves labeled KI a success. They could of easily kept making content up to this point but chose not to for some reason.
While I’m sure they’re going to make another KI at some point (although I’ve been told by anonymous sources they haven’t even started yet) I still don’t think that’s a good enough reason to just fully cut development on this one. Even for myself even though I’m not as heavily invested into as before I still love to hop on from time to time and play it. Just wish there was something to wet the appetite every so often until a new game.
Well, I think it was always going to end at some time. My initial worry when they announced the game was that it’d end after season one and we’d be left with a “complete” Killer Instinct game containing eight characters lol.
But yeah, the whole “ever evolving product” thing was probably part marketing speak and part potential. At some point, it wasn’t going to be worth it financially to keep making stuff for the game. At some point, the people making the game were going to go work on other projects.
I mean, this game isn’t World of Warcraft. It never had a massive audience. So with that being a given, I think the “we’ll keep making it as long as you keep playing” was always kinda their way out. Sure, the game could keep growing and getting bigger and bigger, but if the audience wasn’t there enough, then it wasn’t going to justify the investment.
Now, we don’t know how many people were playing and how much money this game was making whenever it was decided to that MS and IG wouldn’t work together on more content. IG completed their obligation with season 3 and it has to be assumed that the conversation was had about season 4 and either MS, IG or both said thank you, but we’re not interested at this time.
I could be totally wrong on this, but it wouldn’t shock me if IG, who’s been growing and changing since they started developing KI, were of the mind to go and try other things. Who can say for sure, though. Maybe they wanted a bigger budget for season 4 and MS said no, so they walked. Maybe they mutually decided that the game had enough characters, backgrounds, and modes and that it was in a good place, so maybe this was a good time to put a bow on it and be done.
All we can do is guess, but to your point about a Q&A session in another thread, I’d love it if @TempusChaoti would be willing to shed some light on why season 4 didn’t happen.
That’s awesome that you took the time to write a letter and send it to Phil. I also echo your sentiments here 100%. MS has 3 golden eggs, but they have several great franchises. We’ve seen this generation that Killer Instinct is one of those great franchises. So instead of letting this game go as a successful experiment, it’d be fantastic if this were the bones, the foundation for a new KI franchise.
MS needs more staple franchises across more genres and hopefully their recent studio investments have been an indication that they’re aware of this as well. But as much as I’m hoping to see some great new things from them, I’m also hoping to see some great old things as well. A new Fable, a new Crimson Skies, a new MechAssault, a new Kameo, a new Quantum Redshift, a new Lost Odyssey, and yes, a new Killer Instinct.
They could build several enduring franchises to help buttress their library of great games; stuff that’s familiar to longtime fans as well as new stuff for a new generation. They need it all, because let’s face it, they lost this generation to Sony handily. There’s no shame in that. Xbox still performed incredibly well. But if MS wants to win the next generation, bring in more players, etc. They have to lay the groundwork. They have to be the place for great fighters, like they were with 360, great shooters, great everything, as much as possible.
Killer Instinct may only be a small piece of that puzzle, but it should absolutely be a piece that exists. The more quality MS has, the better, and KI is quality.
