Thank you for telling me things I already know.
And I am still saying, had Sub-Zero been Ed Boon's favourite from the very start, it would be Sub-Zero who was on that cover. Again, NOT because he is Ed Boon's favourite, but because of the things I stated above which would have resulted in people liking Sub-Zero more.

Why? Because of subliminal stimulus. Having Sub-Zero thrown in our faces instead of Scorpion would make him the popular one amongst the fanbase, because that is how the human mind works. And then WB would use Subbie instead, because he would be the one people would recognize the most.

However, I'm aware that whatever I say wouldn't change your arrogant attitude towards me. Your need for trying to make yourself look better than me is something you should talk to your therapist about.

Ugh, somehow I knew this would come to fruition.

Fuck Scorpion, he can burn in hell. Even more than he already is.

I like it. Though to be honest the cover could be a picture of a granny shitting out a cat and I'd still buy it because it's MK!

Possible reversible cover like Mass Effect 3 with another character on the other side? A different inside character for each platform I could see happening.

Ed Boon can like whatever character he wants. His favorite could be Sub-Zero, or Mileena, or even fucking Motaro. Scorpion would still be on the cover because it's who we, the FANS, a collective (or at the very least an overwhelming majority), and not just one person, deem to be the most iconic character, one we most associate Mortal Kombat with. As such, that's who WB, the parent company, the people who stand to make the most money off of this game, want to use in their marketing. Furthermore, casual or non-fans of the series would still recognize Scorpion over the others due to his catchphrase, gimmick, and overall look. People love ninjas, hellspawns, and badasses. That's not really up for debate. Do I like Sub-Zero more than Scorpion? Yes. Am I getting my panties in a knot over it? No.

To your second point, you're just flat out wrong. You need to keep in mind that Scorpion really didn't become the mascot until MKDA, and even then he wasn't being shoved down everyone's throats until later than that. Remember during MK3? I seem to recall a decent amount of promo material featuring Sonya and Kano. Hell, Scorpion wasn't even in the original game, neither was Reptile, another hugely popular character at the time. Clearly the fans hated it, because it didn't take long for UMK3 to hit shelves. Fans loved Scorpion well before he was thrown in our faces. We, the community, are the ones who embraced Scorpion before he was blatantly used to generate sales. Also, your talk of subliminal stimuli... that term doesn't mean what you think it means... in fact you went on to describe the exact opposite of that. See below:

Subliminal stimuli (/sʌbˈlɪmɨnəl/; literally "below threshold"), contrary to supraliminal stimuli or "above threshold", are any sensory stimuli below an individual's threshold for conscious perception.

They haven't exactly tried to be subtle or subliminal about pushing Scorpion, because he's all over the fucking promo material now, and they really weren't pushing him prior to what I've stated above, underlying or otherwise. Sounds to me like you just hate Scorpion because someone like Jade isn't nearly as popular. They want people who might be on the fence about the game to see how great Scorpion looks and buy the game. They want fans like us to get hyped for the game, and who better to do that than him? I'll give you a hint: nobody.



Until you come with anything of substance instead of needless bitching because WB, NRS, Boon, and anyone else you hold responsible isn't catering to you and you alone, no, my attitude towards your inane posts will not change. I don't need to make myself look better than anyone else, but if thinking that I've got some kind of god complex helps you sleep at night, be my guest. You seem to have an obsession with therapy, I've noticed. Are you feeling alright? I charge only a nominal fee for a session.

And finally, I'm gonna restate that all you people who are whining about this are going to end up buying the game anyway. If the box art of a game is what really prevents you from buying it, then I call your fandom into question. Simple as that.

Quan Chi on MK4 cabinet. Scorpion connected to Quan Chi. Scorpion shoved down throt confirmed.

That actually reminds me of something. Scorpion himself never appeared on a single arcade cabinet.

Let's put it this way. I'm going to be that douche that has to throw out the titles. I am a marketing professional. Everything you just said is 100% inaccurate. So let's put it this way.

Treyarch just fired one of their most influential creative designers because he was holding his company back and affecting COD sales, despite it being a media juggernaut. He was forcing the same shit down everyone's throats, and they started getting tired of it.

He was promptly replaced with a director who is trying to steer that shithole of a franchise in a new direction. Well, sort of. Anyway..

Warner Brothers is a capitalist, billion dollar studio. They wont keep Ed Boon on board simply because it's Ed Boon. There is a demographic that influences the sales potential behind every action that his company MUST make, especially the cover of their next game. Believe it or not, there are still morons who judge a book by their cover.

As far as having Scorpion shoved down our throats, yes. However, a ton of the fanbase is happily eating it up. On the contrary, his screen time is fairly overlapped by many of the other characters in the last 4 games. He only gets more screen time than half of the cast, because let's face it. Most of the cast sucks. INb4 HURR DURR REVENGE 4EVER. If more people thought it was a shitty form of plot progression , then he wouldn't still be the poster boy. Still a better love story than Kitana/Jade.

So SHOV THAT DOWN UR THROT

I'm crying.

I got my terms mixed up, sorry about that. Thanks for the correction.

Back in the MK3 days, it wasn't just Scorpion people were missing, but all of the missing characters from the previous games. If it was only Scorpion, why bother with the rest?

And no, my disliking of Scorpion has nothing to do with Jade's lacking popularity. It doesn't matter to me whether or not Jade is popular or not, believe it or not, but I'm not that shallow. My gripe with Scorpion is only because of his lack of character development, and I also don't understand why people like his gameplay either. I generally don't find him that interesting. The worst offender is possibly that such a generic character is the front man of the game... It's the same with Ryu from Street Fighter. I don't understand why characters like those are being so popular, when there are other characters which are alot more interesting and more fun to play as, imo.

You might be right about the community being part of the reason for Scorpion's popularity, but I don't think that is the main reason why Scorpion became the front man of MK. Him being Boon's fave, and the MK team pushing him forward in their promotinal work definately has something to do with it as well. I am convinced by that.

Be as condescending as you want, I just find it unnecessary for you to have such an ill behaviour towards me. My "hatred" is aimed towards a fictional character, not you or any other real person, yet you act like I offended you personally and feel the need to make personal degrading comments towards me in return.

Even though I'd prefer the sliced-up logo we saw in the debut trailer, I like this one. It's simple, clean, and gives off a darker aura.

Yeah sadly I'm not a fan of the box-art either, but since I'm an MK fan, I will get it and a PS4 just to play it...regardless

lol at Granny shitting out a cat

Just to throw my two cents in.
@Jaded-Riven

Because YOU don't like the character, and because YOU don't feel that he is that developed, and because YOU don't like his gameplay does not mean he isn't worth being the promotional figure of the game. It's like you are trying to force all your views to be factual, when, in the end, they are just your opinion. At least, that's the vibe you are giving off from my standpoint, like you are just right, and everyone else is wrong because they don't see it your way. But anyways, in this case, majority rules. And the majority wants Scorpion. It's something that YOU are just going to have to get over.

Might have been slightly blunt, but this was not meant to be rude.

You can't see alternate dimensions, you don't know if it would be different if Sub-Zero was Boon's favorite. You might think you know it, but you don't know for sure. You preach that like it's factual too. But personally, I don't think it would be, Sub-Zero don't have a notable slogan to catch people's attention like Scorpion, the main thing that got people liking him.

When you think Mortal Kombat, the first two things that come to mind is "Fatality" and "Get over here!" to like. . . everyone. His little slogan gave him the upper hand over everyone and made him unique and stand out, making him the perfect candidate because he is the most notable.

I love this cover art, it much better than MK9's.

It's be awesome if they did the same thing they did with Deception, different character box arts.

Seems pretty early to get the official box art cover so soon. When did we get the MK9 box art cover?

Yawn and a half. Not only is it boring as hell, that cover was already on Wikipedia since last week.

Came in for the butthurt bitching. Was not disappointed.

moseph and dibula beating Jaded out. Would recommend to a friend

I try to be careful with that, as I too hate it when people try to force their own views as facts, so I apologize if I have come off like that.

However, it is a fact that he is underdeveloped as a character. His story is the same thing in every game, with the only difference of him switching targets now and then, but his character doesn't evolve.

Ehhh. To be expected. Background's drab though.

What's going on?
Oh, Jaded-Raven thought that simple facts were insults? Moseph received skulls for nothing? And Jaded was promptly knocked from his / her perch by several people?
I am not sure about everything else, but I liked final part. Finally, somebody have done it.

No problem.



I probably should've mentioned the others, but the two biggest demands back then were Scorpion and Reptile. I fully approve of them adding the female palette swaps as well as Noob and Human Smoke later on.



Fair enough, I guess.



Now this is a debate that I'd honestly like to have, but it's probably not meant for this particular thread. I'll provide some quick thoughts though. Scorpion's character development has come in three stages, and for all intents and purposes I'm strictly speaking in terms of the old timeline: 1) Getting revenge on Bi-Han for killing him. 2) Sparing Kuai Liang upon realizing that he was not Bi-Han (which actually was a pretty good jumping off point for him and probably why he wasn't in MK3 at first). 3) Chasing vengeance against Quan Chi when it was revealed that he in fact murdered the Shirai Ryu. Ever since then, his plotline has resembled that of a wrestling storyline in which the top good guy chases the championship belt but seemingly every time he gets close, something gets in his way. I for one don't think it translates particularly well to this setting but it is a reason to keep him as a returning character and that's enough to drive sales through the roof. In my mind, there are far more generic characters than Scorpion, but that's just me. I won't comment on Street Fighter because in those games the story is so subdued that it's really not even worth talking about.



Once again, they push him because WB is pulling the strings and they know that within the community, Scorpion is the most recognizable entity. I don't think that Ed Boon is the kind of guy who carries an "everything I say goes" attitude, so even if WB were hands-off on the creative control of promo material I'd like to think that NRS would be fair about it. Let this be a reminder that much of the initial trailers and renders for MKD (as an example) featured second-tier characters like Mileena and Baraka. You can believe what you want, but it's no coincidence that ever since WB bought MK, Scorpion's been the main focus.



I find it unnecessary for you and others to try to pass opinions as facts, but that's neither here nor there. Do what you want, but expect to get called out on bullshit if you post it. If you had offended me personally I probably would've been like "how dare you" or something to that effect. There's a difference between me feeling offended and me having a laugh at your expense, and this was the latter. As for the "degrading" comments, suck it up, I didn't say anything that horrible. Nobody on here has ever known me to pull punches, so don't expect special treatment.



Let me put it to you this way - I would've skulled me for that post. I figured it was coming anyway, so I hit up a good mod friend of mine and told him to take care of it. Got carried away. Muh bad.

So yea, don't get tight over that skull or protest it or anything. I've been here long enough to know when I did wrong.

I don't think you did anything wrong, but whatever.

@moseph:

Do you have an official source on Scorpion and Reptile being the most requested characters back at MK3?

And as stated above, I did not mean to make my opinion sound like facts, and again, I apologize if that is how it was interpreted. I was theorycrafting about how Scorpion came to be the number 1 most popular and known character, and I still do think him being Ed Boon's favourite has something to do with him being in the spotlight, but not JUST because of that. Because you are absolutely right about him not being the one in charge of the marketing of MK.

And IFrost also has an excellent point in Scorpion's "Get over here!" catchphrase has something to do with it as well. It made him memorable... but what if it was Sub-Zero who had gotten that catchphrase instead?

As for the ill comments, I didn't take them personally. I've had alot of shit being thrown my way for various reasons on the internet, so I've learnt not to take it personally. However, it doesn't mean I should just take it without confronting you about it. It was still unnecessary, and it came off to me as if you had something personally against me. But you admitted it was wrong of you and took the skull like a man, and I respect that. In the future, however, please send me a PM if you have a problem with me instead of making a scene in a thread. We're both adults and we should be able to discuss and solve things as adults. ^^

I tried to come up with something about that, but the most I was able to find were a few articles stating where MK3 went wrong. Most of the aforementioned missing characters were mentioned. My statement was more based around what was going on at the time of the game's release. I was only a kid back then but I remember all my friends, a decent amount of the internet crowd, and those I encountered at arcades being really mad about Scorpion and Reptile being absent. Other popular characters were mentioned too, but those two were the most often heard. It may vary by scene, of course, but I had a pretty good sample size to go on back then.




Alright.



It wouldn't make any sense because Sub-Zero doesn't have a pull move.



Good on you for standing up for yourself, I'd expect nothing less. I don't have anything personal against anyone here, believe it or not. It's simply that some people post things that I perceive to be ridiculous more than others, so that's how it comes off.

Fair enough, and I'm sorry if you thought my first post in this thread was ridiculous, it was not my intention to make it ridiculous, merely me sharing my point of view.

You just apologized yet you're still calling it a fact. I think it's ignorant to say he's always had the same story when it's simply not true. It's only in the recent additions that he's reverted back to the vengeance Scorpion, and that's mostly because time went backwards to the first tournament where his primary goal was to exact his revenge.