I believe these things contributed to the rise of Mortal Kombat...

- timing
Street Fighter was still new and revolutionary and the fighting game genre was taking off so perfect timing for Mortal Kombat to capitalize

- novelty
no one had ever seen such over the top violence in a game and it was something new, controversial, and attention-grabbing

- easy to use
Mortal Kombat has never, far as I know, been held in the highest regard for deep and complex gameplay. But for casual fans, who were already drawn to the blood and colorful characters, were able to get into and play with no trouble.

- story
I know story isn't the most important thing in a fighting game, but many fans were attracted to MK for it's story and the characters involved. If nothing else, Mortal Kombat has the most ambitious storyline of any fighting game.



And it's fall....

- milking the franchise
MK:DA was a step in the right direction for the franchise, and I think that was mainly due to the amount of time and effort that went into it. Obviously it wasn't a perfect game, but not from lack of effort. However, since then, we've had four or five game churned out clearly to cash in, but without fine tuning or properly testing....resulting in broken gameplay, unfinished characters, butchered storylines, and just general half-assedness

- broken gameplay
MK's simplistic engine served it in the beginning, but nowadays fighting games are more sophisticated and the audience...for the most part...seems to prefer more complex gameplay over gimmicks and distractions. And again, the lack of proper testing and rshed development only makes this worse

- overly catering to nostalgic fans
it's a fine thing when a creater tries to please the fanbase, but the things the MK team has done to please every fan's desire...regardless of how ridiculous, arbitrary, random, or just plain dumb those desire may be...certainly helped tear MK down. Why did we get Armageddon? Because fans demanded it. Why does the MK team waste time on dumb characters like Meat? Because fans demanded it. Why is it every time Mortal Kombat take s step forward, be it in gameplay or storyline, the usually take two steps back? Because fans demand it. Fans who think if they just recycle the same shit from MK2 over and over again Mortal Kombat will somehow regain it's pillar of popularity.

I think it was probably a couple things...

• The evolution of games from 2D to 3D, which took away one of MK's competitive advantages over the other franchises (namely, the realistic graphics).
• Sequel-itis - after enough sequels, any franchise will either become repetitive and/or too different from its roots
• Not enough keeping up with other mediums. MK is more than just a game but there's been no TV shows or movies in 10 years and no comics except for pack-ins.
• I also think social networking sites such as Xanga, Myspace, and Facebook, image-hosting sites like ImageShack and Photobucket, and free-for-all's like Wikipedia contributed to a major reduction in the number of traditional MK fansites.

You're forgetting that this series has already been through a fall... and rose from it.

MK4? Hello? Then the hiatus that ensued.

MKDA brought the re-rise of the series.

Then MKA/MKDC brough forth another fall.

MK9 could easily be the second re-rise.

Just cuz the series is down does not in any way guarantee it'll stay that way.

It has lasted for almost 20 years. Of course it's gonna have its ups and downs.

And the only reason any popular series falls is due to loss in quality or poor marketing. And MK has never had issues with marketing so the answer is poor quality.

I think ]{ombat's got a point that the series' greatest problem is there hasn't been any new media outside of games in far too long.

It was the soccer moms of America throwing fits about the gore that got the name out there. But that'll never happen again. Nobody cares about violence anymore, the only way to start a media frenzy is sneaking in a sex scene like GTA, and that would be a mistake.
So what the series needs to be on the tips of people's tongues again is multimedia. Putting out another game isn't going to impress people and reawaken the series. Deadly Alliance, Deception, Armageddon, and Shaolin Monks were all big sellers and won fighting game of the year awards from various websites and other such publicity, and MKvsDCU was advertised like crazy like anything that has Batman and Superman in it is, and it also sold in the millions, but people still act like MK is old and forgotten, which is just bullshit. Only a different medium is going to open eyes and remind people that MK is a big deal.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a movie, either. In fact, a movie would probably be a terrible plan, because nobody likes video game movies and they never have respectable budgets or resources. Let's look at something else.
Street Fighter's had that ongoing comic series by Udon for years and it's fairly popular. Well now MK is owned by the same guys who own the second biggest comic book company in America.
Hell, with the crazy things you can do with SFX on a TV budget these days, in shows like Heroes, Smallville, and smaller, syndicated stuff like Legend of the Seeker or all the outerspace shows on the Sci-Fi channel? MK could definitely support another shot at a TV series. You'd be able to tell a game's story better over multiple episodes than you would in a 2 hour or less movie anyway, show the whole tournament instead of that "Hey Shang, it's me Johnny. Yeah, the movie's running time is almost up so I wanna skip ahead and fight Goro now, is that cool?" bullshit.

Even if it has media coverage, what would keep it relevant?

MK would need to top Manhunt of all games to have an appealing side. Gameplay advertisement isn't nearly as satisfactory. Nor is it instantly gratifying.

Very interesting discussion. And here's my opinion.

Why fans liked the game in the beginning.

SHOCK VALUE
Before: This is the game that almost single-handedly created the ESRB rating board. This is the game that almost single-handedly forced Nintendo to relax their domestic censorship standards. This is the game that got politicians in a tizzy and got people to stop and go, "whoa, you can do that in a video game?"

After: Mortal Kombat's violence doesn't even evoke a smirk now. It's "king of the gore" throne was quickly stripped from it and handed over to contenders like Manhunt and its ultra-violent approach, Madworld and its buckets of gore, and even Gears of War and its gleeful chainsaw dismemberments. MK's violence is now as quaint and silly as a cartoon show. It was over-the-top when it first came out, yet it never truly managed to keep that razor's edge appeal of visceral and taboo naughtiness. The last game was a neutered T-rated comic book crossover; what more proof do you need?

VISUALS
Before: This game was a trend-setting. Unlike Street Fighter's sprite-based graphics, MK's were digitized people. No other game at the time dared to look as real or life-like, which made the gore and violence all the more palpable and shocking. No other game looked like it and it was a massively impressive game at the time of its release, back when sprites were still blocky and ugly.

Now: We are in the HD-era of hyper-realistic games with hyper-realistic characters. Nathan Droke in Uncharted is so life-like you can almost see the sweat drip from his pores. And Mortal Kombat quickly and noticeably fell behind the curve. Characters were plastic and dull, animations were stiff and rigid. And the games even took steps backwards. Mortal Kombat: Deady Alliance is arguably a better looking game than MK: Armageddon. Now that the technology is finally making MK's original visual style a reality in the 3rd dimension, the trend-setter itself has lapsed behind.

STORYLINE
Before: A simple, wonderful story that was amazing for existing at all. Other fighting games had ridiculous stories, silly characters, and goofy endings, the majority of which usually had nothing to do with any overall plot or story. MK defied convention and created a central focus and motivation for every single character in the games and brilliantly tied them all together in an interwoven tapestry of death, betrayal, resurrection, and viscious combat. Unlike Street Fighter, in MK the stakes were high. The fate of gods, worlds, and souls rested in the fists of normal people and hellish monsters. It was freakin' awesome.

After: As the years dragged on, MK got caught up in its own narrative, grew too big, too complex, and collapsed on itself. Rather than trying to piece these broken pieces together, the game simply imploded during Armageddon and the MK team simply gave up. Nothing made sense. Plotholes erupted with alarming frequency. It became random, incoherent, and muddled. And silly. In other words... it became Tekken (hi-yo!). Rather than try to make sense of it, the next few games were non-canonical "what-if" games that ignored any sense of continuity and existed just to keep a new MK on the shelves. Where MK's story was once heralded as the best in the fighting game genre, it was now dead in the water.

CHARACTERS
Before: They were stereotypes, but reimagined with superb charm and originality. "Ninjas" were common in video games long before MK, but MK practically defined the fighting game ninja with their most iconic characters Sub-Zero and Scorpion and the debate rages to this day over which ninja is the superior fighter (did I say "ninja"? I meant "Lin Kuei warrior!") Meanwhile, Goro was pounding poor gamers senseless and Shao Kahn's booming voice was making every other fighting game boss look likea pussy.

After: How many colors of the rainbow are there? One for every ninja, and then some, it seems. The cast became full of fillers and joke characters. Whereas the first few games had a tight cast with great stories, soon total jokes and lame ducks began cropping up with alarming frequency. We started to get a taste for that in MK3, in particular, with unpopular characters like Nightwolf and Stryker, but soon the list grew to include such unoriginal gems as Rain, Dairou, Shunjinko, Hsu Hao, Meat, Chameleon, Khameleon, Blaze, and almost a dozen others. Who honestly cares about the story or character development of Bo'Rai Cho? Seriously?

GAMEPLAY
Before: The game was simple and accessible. It was arguably easier to play than Street Fighter, and while some accused it of being broken, during its time it was actually a fairly balanced fighter with a wide variety of moves. The game prioritized timing, set-ups, and most definitely special attacks, but everyone fought on a similar playing field, making it easy to play yet hard to master... the most desired qualities of any fighter.

After: The games were later stripped of this accessibility, outfitted with tedious combo-chains, and strategy boiled down to who could memorized the longer dial-a-combo. Even before that, combos and other gameplay quirks were introduced but never evolved or refined. Each game became progressively harder to get into for new players and the original crowd became infatuated with more balanced and rewarding fighters. The games have made strides to simplify things significantly, but that expert balance of accessibility and depth is not there yet and it remains one of the least refined fighting games on the market.

MASS APPEAL
Before: MK was the king back in the day and even briefly, but notably, outshone rival Street Fighter. MK2's popularity rivaled SF2's any day, its movie was widely regarded as superior to that awful Van Damme vehicle, the techno MK theme became an iconic musical score, etc. We had comics, toys, TV shows, movies, trading cards... everything but a breakfast cereal (I want my Kan-O's!)

After: Like all things popular, the fad grew too big and just couldn't sustain the momentum. And that fall happened quickly after a wave of poor decisions and products were made. The film Mortal Kombat: Annihilation was a massive failure that I'm sure turned many casual fans away from the franchise. A parade of sucky MK games and spin-offs hit the market (with MK: Special Forces causing some to actually WANT the franchise to die), and the core games failed to evolve with the times, becoming more and more irrelevent in a fast-paced, competitive industry.

GIMMICKS & EASTER EGGS
Before: There are such things as good gimmicks, and MK is proof of that. MK paved the way for good gimmicks in video games. The blood and violence were gimmicks. The Finishing moves were gimmicks. Secret characters like Reptile and Smoke were gimmicks. Goro was a gimmick. And they were all amazing, creative, and suprisingly influential, mainly because they actually improved the game itself. Rumors and secrets drove many to come back again and again, whether it was to see for themselves if "Reptile" was a real character (which was true) or if you could cause those cool trees in MK2 to eat you (which wasn't true.) It wasn't long before other fighting games included gimmicks and easter eggs as well.

After: MK's gimmicks became increasingly dull, blunt, bizarre, and largely unnecessary. Whereas fighting Reptile in MK1 was mind-blowing and actually made the game cool, resources and development in future games were pooled into diversions like Motor Kombat... a 2 minute goofy extra that had to have cost more time, money, and manpower than it was worth, especially considering the rest of the lackluster package. Soon rumors of "super unlockables" were met with modest "meh"s and it wasn't long before MK was a game that showed all its cards on the table with no surprises, no shocks, no secrets, no mind-blowing innovations, and no real cleverness behind it. Unless you count fighting Lex Luthor and Captain Marvel as "shocking", which I don't. I call it stupid.