Why does he think the fans only care about Fatalites?
WORRY ABOUT THE GAMEPLAY ED. christ. Sometimes I really wonder about him.
I would like to disagree, there are many sets of MK fans. Let me, off the top of my head, run through them for you. Some are more vocal than others, and many are much larger than the rest. No real science went into this, just what I've observed over the years.
1) Casual MK Players - Grew up with the series or know of it's "violence" and controversy. These people will react negatively by not purchasing the game if it's missing the key things, violence, which they feel made MK.
2) Hardcore Fighting Game Player - These players are the ones you speak of, who want great gameplay and can care less about the lack of fatalities. This is a much smaller %age of sales compared to the first group.
3) Combo of the two groups. May lean more towards liking the game for it's gameplay versus violence.
You'd be surprised the amount of thought and discussion goes on at Midway about these issues, to think it's just one person making a decision and it never being discussed or thought out is just wrong. The MK team is actually very much a TEAM now, compared to the early games when it was just 5-8 people, it's well over 30 now. Not to mention the larger corporate structure that has to be answered to.