Just curious.. How exactly would you be marketing this if you were in charge?
A bit differently. Not saying I know better, but I think we all agree NRS could do more. Anyway, I'd do the following...
First off I would discuss the game with the whole team to make sure we're all on the same page. Research. Brainstorm. Characters, setting, story, features, release date, 3rd parties, other assets, platforms, audience, budget, etc. Based on that I'd try to come up with a plan/schedule and if they'd approve I'd start.
I'd try to make more use of the game, WB and be more glocal, consistent and creative.
1)
Different boxart. MKX is supposed to be about new characters and a new story, yet they put Scorpion on the boxart, use him as a statue and whatnot. Out of everything a boring black background with Scorpion. A bit contradicting, don't you think? Not to mention they're being lazy also, because what they did takes like 5mins max to put together. So I'd change that for starters. If anything, at least make a second version with someone else. Not Scorpion again in a different pose. But ideally a different boxart altogether.
2)
Different Kollector's Editions. These KE are an insult to fans and again contradict the game's premise. They all consist of Scorpion and some forgettable junk nobody really cares about. Not to mention they're slightly overpriced. If anything, Sub-Zero would deserve the same treatment to make it balanced and equal. But even as a Sub-Zero fan I'd be totally OK if they gave the special attention to someone else entirely. Raiden is just as important, if not more. Kitana could have a cool statue. And D'Vorah and especially Kotal could have the best ones of them all. Imagine Kotal's statue with those vibrant colors. But no, NRS again chose the easy way out. They hired a company to make a low-poly model and that's it. The statue looks boring, because due to low-poly there's no detail and the in-game model looks due to that even worse and totally out of place compared to the other characters and backgrounds. Plus gold? Gold is nice, but the color itself just makes things ironically look cheap and lame. The European KE is slightly better, but again... Scorpion? Also, I think the EU KE is done by the same company (at least the statue) as the MK9 KE. Both look very similar. Ultimately the KE is to collect. What I am supposed to be collecting with either of those is beyond me. Perhaps dust. Instead of adding a valuable artbook they include the first volume of the comic book series. How is that a collector's item if I can buy it with ease? Oh wait. It will save them money and maybe rake in more money because some people will go buy the remaining volumes. Great. And the love and heart is where? They have a ton of artwork for the game, no doubt, but why bother, right? Cause what real fans want is irrelevant. And DLC to cash off Hollywood creations and nostalgia. Um. Okay. Nice as well. Not.
3)
More new characters. Where are they? Oh, right. In the comic book. I forgot. But the comic book isn't playable, is it? 8 months later and we are still with just 4 new characters total. Where did the confidence and passion go? When it comes to these new guys NRS made a 180° turn in summer and basically is ignoring them and ignoríng the fact they started marketing the game as a brand new experience, yet 8 months later they ended up somewhere else. I'd at least have the balls to admit I made a mistake. Not in a big way. Admitting it on a stream would have been enough. But even that seems to be a problem for them. They must really think that all the fans are dumb and have Alzheimer or something. Essentially they deceived us. And you never lie to the customer.
4)
More MK4/MKDA/MKD characters. Again. Where are they? All we have, 2 months before release, are returning characters from MK9. MK9 ends on a cliffhanger suggesting these characters will play, at least in the first half of the story, a big role, yet they are nowhere to be seen. Or will they suddenly start popping up?
5)
More female characters. We only have 3 female characters so far. Out of 14. It took them almost half a year between E3 and Kitana's reveal to show us another one. Why? Up until Kitana was revealed, all returning characters were men. We should be getting at least one more female before release at the very least. Will we get her? Probably Mileena. But that gap between E3 and Kitana was wider than the equator. I pray that the final roster will include at least 3 or 4 more, giving us a total of 7-8 females. But honestly I'm not so sure.
Points 3,4,5 could be considered as one -> Lack of variety in reveals. 4 New characters at E3 and then one returning MK9 character after another.
6)
No zombie characters without explanation. If you want to promote the game with not only returning characters, but dead returning characters, you should give a damn good reason and be able to address it. So far, NRS hasn't officially communicated why Kung Lao and Kitana are back. Their attitude is pretty much "Deal with it!". I don't care it has to do with the story. If it does, just provide a basic explanation. No need to go into details. And if you don't want everyone to know, at least explain it on the stream. Even in a kryptic fashion if you must.
7)
Returning stages. Unlike new characters, introducing new stages is not a problem. Basically all stages revealed so far are new. That's nice. But there's one problem. There have been more new stages revealed than characters and most of the revealed characters are old. In other words the revealed characters and stages don't match. You'd expect, with so many old characters back, there'd be at least one old stage as well. But there's none and there are possibly one 2 stages left to reveal. Seems very unbalanced. And also, same with the zombies, no explanation.
8-
More story details. Ever since E3, NRS keeps repeating the same phrases all over again.
MKX follows up where MK9 left off and spans 25 years. We've heard that a zillion times. Is that all you can really tell us? Sure, they want to avoid spoilers. Fair enough. But at the very least they could tell us, since most of the stages and characters have been revealed, roughly how it will continue and vaguely what will happen. Yes, there is the comic book, but it isn't really a good source per se and doesn't tell us much about MKX - rather what happened in between. And it does so quite poorly if you consider how MK9 ended and how does the comic book starts and progresses. If anything, it's more of a tool to get rid off XYZ and to make more money than telling a real story and filling the gap. Only the story mode in MKX is 100% accurate and canon. The comic book? Not so much sadly. We on the forums are putting pieces of the story together, somewhat, but the casual fan is left in the dark clueless. Even if he reads the comic. I bet after playing the game the comic won't make much sense. All we really have 2 months before release is one old boring phrase and a bunch of character intros. Not very impressive.
9)
No marketing gaps. That 3 month hiatus was really a big WTF moment. What the hell was happening internally at NRS? I'm telling you, this game was a real pain in the a$$ to develop and it will show. Even if they were releasing gifs each week during that time. Or if they did a podcast. Or a stream. Or just something. But they went suddenly low-profile like if Ed was on a death bed or something. It's the same WTF moment as the sudden 180° turn after E3. Heck, MKX almost fell off the radar. I'd do something. Even if it was silly. Just to keep the pace. Another WTF... Online modes were mentioned at E3, but were revealed just now. And don't get me started on the fact it took them weeks to release some media related to Kung Lao and Goro - who still lacks any gameplay. Those trailer jokes were pretty offensive.
10)
More local content. Mortal Kombat is big in Brazil, Middle East and Australia. Why not make use of it? Brazil could've gotten an exclusive tribal character for eg. Or if that is supposed to be Kotal, which is imho the case, why not market him better there? Or why not give Brazil an exclusive Kotal reveal? Why not give Australia an exclusive Kano reveal? Why not give an exclusive character to the Middle East? It's about time Mortal Kombat received an arabic/nomad character. Tremor could fit the role, but I think Ed is too short sighted by the past to give him the spotlight and see the bigger picture. Tremor could boost sales a lot if done right. Tekken 7 already did it with Shaheen. Design-wise he's boring, but he's there. I'm sure there are more countries/characters we could think of. Apart from those, in general, only a few magazines got some info. Not very international if you ask me. USA =/= globe.
11)
More info on other versions. 8 months earlier it was announced the game will be released also on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. 2 months before release be barely get to know how's working on them, let alone how they're progressing and if there will be a delay or cancellation or not. You think that is entirely acceptable and normal? Yes, next-gen versions are the focus and that is alright. But if they don't want to release screenshots from the old versions, to avoid confusing people and making the game look worse, they could at least comment on them. How the porting is going and what differences there will be. Just a basic statement either in an interview or on the stream? Just to re-assure the still many international customers that haven't made the switch to next-gen that they won't be left behind? Not all countries have an equal adoption rate and frankly some regions (middle east/africa/parts of europe and asia and even south america) take forever. Or do they expect people will blindly buy them? But when directly asked they say they can't answer, giving the impression they don't want to have anything to do with them? So much for their logo on these versions...
This is just from the top of my head. There's maybe more.
But let's still praise Ed, be satisfied with what he gives us and go buy anything he tells us to...
