A member here, his name is Ames32. He bought MK9 strictly because it had Kratos in it. He later became a more dedicated fan of MK itself after playing the game. These characters may draw in more casuals, but a few of them will become legitimate fans because of it.
I am not saying that won't happen. Even so like you said. Few will remain. Problem is that game doesn't use it's own material to show off. Most of the people will come to play as Xenos and so on. And they know that these guys won't come back in the next game. SO they play it until it is hot and then will forget the game.
But again there are of course people who get the game because of Leatherface and so on, but then start liking MK lore and it's characters. While it's cool, it becomes into a problem when a lot of these characters come from opposite themes. Horror and sci fi in this case. MK is a fantasy, gore fighting game. There is zero horror and sci fi just counts for Special Forces. People who come just for movie characters. Will most likely just stay for them, and after that will be done with the game. So they grab attention of wrong people.
For example (I will be repeating myself here) Take a look at Street Fighter. No guest characters from movies. Like at all. There are characters which are reference to real life people. Like Bruce Lee. But apart that they are still they own characters.
And look at Street Fighter longevity. Strong community, same game runs for YEARS or even DECADES (street fighter 2/3), friendly to both casuals and old veterans. Game uses it's own material to promote itself. And they are successful at that. It just shows that game has confidence in itself, unlike MK.
MKX KP2 feels like. Hey in case you don't like ninjas, demons and so on... we have ALIEEEEN. We have your beloved JASON. Or, or even better! The goddamn Predator! Come take a look!
It just cheapens the game.
Now I have seen people saying. Yeah but take a look at Soul Calibur or super smash bros. They have guest characters!
It's not the same.
First of all. Soul Calibur started early with Guest characters. I think they started with them since Soul Calibur 2. It pretty much normal for Soul Calibur fans, as game started doing that early.
Now for example super smash bros. That game was made for guests. It's like an all stars game. No one is whining about that, cause game practically says that itself.
But Mortal Kombat is different. You didn't have any guest characters until 9th installment. And now we suddenly have our precious roster slots being taken away by characters with ZERO connection to LORE.
"Aren't you used to that already?"
No. Of course not. Cause for the last 10 years there was no shit like this. It is easy to say "Get used to it". But not everyone can wrap their heads around that idea. Especially after spending half of their life seeing only ORIGINAL MK characters.
Yeah, of course change must be done. Games can't stay the same all the time. But there is a "good change" and a "bad change". And in my opinion MK sacrificing their original characters for some cheap boost in sales is a "bad change"
