[Trivial Psychic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by webz

The reason Scorpion and Sub-Zero are always the first characters is statistically, they are the most played characters, the "Ken & Ryu" of MK. Are there fans of other characters? Yes, of course, but ever since the original MK, the ninjas have had a markedly larger fanbase than the other characters, and Scorpion is undeniably the most iconic of all MK characters, and creator Ed Boon's favorite.

This goes without saying, but there is also some flawed marketing logic behind this as well. While it's great to always try and reel in people as starting point with these characters, they have also been done to death, and it needs to be taken into account that a great deal of the folks who would most likely be interested in MK (or any franchise of video game figures for that matter) will more than likely already have a version of these characters, and unless they are super fans of those characters, this will end up making them more likely to pass in favor of a character they don't have in their collection already.

If I can use myself as an example, I remember when the NECA SF4 figures came out, the only figure I ended up buying out of that entire series of figures was C.Viper, because she was a new character that had not been made yet. There wasn't even passing interest in Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Guile or Chun Li from me, because I already have several versions of those characters in my collection. Viper ended up becoming the toughest character to find (while the rest peg warmed for some reason...hmmm...) and she drives the highest price on the secondary market for that series. Sales weren't great on the rehashed "fan favorites", and NECA moved on giving us nothing new outside the initial two waves.

The same thing with the Jazzwares MK9 figures. There was no need to pick up Scorpion and Sub-Zero, as I already had the Shaolin Monks versions of those characters. (Although, I admittedly bought Scorpion and Sub-Zero for the Mezco line, which I wanted BADLY to succeed in hopes of getting certain characters we never got.)

While it's typically smart to release the faces of your franchise first, it's also helpful to know your audience, as well as some history too. I typically dig anything new MK wise on the action figure front, and I truthfully would have pre-ordered all of Storm Collectibles stuff if they were giving us say, Reptile*, Jax*, Mileena*, or Baraka* as I don't have any good representations of those characters in my collection, as opposed to yet another Sub-Zero and Scorpion.

(*Since these figures seemed based off of MK2, I figured I'd pick these, hence no Cyrax, Striker, etc. And yes, I know some of these characters have had figures before...but they were all awful)