The Master of Kombat: Ed Boon interview with Game Informer
via Game Informer issue 260, December 2014
page 25
interview by Andrew Reiner
AR: What is it about the Mortal Kombat franchise that keeps you coming back?
EB: I suppose it's a combination of a number of things. When a game does well, the first thing everyone involved thinks of is "sequel." Ironically, when we did the first Mortal Kombat, we were thinking, "Cool, we're done with that. We're going to start on a Star Wars game." The general manager at Midway at the time came to us and said, "No, you're not. You're doing another Mortal Kombat game." It was weird because it didn't cross our minds immediately. "We have this franchise, and we're going to do multiple installments." It was this quick project to help fill the assembly line of arcade machines. We did it in eight months. All of a sudden, it was a thing, and then they continued to sell well.
You said, "Star Wars game." Was that something you wanted to get the license for ?
At the time, [around] 1993 or something, we were thinking that it would be cool to do an arcade Star Wars game. I was a big fan of the three they had released - the vector one and the sprite-based ones. We thought, "Let's do something with our digitized hardware." That dream didn't last very long.
The Mortal Kombat series has seen a lot of success, but it's had some low points as well. Was there ever a time when you thought, "Maybe this will be it " ?
Mostly when Midway was going through its financial struggles. I thought there might be a scenario where Midway is broken up and the intellectual property is sold off. Who knows if the buyer is interested in working with the team? Some of the games, like Mortal Kombat: Special Forces and whatnot - which is, in my opinion, the series' low - I wasn't involved in it. It was really difficult to watch it not getting any traction in terms of having a fun mechanic. Seeing the response - the expected response - was a tough thing to witness.
You've been working on this franchise for years. How hard is it to continue coming up with new ideas ?
It's as difficult as any game is. It's probably a little bit harder deciding what we're going to do this time with Scorpion as opposed to a brand-new character. It's certainly a challenge, but at the same time, it's part of why we managed to endure as long as we have. We aren't afraid to make dramatic changes to the whole mechanic. We've gone from a 2D fighting game to a 3D fighting game back to a 2D fighting game. Along with the console transitions, the presentation of the game has varied all over the place. We've tried different things with different versions - Puzzle Kombat and all of these crazy spin-off things. Every time there's a new Mortal Kombat game, there's something about it that has never been done before or isn't expected.
Have you ever experimented with making something that isn't a fighting game ?
We always want to , obviously. We did Injustice, and that did well for us, too. Hopefully, we can make a sequel to that. But I would personally love to make something outside of a fighting game. We're always talking about it. [But with] doing Mortal Kombat and possibly an Injustice sequel, the challenge is finding the time to get something else off the ground.
How do you see Mortal Kombat X evolving or adding to this console generation ?
I think the biggest thing it's going to add is this new definition of what a character is - three variations of each character. I think it's going to have a lasting impact as far as character matchups. This online mode that we haven't defined, this sort of online metagame, is going to be a potential game-changer as well. The dynamic, long-term game that's being played is going to be a great addition to the fighting genre.
Does knowing that the game could be picked up for eSports affect how you design the game ?
It does. Mortal Kombat games have always been casual-friendly games. We've never wanted to have a game where someone's got to sit and practice for an hour before they can get one move down. I've never understood why some of these fighting games make these really complex inputs, immediately eliminating 80 percent of the audience. At the same time, the tournament scene and eSports have this much higher class and sophistication and player level as far as how much time they're willing to devote to it. You've really got to provide them something deep and multi-layered. I think our variations are going to provide that, redifining a matchup between two characters.
Do you seek feedback from the eSports community ?
With the last few games - MK9, Injustice, and X - we've flown in people, really great players from various fighting game communities, and get them hammering on the game early enough that we can make changes to address some of the issues they find. That's always on our agenda.
How successful was NetherRealm's Injustice companion app on iOS? Are you looking to do something similar for Mortal Kombat?
It was successful in an order of magnitude more than any of us had ever dreamed. It was nothing short of staggering. While I have nothing to announce, I think we'd be pretty foolish to ignore that.
The arcade market has a very faint pulse. Do you think there's any way it could work again for the fighting games that are coming out ?
It's funny, because we have been approached as recently as MK9 by other companies asking for our code to make it work for an arcade. While I think you can physically do it, I don't know if there are enough people to support the nature of the game. In arcades, there are people trying to challenge you. It's a very social experience. That's been replaced with online now. You're in a virtual room and and the people around you are challenging each other. I suppose that if there's some arcade that still has a large number of players, you could place it there and make money. But as far as having enough places in the world that can support something that needs players around it, I don't see the economics of that working.
When making games, do you think about modes that fit Twitch viewing habits ?
One hundred percent. That's the world we live in. Playthroughs and people giving lessons on games - that whole thing is here to stay. There are decisions we make that will make something easier for Twitch streamers to do. In fighting game EVO tournaments, they skip intros, they don't watch fatalities. They get to the core of the fighting. They also tend to be in a big rush to get their matches done. I've toyed with the idea of having a mode specifically for game tournaments or Twitch, where you strip out everything except for the core mechanics of the game.
Where you involved in the Mortal Kombat film that got dropped a few years ago? Is there a chance it's still stewing or is it dead ?
It's still stewing. The director, Kevin Tancharoen, loves Mortal Kombat. When I met him, he showed me a picture of him at five years old in a Sub-Zero costume, which kind of makes me feel old. [Laughs] He did Mortal Kombat: Rebirth, and it got all this attention - 10 million views or something like that - and then Warner Brothers hired him to do the Mortal Kombat: Legacy series. It was my understanding that he was on board to do the third movie, but then he moved on. Recently, he directed last week's Marvel: Agents of Shield. But as far as I know , the movie is not dead.
At E3 a lot of the Mortal Kombat X characters were silhouettes, but one was clearly the silhouette of Abraham Lincoln. Can we expect a great president in Mortal Kombat X ?
No, that was me being a d---. [Laughs] Over the years, Mortal Kombat has always had secrets in it, rumors that weren't true. Clearly, we're not going to put Abraham Lincoln in Mortal Kombat. In Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, we had a create-a-fighter feature. One time, we were playing the game online, and some guy had made Abraham Lincoln. We just thought it was the funniest thing in the world. So I said, "We have to put that as one of the boxes."
