Killer Instinct and the Xbox One Reportedly Booed at EVO 2013

[Shawn Zipay]

This past weekend, following the Injustice: Gods Among Us finals, both Madcatz and Double Helix took to the stage to offer the fans a three-match showcase of the new Killer Instinct title coming to the Xbox One.

Though I did not watch this, someone from Gaminrealm did. They said that at the time of the Killer Instinct presentation, there were roughly 98,000 people watching online via Twitch. He says that the majority of people fired off hate like you wouldn't believe through the chat.

There were around 98,000 people watching the KI presentation at the time (remember, this is during the EVO Finals), and I can accurately report that mostly (think 95%) everyone in there was tearing the game apart. Comments such as “Get this s*** off the stream” and ”Nobody cares, show Marvel!” and “This looks terrible” were prevalent. Most viewers were blatnatly not impressed. The viewers were also not convinced that the commentators were genuine about their hype, and also felt that the matches were scripted.

Those actually in attendance at EVO 2013 reportedly started to chant "Marvel, Marvel, Marvel!" As the presentation wrapped up, the presenters uttered the name "Xbox One," which apparently resulted in the crowd booing them as they left the stage.

Again, I have not seen this but that still seems rather pathetic not only for those watching from home, but also for those in attendance.

[K-16]

I did watch the stream at the time (and because of EVO, missed the majority of the Worst Marathon Ever II Charity), so I can explain what happened. At first people were excited for Killer Instinct (including the chat which was getting restless because all events were late by over an hour), and having Glacius playable for the first time was an absolute treat (the E3 demo restricted to Jago and SabreWulf, even though the trailer showed Glacius already).

The problem was during the demonstration when the entire fight consisted of too many combo-breakers. It was almost a combo-breaker every ten seconds (which according to the chat, is way more than the original Killer Instinct). The fight itself was so well-done, that both Twitch viewers and spectators were examining the demonstrators involved and realized they were randomly mashing buttons not in-sync to the choreographed fight (as if the fight was pre-recorded by players at the professional/MLG level). There was a small handful of people (Twitch chat; I heard no cheers in the video) who were excited to see the obligatory Ultra combo, but overall the majority felt their time was being wasted over a commercial being run on a Windows dev kit (apparently they all went Sherlock and laughed at the demo booths showing the Windows loading screen, though it does mean spectators there were playing the damn game they just insulted).

I believe both the chat and the spectators were restless to begin with given how late everything was running, so they wanted to get to the main event ASAP and were more booing the existence of the presentation itself rather than the game, because during SGC 2013 the E3 2013 demo was shown there and everybody was wildly excited (both Twitch chat and spectators), plus the gameplay was proven live and the obligatory Ultra combo was explained ahead of time, so the purpose was clear to everyone during the one moment the opponent stopped fighting back. Everyone's excited about the game, but they don't want anymore delays and obstacles from watching what they came for, so Killer Instinct became a scapegoat. Sadly, the Twitch chat comments from Gaminrealm were accurate and almost quoted (though I believe a few of them were paraphrased and exaggerated).

As for the commentators? One of them works for Double Helix! What the heck are they talking about? Of course one of them was genuine! Any special presentations of games that aren't part of the main events will always involve the developer or community manager to be one of the two commentators. As for the other commentator? Well since it's not a main event, he had no reason to get over-excited since the victories and defeats don't matter. He was content, and certainly not bored though.

What are my thoughts? Well it's absolutely smart to advertise your game at EVO (something Nintendo's marketing staff stupidly and naively failed to take advantage of), so I don't see anything wrong with this. The game is further developed and slightly better than what I saw at E3/SGC 2013, and the excitement for the game is definitely there. EVO's special presentation for Killer Instinct was treated as a scapegoat, and gamers everywhere provided a louder demonstration of how immature we can be. Do I agree that they should be booed off? No. Do I think their presentation was live using Xbox One hardware (ignoring that the actual hardware isn't ready yet)? Also no. Should I care? Also no. It was a commercial designed for EVO, and was more entertaining than a Super Bowl commercial from advertisers that have nothing to do with Football (and I like Super Bowl commercials). As you suspected Zips, we were being immature, rude, and selfish.

Gaminrealm has a video link showing the event which had boos, etc. However, I wish to object and present a video showing the opposite reaction during SGC 2013. The game will do fine regardless of its platform.