Midway Games’ brutal Mortal Kombat is among the fighting genre’s most dominant franchises, having delivered blow after bloody blow in arcades and on consoles for nearly two decades. Its fatalities – graphically violent finishing moves delivered by one player’s character against another at the end of a decisive match – upped the ante of multiplayer combat long before such a thing was common, and gave the series a controversial trademark.

A classic by any measure, MK’s recent iterations, however, have suffered from creative (and, as a result, critical) neglect. So, when it came time for a new installment on the current generation of connected gaming consoles (Xbox 360 and Playstation 3), Midway seized on the opportunity to change things up. First order of business: the crossover—meld the series’ iconic, otherworldly characters with the surprisingly battle-ready heroes and villains of the DC Comics Universe, thus enabling players to pit Sub Zero vs. Batman, or Scorpion vs. The Joker. The match up proved commercially popular, resulting in strong sales for Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, which shipped over 1.8 million units to retails as of January 2009.

Midway reached beyond pure IP mash-ups to make their game successful. Striving to motivate their players to stay engaged with the game long after its initial novelty wore off, the game’s developers decided to take advantage of the PS3 and Xbox 360’s native broadband connections to deliver connected gaming features to the MK audience. GameSpy Technology stepped in to realize their vision. The collaboration set a new benchmark for fighters, notching up over 3 million multiplayer matches on the Playstation 3 alone in the first three months of the title’s release.

The Basics: Punch, Block, Kick

Fighting games have always been about multiplayer. Sure, you can go the lonely route and play stage by stage in story mode, but the real thrills have always emerged from the other controller, where a real life opponent throws flurries of punches, kicks and special moves your way. Online multiplayer pushed this experience beyond the threshold of the arcade & the living room, and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe fully realized the benefits of a broadband beatdown.

As they have with several titles, (both within the Mortal Kombat franchise and in other titles) Midway utilized GameSpy Technology’s matchmaking technology to quickly and easily connect opponents for online matches, no matter how large the online pool of players. For the world of Mortal Kombat, this translated to clean 1v1 challenge-based connectivity, a streamlined approach to matchmaking that eschews staging lobbies or “ready” rooms in favor of faster action.

Finish Him: The ATLAS Fatality

Simply connecting players to one another is crucial for multiplayer gaming—but it’s also basic stuff. Not content with the bare essentials, Midway and GameSpy strove to provide MK vs. DC players with a richer, more rewarding online experience that would keep them coming back to the ring again and again.

This was easily achieved with an implementation of GameSpy’s ATLAS statistics and competition service. With ATLAS, Midway was able to provide competitive staples like Leaderboards, while also giving players a persistent slice of information about their performance in the game. Scroll through the list of players in a multiplayer lobby, for example, and you’ll get a quick thumbnail sketch of their record as an online fighter.

The ATLAS integration’s benefits quickly became clear:

• More Fun: Readily apparent player data made for a better matchmaking experience, allowing competitors to select an opponent close to their skill level (thus providing a better expectation of an enjoyable match, rather than a complete blowout)

• More Data = Greater Engagement: By building up a persistent match record around online personas, MK vs. DC encouraged players to spend more time with the game. Displaying these stats to other players gives users bragging rights as their records and stats improve with their abilities

• More Matches: MK vs. DC’s “matches played” records actually accelerated over time – the number of matches reported on the PS3, for example, grew by over 60% over the four weeks between December 1 and January 1 (a full month after its initial launch) indicating higher match activity among existing players and strong retention of new players as they picked up the game.

With strong sales and even stronger persistent engagement among an increasingly loyal fan base, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe proved it is possible to garner huge results from even the most basic implementations of connected gaming features.

Ready to boost your sales and the lifespan of your title? Contact GameSpy Technology today to find out how we can help!