The question is good, forget the huge companies with huge ad campaigns. There is a ton of games that become way bigger then their sibling rivals, for seemingly no reason. For example, what on earth Monster Hunter Portable have to sell the way it did in Japan? Personally it is a good game with a nice mix of gameplay but it's not even close to being my favorite psp game, yet it's outselling better rated games, and existing franchises. Remember when Pokemon came out, why on earth did that become so huge? I love it personally, but the following seems almost unjusified for a new game. Gears of War too, I never even tried it but it was a dark gory shooter on a system with tons of games like it. Why did that become a phenomenon? GTA I get, it offered something totally new to do between messing with people and having an open world. I kind of get other different fad type games too. Like Brain Age that's cheap or Wii Play that comes with a free controller. But others are just crazy.

yeah.....i believe though in japan......capcom adveristed the heck out of that game....and it got alot of attention and they spreaded the word.....but i am the same....how the heck did it outsell all of previous franchises??? but when it comes down to it...i believe spreading the word of the game is what really makes a new game or an existing game popular..^_^

Hi Everybody,

even though the best way to succeed is to have superb grafix, gampaly and marketing some games can get big on hype and image alone. I don´t want to upset any Mortal Kombat fans since I like lots of those games but most snes fans I know today where much bigger Street Fighter fans since the fighters and their moves where unique and the kombat was more challenging. But Mortal Kombat appealed to the primary instincts of male teens, violence. Not that I don´t like a little virtual violence, its just that I was very disappointed with the gameplay. Still everybody I knew then was totaly hyped because of the violence and because part two became forbidden here in germany ( I still have my copy Mortal Kombat 2 Ger. must be worth something now) Anyway, does anybody remember the Simpsons episode with Bone Storm ??? That is exactly what happen here too, all the teens (including me) saw the adds and started to drool. 

well thats my 2 cents, of course there ary many ways to be successful, each including counless factors, many roads lead to Rome, or was it Paris ????    

The game has to introduce something new or major improvements.