Maybe a bit skeptical, but I’m going to say that ballot votes aren’t real. I’m sorry, but how could Nintendo have possibly counted up all the votes. This ballot wasn’t a poll, you specifically had to enter a character’s name in, so Nintendo would have to look at the names of upwards of thousands of different characters. I think the ballot was a huge publicity stunt to really see how the fan base reacted. K Rool was obviously the talk of the town, which is why he was the real winner. I want to mention that Bayonetta was probably also really high up, I mean she did have Alpharad, so I don’t believe she was really undeserving. I kinda expected that Bayonetta was just a place holder, a popular enough character that can promote her new game while the next entry gets many of the big online characters.
Chrom was chosen due to backlash that he wasn’t in 4.
Ridley has been talked about for years and was one of the few characters Sakurai has acknowledged the fandom of since Brawl. Dark Samus was also added due to the demand for Metroid content, plus she was always that 2nd option Metroid fans brought up.
The Belmont’s were a result of Brawl more than anything as people wanted them over Snake. Or more specifically, Castlevania over Metal Gear. Since Sakurai had to get Snake back as many demanded the return, he may as well fix the Nintendo specific Konami franchise problem.
Isabelle and Incinceroar were more so to please Nintendo as they were clear franchise pushers.
Daisy was added because it was evident that there was always a small pocket fandom for her, so an echo could please them. Also Memoryman3 and WeAreDaisy exist, so I’m pretty sure there’s a modern Daisy cult out there.
Ken was added due to the echo concept
Ultimately, I doubt ballot results influenced the character picks, but rather the outcry for characters due to the ballot or previous circumstances. This is likely why there is such a disparity between ballot results from fans and Nintendo’s data. I really don’t believe Nintendo looked at any data, but rather made judgements based on how their community was acting.
This brings me to..
I welcome most 3rd party characters, as long as they're not blatant advertisement material, like Joker is.
Joker was not an advertisement pick, far from it. Joker came from a game that was literally pushed enough to be in the same league as BOTW and Odessey as game of the year in 2017. And, want to know what’s funny? For not having a Nintendo release, many big Nintendo fans were the ones pushing it. RelaxAlax, Alpharad, Etika, etc. we’re pushing the game. Smash’s entire art direction was lifted from P5, so yes, I feel Joker was heavily justified to be in the game.
That's a nice way to strawman my argument. By picking only Castlevania fansites as you claim would be cherry picking your sources and would be falsifying the results you're looking wouldn't it? You don't seem to understand getting the MULTIPLE sources here.
What is being said is that the Smash community consists of a giant echo chamber. One can simply change data with the passing of links to certain polls. Multiple sources may not work as the same people who would see those polls are participate may also be the ones on a different site. Just because you post a poll on Twitter doesn’t mean Tumblr users won’t get involved. The Smash community can work as somewhat of a giant circle of the same people demanding things. Most casuals probably voted for radically different things but didn’t get involved enough within polls to show there’s more outside the Smash bubble. I doubt many people ever considered Steve an option, but now there is this random fan base rising out of the blue and you see them in comment sections, YouTube, etc. Heck, I bet you would never think to see Miiverse for data, but I can tell you that Steve was bigger on there than probably any other site. I guess what I’m saying is, no one can actually predict anything in terms of popularity, a small group of ten can seem like 100 if they keep taking over polls across multiple sites.
