Why Rollercoaster Tycoon Died

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Rollercoaster Tycoon was once the king of tycoon management games, but it was milked to oblivion by corporate greed.
This video tells the story of Rollercoaster Tycoon, its quick rise to fame, and its eventual demise with the terrible release of Rollercoaster Tycoon World. Chris Sawyer, the original developer of Rollercoaster Tycoon relinquished control to Atari and from that point on, it all went downhill.
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Check out War Thunder and use my link for a free large bonus back with boosters, vehicles, and more: wtplay.link/robokast War Thunder is a highly detailed vehicle combat game containing over 2,000 playable tanks, aircraft, and ships spanning over 100 years of development. Immerse yourself completely in dynamic battles with an unparalleled combination of realism and approachability.

[@bmeht]

what a loser

[@OrgaNik_Music]

no

[@dwarf365]

sponsor block set.

[@teknixstuff]

don't you try to bypass sponsorblock!

[@keisven1]

If you are going to promote other games when you are suppose to talk about RCT then this video is nothing more than clickbait.

[@Che1ito]

You could move around guests in RCT3, you just couldn't kill them anymore. Also, the reason why guests drowned in RCT and RCT2 was because Chris Sawyer didn't want to have to make an animation for the guests to swim.

[@JackMacLupus]

Heh, interesting to know. XD But actually, where is the difference in making a "drowing" animation and making a "swimming" animation? XD

[@octaviomarchi]

@@JackMacLupus I would say it's the fact that for the swimming strategy, you need to move, meaning to calculate where to swim, while drowning is just one more animation and removing the character

[@shteebo]

@@JackMacLupus A "treading water" animation would be no more work than a "drowning" animation. He likely decided that drag/drop "guest removal" was a useful function.

[@ethantaylor5527]

I remember I would often “trap” the inspector in a pit I made in RCT3 to avoid him causing any problems in my parks 😂

[@KonaSuba]

OpenRCT2 is all we need

[@MaxMustermann-dl4pd]

I recentlly started with OpenRCT2 for the first time and it's the best Roller Coaster Tycoon experience you can get.

[@Renewable_Noob]

That's basically what the 1+2 version on steam is.

[@Antphoneigh]

this works on my MacBook Pro M2, so fun!

[@rabbitt7516]

i always get intimidated by rollercoaster tycoon 1 and 2, i always stick with 3, is openrct2 beginner friendly?

[@MaxMustermann-dl4pd]

@@rabbitt7516 depends on what you were missing in the original games. OpenRCT2 mostly got QoL improvements and improvements for running on modern systems with high resolutions

[@hatnis]

To make sawyers rollercoaster tycoon even more impressive, he wrote pretty much the entire thing in 32-bit assembly.. now THATS impressive, id guess not even 1% of programmers can write a simple program in assembly but this guy made a whole game by himself as a hobby project in assembly..

[@hellowill]

it was normal back then, wasn't Pokemon built in assembly?

[@AlryFireBlade]

@@hellowill even when... Pokemon had an entire team and Nintendo behind it. RCT was 1 person only.

[@teknixstuff]

@@hellowill This was a good while after that. 1999 had Windows 98 and 2000, XP coming soon, C++ being used for most stuff, .NET framework on the verge of existence, javascript and internet explorer everywhere, etc.

[@WutendPLayZ]

@@hellowilli mean look at gen 1, the thing has more bugs than timon and pumba's diet. just shows how remarkable it is to code in assembly

[@downloadableram2666]

By 1999? No, making games in assembly was not normal, especially on PC. On consoles, assembly remained relevant for a while but the N64 devkit could work with C as well. Likely for performance reasons. For example, DOOM was made in ANSI C and came out in 1993.

[@scaryhobbit211]

To claim that RCT3 is "uninteresting and bland" and that it was a failure is a massive oversimplification that stems from ignorance, especially when you leave out the following factors: 1)It was the first game to bring the management side of the coaster genre to 3D in a somewhat realistic style. (1999's Theme Park World/Sim Theme Park did it earlier, but that game had a more cartoon style.) 2)Frontier released two expansion packs to RCT3, Soaked and Wild, that massively expanded the game by adding functional waterparks and zoos to the coaster mix. This had never been done before, and until the announcement of Planet Coaster 2 just this past week it hasn't been attempted since. 3)During the franchise's hiatus, RCT3 (And also RCT2) experienced a renaissance due to the development of mods, which added brand new scenery, coasters, and flat rides. The modding community arguably saved the entire genre, and is the inspiration for Frontier's Thememaker Toolkit for Planet Coaster & Zoo. 4)The mixed reception ultimately comes down to everyone's personal preferences. Both 3D and 2D games had their strengths and weaknesses, with fans gravitating towards the game that best fit their style.

[@andrey_0liveira]

Exactly!

[@yoyojoost]

I loved rct3!

[@user-bt5qt9pp4x]

I personally felt RCT 3 was still very enjoyable but I found I could never create such lush, realistic and beautiful parks with 3 compared to 1&2. Even deurklink who is super talented on original RCT games can only make bland parks on 3

[@bentaylor475]

Totally agree. These factors among plenty of others is why I still play RTC3 to this day and it remains my all time favorite from the series.

[@scaryhobbit211]

@@user-bt5qt9pp4x I understand your sentiment. A lot of it has to do with RCT3 being limited by the tech and game engine available at the time, and it gets even harder if you limit yourself to the officially released assets. That's why the modding scene was such a huge boone for RCT3, because it completely changed how people played that game. And even then, the 2D games just have a completely different feel to them, and the in-game objects of RCT1&2 are perfectly designed to fit within the limited zoomed-out perspective.

[@Duvelthehobbit]

It's a shame you didn't mention OpenRCT2 nor Roller Coaster Tycoon Classic. Both are basically RCT2 with OpenRCT2 adding more rides, cheats, fixing some bugs and adding multiplayer, and Roller Coaster Tycoon Classic porting RCT2 to mobile and tablet devices and later the PC. I would definitely say that RCT as a franchise hasn't died but is being caried by these two games.

[@hellyesitsjoe]

YES YES YES, you understand (:

[@unocualqu1era]

Yeah but OpenRCT2 is a fan project isn't it? RCT Classic (or even OpenRCT2 for that matter) aren't nearly as famous as the originals, Atari blew it on terrible projects

[@Duvelthehobbit]

@@unocualqu1era OpenRCT2 is indeed a fan project. While it might be less famous than the originals, I think the community is large enough that it should be mentioned in a video about the game, and why it died. RCT Classic is also an official release, and probably larger in users than a lot of the spin-offs mentioned in the video. It seems really weird to leave these out of the conversation. Especially since the scene starting at 2.57 is using OpenRCT2.

[@scaryhobbit211]

@@Duvelthehobbit He also blatantly ignored the community for RCT3, while going as far as trashing the game without even mentioning the Soaked and Wild expansion packs. Like with RCT2, RCT3's modding community completely transformed that game and what was possible to build.

[@PeregrinesFury]

​@Duvelthehobbit i played RCT when it was released. I was a pretty big pcgamer back then but loved RCT. Since I was a kid, i didnt end up buy RCT2 until much later. After I built my first PC (p4 era) i got RCT3 and I remember being excited to finally get to ride my coasters but there were definitly issues which made it less creative and I barely played it. I cant remember how many hundreds of hours I played RCT, i do know a got into modding a little with it but not as much as other games. Jump to a few weeks ago and I decided I didnt want my 7 year old to just know minecraft on xbox and tablet games. I set up an old school "family PC" in a corner. (It is actually a monitor K and M connected to a dock, which connects to a laptop, not a true PC atm) I didnt know about open RCT but picked up RCT classic and it seems at a good level for the kiddo. It simplifies some stuff and updated the gui to be a good transition for him. I also installed warcraft 2 and age of empires 2 HD. Need to get him hooked on the strategy bug. He has loved RCT classic so its a win in my book.

[@aquilaFUN]

They lost their vision and milked the franchise dry. At this point just play Planet Coaster, or if you're into the isometric perspective, Parkitect. Wonderful game that still capture that early RTC spirit.

[@ct578]

PlanCo 2 will be announced soon (please Frontier)

[@donaldpetersen2382]

Parkitect

[@hellyesitsjoe]

Open RCT is fucking awesome, check it out!

[@michaelmonstar4276]

Nothing has been "milked", in my view... That's not what you can apply to this franchise. There haven't been that many games and three of them were big hits. - What else is there?... That "World" one?... Who cares?... It's hardly "milking" it. - They actually didn't do ENOUGH with it, both in terms of releasing anything or at least in terms of quality.

[@sebasllaura7254]

And, if you want to play a game that's like RCT World but better, look no further than Park Beyond. It's arguably superior to RCT World thanks to the impossification feature.

[@firestarter1888]

It didnt die. There is a core community dedicated to open rct2.

[@user-bt5qt9pp4x]

Depends how you look at it. If this were movies then open RCT would not be canon so does not count. As far as canon goes the bad management and greed destroyed the franchise. In reality the game is very much alive through open RCT and some might even argue that Planet Coaster is arguably a spiritual successor to RCT3

[@BDNeon]

I think you're too hard on RCT3, while it is indeed true it couldn't quite match the excellent coherent unified direction its predecessors had, it still stood on its own merits quite well and I have fond memories of it. The integration of both waterpark and zoo management stuff in the expansions was pretty great.

[@pfm57]

Bullfrog's 1994 Theme Park should have featured in the intro for historical context as well as Sawyer's first game Transport Tycoon.

[@FieryKitsune1]

I still love Transport Tycoon to this day. I played the crap out of it as a kid and it still holds up.

[@Mambaru]

Came here to say the same thing. RCT just built upon the foundations layed by TP. IIRC, TT was the result of trying to make RCT originally. Or the other way around.

[@andywolan]

Totally agree. Some elements of that game are found in RCT, such as the alert that of "visits think your prices are cheap, perhaps you should raise prices".

[@andywolan]

@@Mambaru TT/TTD came first, then RCT. There was a sequel to TT, but I honestly prefer OpenTTD.

[@Lainfan]

​@@andywolan The sequel, Locomotion, was a lot of fun for me, and i played it a ton. It felt a lot closer to RCT than the others did. I also prefer the visuals of it over the all the (Open)TT(D) versions. It probably just came too late, it was already outdated by the time it was released. OpenTTD has proven to be much more future proof though, thanks to a fantastic dedicated community.

[@RVN-ps2wg]

I loved rct3 it was my childhood, i lovr the simplicity of it. Planet coaster is so complicated, you have to spend hours to make your park look good.

[@keydenluster4501]

Give parkitect a try, it’s essentially a modern RCT without getting complicated. You can make a beautiful and full park in a few hours rather than a few weeks.

[@krabgrass]

@@keydenluster4501 Only thing holding me back with Parkitect is the cartoonish graphics which are a huge turn-off. But honestly RCT3 didn't even age that bad, especially the Complete Remastered Edition. That's why I disagree with this video because the graphics and micro-managements make the game play good. Also you can still grab peeps with the tweezer tool so idk what he's on about. Lol

[@user-gt7ux9iz7u]

That... is the point. Coaster games are management building games, people p lay them because the are complicated.

[@jaeko]

@@krabgrass I felt the same with Parkitect when it was released, I gave it a try a few weeks ago, aaaaand, I can't stop playing, it's different from RCT, but it also has all the things that made me love RCT while adding some depth of gameplay. And Honestly, you can make your parks look more "realistic" since you can recolor basically everything, now yeah the texture are still the same but you can get very creative it's actually quite insane!

[@krabgrass]

@jaeko Yea it was like that for me with Parkitect. I eventually got over the graphics and started playing more with steam workshop mods. One of my favorite things about Parkitect is how you can pick different styles for the queue line tiles and the underground chutes for moving around supplies and waste-

[@ZontarDow]

Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 and 2 where so popular that it basically created a decade long trend of business sims and city builders slapping "Tycoon" at the end even if it didn't make sense, like with Moon Tycoon or School Tycoon.

[@benh3518]

lol I remember school Tycoon. Somehow you were building a college but also had detention (read: literal prison).

[@chrisstucker1813]

School Tycoon is hilarious 😂

[@cameronbosch1213]

The "nurse's office" didn't even have a nurse! 😳

[@codyelms7340]

Railroad Tycoon, for some reason I was obsessed with it.

[@Caspianm2]

Every single "video game history" video ends up coming down to corporate greed and poor treatment of game developers/artists... Makes you think about our priorities as a society.

[@stefberg-kk1jl]

greed , greed never changes

[@hellowill]

well they aren't exactly getting away with it. their game and profits are a complete failure. Frontier Planet Coaster is the complete opposite story.

[@hellowill]

Also it's on developers and artists to push back. I'm a developer myself, and we are definitely part of the problem.

[@OrgaNik_Music]

@@hellowill what do you think the publishers are gonna do if the devs and artists try to push back

[@leesasuki]

​@@hellowill I mean, if pushing back mean getting hate by my dev teammate, PO, PM, designers, I would definitely shut up once they don't see the obvious problem

[@IquonYT]

rct3 was one of my most beloved game in my childhood. so much nostalgia AND THEN YOU SHOW ZOO TYCOON OMG

[@JTScottOfficial]

Same thing happened to ZT. Both 1 and 2 where amazing, then Microsoft destroyed the fun with the 2012 one.

[@openRCT2tutorials]

You forgot about RCT Classic and Touch which Chris Sawyer did work on quite extensively. Classic was released the same year as World so he was working with Atari to develop the title.

[@fldgr]

Watching this randomly and finding out that Planet Coaster 2 has been announced just an hour ago! Can't wait for another GREAT game in the original spirit of Rollercoaster Tycoon!

[@edwardsr70]

Froniter now has announced a sequel of Planet Coaster 2 coming Fall 2024

[@ArchitectPlaysparkitect]

Parkitect is like Roller Coaster Tycoon but with modern graphics

[@andycanoy863]

Releasing a worse version of a Rollercoaster Tycoon sequel a day before the superior version which is a spiritual successor rather than part of the mainline series? Real smart Atari. 😆 Reminds me of the Sim City 2013 disaster.

[@iiiiiifggffggffgfgfg]

And how Cities Skylines took over from a big company that tried to monetize too hard, except that the grid-based greatness of SimCity 4 is so much better any CS.

[@accolade.99]

you absolutely could move guests in RCT3 dude

[@doctorsam9200]

Yeah him missing something like that confused me. How little of the game did he play if he couldn't find the claw button?

[@accolade.99]

@@doctorsam9200 i find criticisms of RCT3 are often like this-ill-informed nonsense.

[@warrenparker8678]

@@accolade.99 This. It always bugs me when people complain about the game when they weren't even around to play it and be in the community. There was so much innovation with RCT3 and without it we would not see the park management sims we see today.

[@krabgrass]

Yea he really should rework this video, huge L. Lol RCT3 is honestly the best out of all of them and in the remastered Complete Edition, the graphics look pretty good. The modding community is still active and alive even 20 years later!

[@accolade.99]

@@krabgrass i mean the graphics are pretty bad objectively speaking for a 3d game (even for the time), but they are endearing, and style ends up being more important. it's like saying N64 games had trash graphics-like no shit. even still, that game had so much soul. i see people praising the RCT1/2 soundtracks as well, as if they're even in the same galaxy as 3s. it's so funny. I'd imagine most of the criticsm comes from people not being able to run the game well back in '04, and it's just carried that bad reputation ever since.

[@WillowTitov]

RollerCoaster Tycoon never died. Both it and its sequel have continued to see fame and reverence across the globe, even to this day. Even Frontier Development's spin-off "RollerCoaster Tycoon 3" is well-loved. There are no other RollerCoaster Tycoon games outside those 3, and despite this, they each live on.

[@mejman2]

I loved playing rct 3 when I was a kid

[@Hoplyte8]

Frontier got done dirty. First of all, because of putting those Roller Coaster Tycoon World complaints over footage of Planet Coaster. Second, lumping RCT3 in with the dredge that followed. I loved RCT1 and 2, but it was clear they had just about maximized on iso builders (which is why Open and Parkitekt are so similar). A lot of desired features required 3D, which was more difficult and graphics-intensive (cue simpler human designs). Frontier did great for the time, and most nitpicks were just that. What we wanted was further development of what was achieved in 3, both new capabilities plus the return of some from 2. We wanted a proper 4. We finally got that with Planet Coaster thanks to Frontier. 3 was great and a good step forward.

[@iltaak]

I honestly forgot about Roller Coaster Tycoon when Planet Coaster was coming out, the only other real competitor that people were talking about was Parkitect

[@Swat_Dennis]

Just play Parkitect? At this point it’s the definitive edition of the old games with a new fresh lick of paint… But a fun fact that I didn’t realize myself? The studio/person who made the RCT3 soundtrack is the same that made the Rimworld ost

[@TheOfficialSmudgy]

Parkitect is a great game.

[@downloadableram2666]

Instructions unclear, mechanoids invaded theme park, harvested organs from parkgoers.

[@k1ng5urfer]

Dude right, Parkitect is GOATED

[@FunkyBaconArts]

Parkitect has a lot of charm for sure. Love the decoration mechanics in that and how you gotta keep the immersion up for the guests. My only gripe with it is the lack of more advanced stuff like different launch modes for coasters that RCT had.

[@Javadamutt]

Rollercoaster Tycoon may have been the gold standard but all the management games you mentioned could be traced back to Sim City (1989) or theme park (1994) or the sid meiers franchise like railroad tycoon (1990). All of them successful in their own right Rollercoaster tycoon refined the genre and brought a lot of people to the genre but it was built on what came before

[@Mark-qj5kp]

Stoked to watch this as a diehard fan of the originals. I hope Parkitect gets mentioned! It's amazing and is the spiritual successor to the original RCT games. It also has multiplayer and is a ton of fun with friends.

[@Pogueconductor]

STORY TIME! I worked at infograms in tech support back in the day before that CEO took over. I loved my job. More than any job I have ever had in my life. About a month after he took over one day we had a company wide meeting. As you entered the big room, someone with a clipboard would direct you to the right or left side of chairs. After all the praise of the new ceo and how well games are going they said "But unfortunately if you are on the left side of the room this will be your last day here" that is how they laid us off

[@ggamemaster1689]

I still have Rollercoaster Tycoon 3!! It is still a fun PC game and creating dynamic coasters.

[@cameronbosch1213]

Yeah, RCT3 wasn't awful. The RCT mobile games and World were bad though.

[@brofenix]

Just some feedback, I really don't like the one word animation popping up in the middle of the screen in rapid succession. It makes my eyes hurt honestly and serves very little purpose imo. I would rather just listen to your narration while seeing a still image or preferably gameplay footage.

[@CrazySquidward]

I really dislike that in videos too but unfortunately it seems that's the new trendy editing style

[@dabbgy]

agreed, not a fan

[@smartinezai]

My thoughts exactly

[@tombowers7682]

Think it’s used cause a lot of platforms now auto play whilst scrolling so it acts as subtitles before you click on the video

[@matt_gally]

Tik Tok influences coming to youtube rip

[@506363]

@16:40 posted a couple weeks too soon. Frontier just announced Planet Coaster 2.

[@murilopreto3710]

Damn seeing the Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 ability to grab people brought back memories lol, fantastic game!

[@brettjames5061]

Great retrospective. I think this is the perfect example of "Names don't matter in gaming". I don't think Frontier "beat the odds against them". they slanted the odds in there favor by, well, making a good game. When the rollercoster tycoon game was failing. This should be a lesson to any CEO in the gaming industry that fans can (and will) make better alternatives if the current games aren't great, and everyone will move the the better alternative

[@Hawkeye_PC]

@robokast Anything beyond Open RCT and RCT2 is been declared as non-cannon by the community. Open RCT is now the quintessential RCT game.

[@severeddeity8090]

The sequel to planet coaster has been announced and looks extremely promising

[@nikolanojic6861]

First game i palyed form this series was RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 ! It was so amazing me and my brother have played over 400 hours of this game each , we loved it .

[@tmyrdal]

I hope Chris Sawyer comes back with another Tycoon game. Its only him that can make this kind of awsome games.

[@worldoffood123]

Honestly huge respect to Sawyer for working hard to create the masterpiece, then immediately retiring when it made him rich. Pretty much the dream.

[@gompedyret]

He didn't "retire when it made him rich". He had fullfilled his vision and didn't want to work further on the project based on someone else's vision. He simply let it go to follow other passions of his (like making Locomotion), which in my book commands much more respect.

[@moribundcrux]

Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 is my most played RCT. Not because I like it the most, but because of the ability to ride my rides. My son LOVES to ride the coasters that I remake off of real life rides. Perhaps I could buy Planet Coaster?

[@rodh1404]

Planet Coaster is mostly an improved version of RCT3. But if you wait just a bit longer, Planet Coaster 2 has been very recently announced, and it looks like it will be mostly the same (with just a few tweaks, mostly coming from their experience with Planet Zoo) and the addition of the one thing I really missed - a water park. It's supposed to come out in Fall this year. That said, Planet Coaster goes on sale fairly frequently these days and it does have a relatively cheap subscription option that lets you check it out with all the DLC. If you don't care about the water park, I'd say this is a great option.

[@moribundcrux]

@@rodh1404 I think I'll wait. My son likes the water rides, too.

[@TwiceXpenn]

planet coaster is a great game but even as someone who loves rct3 its very complicated its completely offgrid and coasters are a lot harder to build (in my opinion at least) but still a great game jsut not the easiest to get into

[@richarddutton1981]

Blows my mind to realize that Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 & 2 were technically indie games made by ONE guy. Has to go down as some of the greatest masterpieces ever with that in mind. I don't think I could ever count how many hours I had into RCT1 with my shitty old laptop that I kept forever just to play that game alone. These are the types of things that make me think back to my childish days and smile from ear to ear. God I wish I could go back to the days of no care in the world...

[@Foreststrike]

Hmmm, a machine coded game that was extremely difficult to program for future operating systems to play it? Orrrr, a planned obsolescence game which will be unplayable after a few OS upgrades? I'll go with Chris Sawyer on this one.

[@andreasottohansen7338]

11:42 A move like realising a game so close to a competitor that is looking to do far better saleswise, is likely a strategy to mask culpability. This way, they can simply blame their competitor, rather than having higher management and investors breathing down their necks.

[@DaisukeFlamedramon]

Answer, the spinoffs and everything after RCT3 had nothing to do with the original creator Chris Sawyer. Even for RCT3 he only acted in an advisory role. Chris Sawyer is a programming LEGEND and he is who created RCT 1 RCT 2 and RCT Classic.

[@ZiddersRooFurry]

Apparently Atari recently bought the rights to Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 from Frontier for $7.7 million. Despite Chris Sawyer's disappointment with Atari's efforts (and his suing them) he appears to be cozy enough with them to work out an arrangement where he's hand-signed commemorative swag they will of course be selling for a premium I'm sure. Like the old saying goes-money makes the (rollercoaster) world go 'round.

[@PatrickMartinez1]

Anyone that is a fan of the original Roller Coaster Tycoon needs to play the new spiritual successor to that game, Parkitect. It is absolutely brilliant and I was immediately brought back to my childhood. It is a masterpiece.

[@publicacct5626]

Parkitect is a much better sim game compared to Planet Coaster. Not sure how the video's creator overlooked it entirely.

[@PatrickMartinez1]

@@publicacct5626 agreed

[@bluegizmo1983]

The original 1999 Rollercoaster Tycoon was literally created entirely by one man, and was coded entirely in assembly!! For those un-familiar with coding, you cannot even begin to fathom how crazy that is.

[@rrfarmer2000]

Parkitect is more of a real spiritual sequel to RCT than Planet Coaster, even if it didn't get as many sales.

[@MichaelMyers3000]

RCT2 was peak for this franchise for sure. But yea, Planet Coaster does feel like the real worthy successor to those games.

[@SouthsideArchives]

if Frontier was still developing for Atari... RCT4 would basically be Planet Coaster and the legacy of the franchise would have been epic.

[@pm8rsh233]

Atari's intentions with releasing it one day before Planet Coaster was desperation and competition. They knew the state of their game in comparison to Planet Coaster, and they knew they can't compete. Releasing it before Planet Coaster was an attempt to force people to decide what game they want to spend their money on. If they bought their game, then people were less likely to then buy Planet Coaster. But they also knew that if they released it before Planet coaster, they might actually make some money than if they released it after. They knew their product sucked, and they knew that they loose any chance to make any money from it after Planet Coaster was released.

[@Tekay37]

There is one reoccurring pattern of when a brand goes downhill badly. It's always the company (or at least the people making the decisions) not understanding its own product.

[@TheOrian34]

Infogrames traumatized a generation of children.

[@cameronbosch1213]

*It's back*. 😂

[@meher_pratap]

Rct3 was fun. I still play it sometimes. Who remembers railroad tycoon?

[@Burnlit1337]

I bought and played RC1 for a few bucks when it came to mobile. It is still really good and controls well in the mobile format, and all without any horrible mobile money grabs; it was truly a breath of fresh air amidst all the crap thrown in the mobile games market. Although, my older brother loved it more than me because he finished every single map long before me, even the DLCs. Despite me being ahead of him and I being the one telling him about it. Edit: I just checked out the mobile ver of RC1 again and I'm baffled by its middling rating. Even the one Atari made call RC Touch. It has alot of 5 stars but then a good amount of 1 stars. With the common one is technical difficulties. I never had any issues with it so idk what they are talking about. I still stand that the RC1 on mobile is still great

[@Flurofish]

So true. RTC classic on mobile is great and one of the only true build/management games without the usual mobile came crap (waiting loops, in-game currency, watch add to play...). Theo Town, high rise (sadly killed by last update), planet of mine, the last earth and some of the kairosoft games are quite good classic builders. But sadly it's super hard to find those and to avoid the idle games flooding the store.

[@liamski1765]

I remember the day a friend of mine ran in to school with the latest "PC Gamer" magazine and it had Rollercoaster Tycoon advertised as coming out soon. The excitement was real and both RCT and RCT 2 did not disappoint. tbh I didn't actually mind RCT3 too much, although it definitely felt very different to the previous too (not surprisingly). I still found myself spending a good few hours on it. Anything on from then it was game over. Planet Coaster took over my life and now we await Planco 2.

[@firefalcoln]

There were some nice things in Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. More types of coasters, the sandbox mode, and being able to ride the coasters was neat. There were also finally families at the park rather than just a bunch of single men. 😂 But designing coasters that would crash and drowning guests was also lots of fun. Not allowing that in the game was sort of like not allowing someone in zoo tycoon to let the animals out of the habitat. Creating chaos is half the fun

[@beardedlonewolf7695]

Planet Coaster saved the theme park video games. Can't wait for PC2 to release later this year.

[@DJWezzyK]

With OpenRCT2, Rollercoaster Tycoon is more alive then ever before!

[@FanThemePark]

Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 and 3 were the ones I spent the most time on. They are easily some of my favorite games of all time. Planet Coaster basically took over the reigns of the series after 3.

[@cabrelbeuk72]

"Have yet to announced a sequel" Ah ! Guess what !

[@rwwilson21]

I played this game and the water-park version for hours on end as a kid.

[@FourKelvin]

The reason 1 and 2 were so good, was that chris sawyer is a programming god. I mean the guy programmed it in assembly, basically direct machine instructions. 3 was not a bad game imho, with all the expansions - which aren't expensive, you can get everything for 10€ - you get a lot of content. I must've put several hundrets of hours into RCT3

[@RFGfotografie]

OpenRCT 2 is still hugely populair. And a lot of people stay this genius game (RTC2). After that, only Planet Coaster came close to the succes/greatness of this game.

[@dharkbizkit]

between the ages of 10 and 21, i loved building sims. I played the hell out of RTC 1 & 2, I even enjoyed RTC3 and Sim city societies. When city skyline came, I tried it and even played it for like 80 hours, love the mod support but games like these, never felt the same as they did when i was young. skylines or even planet coaster for that matter, was the game, that I wish i had, when i was 16, I had time an passion to play these games, spend 600+ hours on perfecting a city or a park. nowadays, that feels like a monumental task that I dont have the time, patience or motivation for. adulthood kills a lot of things..

[@AVdE10000]

Rollercoaster tycoon World was the first game I ever asked a refund for on Steam

[@fireironphoenix]

I miss having guests eaten by animals in zoo tycoon

[@Fender178]

I played the fist RCT game and loved it. I own Planet Coaster and still have yet to play it. Also RCT3 got a remaster with widescreen support Also done by the same devs as Planet Coaster. I never knew that Atari made any more RCT games after 3.

[@fabricioakira8056]

Roller coaster tycoon 3 was literally my childhood. I love that game so much, and since i started with the 3 it was very difficult to me like the 2D style in the RCT2 and RCT1

[@JAXXNCREATED]

I guess you could say RCT lives on through Planet Coaster now since frontier made RCT3, Planet Coaster 2 is definitely going to have RCT vibes with the water slides, can't wait.

[@MashBro]

The part where you mention Infogrames is a little confusing. While yes, they technically rebranded, Infogrames actually acquired Atari as a whole in 2003, but Atari still existed before then. Just the wording I found a little off.

[@stephentait8734]

i loved RCT, the people being sick, faces turning green, testing your rides and they came flying off the track, i was usless buliding a good rollercoaster, what is funny is looking back at the graphics, at the time they looked great. theme hospital was also good, which is now two point hospital, one gam i also loved was sim Golf.

[@WistfulDread]

Calling Roller Coaster Tycoon the starter for management game popularity is absolute BS. Theme Park came out in '94. Sim City in '89. WTF Robo?

[@AVdE10000]

This video has some pretty obvious personal biases slipped in there. I love RCT to death, but yeah, that was a very silly statement. Man also talks about rct3 like it wasn't a smash hit with fans and critics alike

[@teammelkerphilippines3620]

LOVED Theme Park on the 3DO, so many great memories!

[@SuperFlashDriver]

I do think what really tanked the Roller Coaster Tycoon series was two things: 1. Chris Sawyer stopped producing the games because 3D gaming was all the rage and he himself didn't want to go back to 4/8 years of college again to learn these new programs once more (even I don't know how to develop a website or game code and yet game devs are able to do it, despite their terminology being confusing and end up getting aggressively nasty to those who don't understand it.) 2. Roller Coaster Tycoon World had multiple glitches, bugs, and horrible performance, that pretty much ceased the idea of making a tycoon game out of theme parks. I do think however that if a movie adaptation of RCT1, 2, and 3 were to happen, they would have made it similar to the god awful 2014 Need For Speed movie, and ripping off other movie franchise's stories that are leagues better than the company who ripped their stories off in the first place.

[@mattdovale]

The nail in the coffin was when they used a crowdfunding campaign to bring rollercoaster tycoon to the Nintendo Switch

[@derbrot2428]

I played RCT2 on my grandpa's PC when I was 6 years old and never really understood it back then. Now I watch this and remember the great time I had with that game. I just now realize how bad the franchise got after that game and I am happy to have played that title and no else. My nostalgia is kicking so hard rn that I am thinking of playing OpenRCT2 as a chill game while watching videos like this one.

[@N3UM4NN4TOR]

The first game was legendary. I was 8 when it came out and I clearly remember great childhood memories playing it. I now play Cities Skylines because of the love for management games the first RCT gave me.

[@willgrandex]

rct3 was EVERYTHING. the ones that get it, get it. it might be different to the first two but it's DEFINITELY loved by the fans and still has gameplay value to this day. planet coaster was frontier's opportunity to show what rct3 paved the way for.

[@BongoBaggins]

Frontier also sued Atari, and Frontier also won. Then they sold Tycoon to Atari 🙄

[@liliththeraccoon355]

My first ever disappointment when buying a game was Roller Coaster Tycoon for the 3DS

[@ct578]

It's a shame Sawyer dipped out when offered a bag. I recall a few years ago the rights were extended another decade to Atari from him, even though he himself is completely uninvolved.

[@OrgaNik_Music]

On the other hand Sawyer can now enjoy his best life without having to worry about anything

[@crytocc]

Given the bullshit that Atari got up to, that was probably the right choice, to be honest. If he'd stayed involved, then the only thing that would've resulted in is him burning out due to having to deal with Atari's ridiculous demands and ideas.

[@ImSoHuhj]

Real ones got this shit in the cereal box

[@nixielee]

I think you skipped over the real reason behind 1 and 2 feeling special. Sawyer was a brilliant programmer, and wrote an extremely efficient game, and he did all of this by himself in assembly language. Not C++ or any other normal game language. Just to be closer to the machine and make it perfect. The result of that is a game that feels snappy, optimized and effective. Add to that the soul and obvious care that went into the development and you have a hit.

[@xTornado78x]

First thing that came to my mind when hearing the name Sergey Titov was the incredibly amazing game called *Big Rigs: Over the road racing*

[@bennplant]

Who is excited for Planet Coaster 2?

[@shteebo]

The "sim" genre was established by SimCity, RailroadTycoon, and MS FlightSimulator. RollerCoasterTycoon was a fine example of the already established genre.

[@BigTrucking]

The first 2 were the bomb! I spent so many hours building. Loved them so much. Thanks for this video!

[@someoneout-there2165]

This game gives me many good memories. I remember staying up for hours on day off with this game and designing parks for first love and vice versa. Two was the best, I think, didn't like 3 nearly as much despite graphics upgrade and being able to actually ride your themed rides first person.

[@alexandermcfarland3513]

I never played the original titles. I did play Sim Theme Park, and that was fun as a kid. As an adult, I did try Rollercoaster Tycoon World, but I was really disappointed to find that almost everything was put behind paywalls. If you wanted ANYTHING other than the very basics of basics, you had to pay extra. Because of that, I was hesitant to play Planet Coaster, but eventually, it was on sale, and it was a million times better than Tycoon World.

[@danielmarcus420]

I discovered Rct Classic a year or so ago and it's all I could play for a few months. It's was just as addictive as it was 20 years ago and having a touch screen instead of a mouse worked fantastic!

[@Norkington]

I have been through a lot of Theme park related games. RCT 1 and 2 are among the best ones. I also enjoyed RCT 3, although the Zoo themed addon never convinced me. RCT World was a disappointment, i never managed to run the game for mor than 30 min without ending up with a corrupted save game. Though it was still more fun than Theme park Studio. Imo there has only been one good mobile RCT game, and that is the mobile port of RCT1+2(RCT Classic) I would love for a successor to the Bullfrog Theme park games, its a more casual experience. Maybe the guys at TwoPoint can fulfil that dream. Planet coaster is an awesome game, hopefully the just announced planet coaster 2 can follow that up(I am careful due to what happened with Cities skylines 2) For anybody who loved RCT 1 and 2 and likes management aspect i can only recommend Parkitect.

[@alexanderpasnl]

I have RCT3 completely different in my mind especially after the soaked add on. I was in love and have no idea how many hours I have spend playing that and then I found out about mods.... omg that made it all brand new again. Of course it worked not as smooth as today, but it was my first encounter with modding. I loved that game and I still do. I think 4 years ago I played with it for a few more days. And then stuff happened in my life and wasn't able to get back to playing games, although I bought the best pc money could buy in 2020. That PC hasn't been switched on even for years. Planet Coaster 2 is now on my list to hopefully return to gaming later this year. Can't wait to fully update my office/game room.

[@lovelydolltime8006]

The thing I hate about RCT3 is how they removed the ability to kill guests in that game (whereas you can easily kill them in RCT1 and 2). :(

[@UnixGoldBoy]

You forgot to mention OpenRCT2. Also, Planet Coaster 2 was just shown off......

[@dreamincolor14]

Honestly Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 and 2 are some of my favorite games of all time, and I've downloaded the phone version of Roller Coaster Tycoon (not touch) that is just an exact replica of the original, and it's absolutely amazing. I play still.

[@familybroakajonny]

Yet we still have people like Marcel, Duerklink, Stu, etc. still talking about this game to this day

[@chrnovids]

Stating that people thought that RCT3 looked "uninteresting and bland" is completely revisionist history. It was seen as a massive graphical achievement of the management sim genre. Most RCT fans liked it even if they continued to prefer the older games, and it had a massive online community at the time.

[@matsv201]

I would say Transport tycoon was the very begining. Transport tycoon was supose to be roalercoaster tycoon, but it didn´t work out, so it was remade into a transport game

[@TorreFernand]

It's a shame you didn't mention Bullfrog Studios and their competing series Theme Park. It had a lot of effect on Roller Coaster Tycoon

[@33percent]

I was a huge fan of RT1&2 but when I played RT3. I was like wtf is this? It was like soul stripped. They made the game soft. Now this makes much sense.

[@courage1363]

You know Planet Coaster 2 WAS just announced a week ago.

[@nnp1795]

Genuinely defined my childhood along with RA2, AoE2, RCT and RCT2 with expansion packs were the age when in my opinion strategy games hit a sweet spot for kids. Introducing 3D diluted and lost the soul and excitement and involvement/attachment factor in these 2D hyper addictive games for the sake of visuals - Miss the heyday of RCT2, glad it's now available on iPad OS! Playing 25yrs later on M4 iPad Pro 13" - did not think I'd ever return to this game but I love it! SHOUT OUT TO THOSE PLAYING THIS in Jul 2024 on iPad OS