Why Rollercoaster Tycoon Died

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.

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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[richarddutton]

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...

[Cheito]

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.

[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..

[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.

[scaryhobbit]

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.

[Buckeye-cs]

So many memories with my little brother playing this game. He is no longer with us so I may have to replay this game over again in his memory. Miss you brother!

[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.

[sparkyUK]

I was one of the beta testers for RTW. It was a joke from the start. They rarely listened to our complaints, advice, released updates which caused more problems, didn't agree with us on what was considered stupid or didn't work, and each time the developers changed, it got worse. The last one just wasn't capable at all. A lot of us got frustrated each time our feedback, submitted bug reports were just cast aside. They knew they'd messed up as right before launch we were all offered a chance to have our Steam usernames removed from the beta tester section in the game credits.

[RVN-pswg]

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.

[fabricioakira]

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

[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.

[IquonYT]

rct3 was one of my most beloved game in my childhood. so much nostalgia

AND THEN YOU SHOW ZOO TYCOON OMG

[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.

[openRCTtutorials]

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.

[BibleMelodiesBibleMetal]

Let’s not forget that Chris also made “Transport Tycoon” as well…

[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.

[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.

[pfm]

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

[CrankyBonesGaming]

I always throw up a little in my mouth when someone says the grafics has been updated when it goes from beautiful pixel art to crappy 3d visuals