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Atari are asking for investors to help fund the development of Rollercoaster Tycoon for the Nintendo Switch.

We are excited to share today that RollerCoaster Tycoon has launched an equity-based crowdfunding campaign with StartEngine to bring a new entry in the acclaimed RCT franchise to the Nintendo Switch!

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How much will it cost you to back the game? Just $250! Of course, you will earn your money back, IF the game sells enough units...

What do you think about this? If a company like Atari isn't confident enough to back the game 100% entirely, why should you?

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Rollercoaster Tycoon StartEngine Campaign

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[Taleweaver]

It is an investment, actual investment, with it's potential profit returns and risks (meh investment, but that is what it is).
Why would they give back anything more than the profits returns? Why would they give a free copy of the game?

Because you invest 750 dollars into something that consists pretty much solely of R&D and marketing costs. Aside from the initial price (minus 25%), it doesn't cost atari a dime to give a copy to the investor.

The problem with this isn't so much whether they give a free copy with the game (as you say: it's not a traditional kickstarter campaign but an actual investment), but that this coupon is such a halfway approach:

You can basically divide potential investors into two groups: those who love rollercoaster tycoon and want to see it made for it existing, or those who don't care about the game but just want to see a return on their investment.

-the former group is IMHO rightfully pissed that the coupon is so low. Members of this group know damn well that at most within a year of the release date, you'll get the game for about 75% off anyway. Giving this group a free copy would entice them to join rather, whereas I truly think gamers will renounce the offer even MORE than if that 25% coupon didn't exist
-the latter group isn't interested in games and will most likely not use the coupon in the first place. I'm not an investor, but I would think this sort of coupon throws up the impression of panic rather than confidence.

End result: I honestly think this is an incredibly stupid marketing move.

Made $2 billion.

Asks for crowd funding.

.. what even?

My guess is this thing sucked up the profits:

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Welcome to 2018!

- These days, you FUND the game on the hopes it gets made, BUY it once it's released, and then "SUPPORT" the developers with micro-transactions!

Welcome to 2019!

- These days, you DESIGN the game on the hopes it turns out good, CODE it, FUND it, BUY your own game, and then SUPPORT yourself with micro-transactions!

Welcome to 2020!

- These days you don't play games. You've learned about the greed of the gaming world and developing companies as a whole, and have decided to spend your time elsewhere, and being more productive instead.

Erm...you do know that one instance of something doesn't automatically make it a business trend, right? And that even...even if it were a business trend, it wouldn't automatically extrapolate into further dystopia.

I get that it's poking fun at atari, but honestly: I've come across so many games (and game developing studios) that have a healthy business model that this attempt by atari is more something I like for morbid curiosity reasons...I give it less than a snowball chance to become the norm of anything.

 

[KiiWii]

Hah forgot about that hat thing @Taleweaver

 

[330]

Add the $50 you made previously and you're left with $181.25 in profits. It's kind of weak for a 18 month investment, don't you think?

Considering that we're talking about a $250 investment... no. That's how investments work. If you expect to multiply your investment by the hundreds, then maybe you should consider going to a casino. Then again, it's more likely that Atari manages to make a GOTY with millions of copies sold than winning the jackpot in Las Vegas.

Also, that calculation assumes that everyone will chip in 250 bucks. We're talking about people in their 40s with some thousands of dollars of savings looking at the name "Atari" and remembering the nostalgia. Some of them will drop much more than 250 dollars. I won't be surprised if there will be more than 10 people investing more than $50,000. If they give more percentage to those who invest more, you're looking at some serious mid-term investment with a low risk of loss and a much bigger chance of making a profit.

I'm also happy that Atari is doing this, as it's involving non-professionals into videogame investment. I won't be surprised if we see an increase of investors in the gaming industry in a few years because of this.

Personally, I'm sure that the game will bomb, but I could be wrong. I hope to be wrong. Rollercoaster Tycoon is awesome.

 

[KingVamp]

This all seems shady.

It is bad enough, that this isn't some new or smaller developers trying to get a game funded, but they seem to just plan to develop a RCT Touch version, if not simply a port, for the Switch.

Even if they had to go back to the people who made Planet Coaster, they had a chance to make a new RCT that everyone liked with touch features. Instead this seems to be just them wanting to spread their mobile business with even less effort.

It is better than a normal kickstarter campaign. If you back a kickstarter game with 250 $, you will usually get a copy of the game, a T-shirt and honorary mentioned your name on a website. Here it seems fair to get 120% return with high risk.

Seems like a much bigger risk than even something like Kickstarter. Not to mention, normally for a Kickstarter the minimum price for just the game wouldn't have been so high. I wonder how many people are funding this, are just hoping they will get more money back.

 

[FAST6191]

Numbers wise Issac already seemed to have ran them and they came up not so hot. No need to do that then.

Concept wise. I have no moral qualms with this sort of thing. "Money where your mouth is" interest gauges* is a fine way to set about life, regardless of the size of your company even, and I have long held I want real investments rather than charity when it comes to this sort of thing. Widows and orphans legislation might get in the way but that is a different matter.

*"[insert classic game or game theme] our company will do it right, interested? Press yes on this poll" is always going to return yes.

That said the reason they probably have to resort to such things is because of the atrocious cash in crap they did for the older devices, maybe with a slight dash of "simulator" is something of a meme at this point. To an extent that seems like a fairly obvious thing and complain seems akin to complaining about second hand sales or even a straight up example of having one's cake and eating it, though if you are trying to seed a company and only break even then yeah.

Re: only a discount on higher tiers. While that is probably not the solution it is a recognised problem of this sort of thing that should you do such a project and give final release to them then a sizeable chunk of your potential sales go with it.

I'd be so down for a RCT on Switch if it could somehow be like the old ones..

Homebrew types have been at it for a while, the transport tycoon games probably getting the most notice and work
http://gamebrew.org/wiki/OpenTTD_DS
The base project it comes from
https://www.openttd.org/en/

Rollercoasters though are also an option
http://openrct2.org/

If the general concept of open source game clones and open source releases for older games interests someone reading then welcome to the party
https://osgameclones.com/

That just makes my spidey senses tingle like mad. Limited, short-term investment to earn you a quick 120%
[snip]
In my eyes, real investment should always be a long-term game.

The game industry is generally recognised as a singular product every so often market with a fairly high return upon success. Do it as part of a somewhat more diverse plan and it is not a bad shout, and even if not you then have some nice losses to offset against your profits for the tax man. Bonus 2 is not so many people are good at games and are still about the next quarter -- EA or Rockstar has a scandal or releases a stinker and you know there is a [whole EA library] or new GTA coming before too long, with the added perk even of being able to buy low thanks to the next quarter peeps.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Then again, it's more likely that Atari manages to make a GOTY with millions of copies sold than winning the jackpot in Las Vegas.

Considering the probability of Atari making Rollercoaster Tycoon a millions selling GOTY,
I think I will put my bets on Las Vegas... literally.

 

[Shadowfied]

All I'm seeing is "Switch is getting another crappy port"

HEY!!! Switch has actually blessed us with some of the BEST games ever, such as VROOM IN THE NIGHT SKY!!!!!1111one

 

[330]

HEY!!! Switch has actually blessed us with some of the BEST games ever, such as VROOM IN THE NIGHT SKY!!!!!1111one

Is that a spiritual remake of Superman 64?

 

[sarkwalvein]

HEY!!! Switch has actually blessed us with some of the BEST games ever, such as VROOM IN THE NIGHT SKY!!!!!1111one

And that sir, is an exclusive!
For all those naysayers stating it is all ports, ports and more ports!
/s

 

[Sliter]

I would invest IF they stop with this stuff of wow nice graphix.... the visual they had on the pc first and the second where amazing and charismatic enough, then getting into 3 they wanted all 3D and stuff but look to generic and meh ...
The coud use the graphic style of 1/2 and giving an opition to "see the ride" since everything gonna be 3D anyway XD

 

[europat]

or just get the IOS / Android version of Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic for just 8,49$ and it's portable too !!

 

[Shadowfied]

Is that a spiritual remake of Superman 64?

Yes.

 

[spotanjo3]

No thanks. Ugh!

 

[Saiyan Lusitano]

No.

It says it's a new game, they show footage from several previous RCT games in the trailer. Touch-based for sure, though. All that said, I'm not even close to sure you'd make your money back on this, review scores could very well bomb it. If it was a more solid franchise I'd be in for $750.

Atari must be glad you're constantly defending them on some forum.

 

[MaverickWellington]

Reminder that Atari is sitting on important shit like the source code to Blood 1 and won't release it, and are now at the point where they need to crowdfund the port of a game to the switch.

Atari bankruptcy when?

 

[Xandrid]

Dear lord! $250 minimum investment!? You might as well buy a Switch with that money lolwat

 

[digipimp75]

LOL are they serious?? Hey Atari, you can go eat copious amounts of dick.

 

[Xzi]

Atari must be glad you're constantly defending them on some forum.

That post was neutral at best, and you clearly haven't read anything else I've said in this thread. Nor have I bought anything Atari for years.

 

[Foxi4]

Hate it when big companies ask for funding. If they want to do an investment that they do it with their own money greedy fucks. Also kinda funny and greedy that they're talking about bringing card packs over from their mobile game lmao, ofcourse

Atari is not a big company, they employ under 400 employees, their times of glory are in the past. Atari Inc. (Atari S.A. subsidiary) had 10 employees as of 2014.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari,_Inc._(Atari,_SA_subsidiary)

 

[Taleweaver]

I just thought of something: why don't they just take the normal pre-order/crowdfunding routine that is becoming more and more mainstream these days?
... I'm afraid the answer is what's already suggested here: they know the franchise isn't worth much with gamers anymore, so they don't cater to them. It's like with Bitcoin: they just hope to draw in enough money to make it profitable while the initial audience (gamers) become sorry of an accidental necessity.

...i hate to say it, but at this point i want to go short on Atari (basically: betting against them).

They KNOW people LOVE RCT1/2/3, they know it because it's still "expensive" on steam, 20€ for a 12 years old game, it's a game that still sell well, so why not port whats working on the HIT plateform of the moment, the Switch ?
Atari are really crazy...

That's not 100% accurate. It's 20 euro for the Platinum version, which basically adds the two expansions in it. For two extra bucks you can get the entire rct2 package with it. And finally: it's on steam, so price cuts of -75% happen regularly.