Damn, That Game From My Childhood Was Teaching Me To Be a Capitalist All Along
Okay, so it’s called Roller Coaster Tycoon, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. But since it’s winter break and I’ve been diving back into my beloved PC game from the 90’s, my nostalgia has turned bittersweet, as I realize how it’s fundamentally teaching me that $$$ > Earth.
Roller Coaster Tycoon is a sim series computer game where you build an amusement park and try to hit various goals that the game throws at you. It is, in my completely unbiased opinion, the greatest computer game to ever exist. You build roller coasters, add food stalls, games, paths, whatever your heart desires, and watch as your park value increases and you get awards like ‘Most Reliable Park’, or my personal favorite, ‘Cleanest Park’. Huzzah! Hiring all those janitors was worth it!
You can also click on individual park attendees and see their thoughts, which I always used as inputs to my design decisions, unknowingly foreshadowing my future as a user researcher.
This week, I decided to revisit this beloved game. I downloaded the 3rd edition, the only one to work on a Mac. I hit Apprentice level quite fast. About four rides in, I reach 300 park guests. Easy. Next, I had to reach 600 guests and a park value of $60,000 to achieve the Entrepreneur level.
Hitting the right number of guests is fine–add a couple more rides, make the experience fun, send out 1 or 2 ad campaigns if needed and you’ll find your park guest number rises pretty fast.
But park value– that was harder.
For a while, I lowered my monthly loans and figured that if I just let my cash rise from the measly profits of the roller coasters and the food stalls, surely my park value would increase. Nope. I noticed that my cash wasn’t rising as quickly as I thought it would. After some investigation, I found that the costs of running my park were bringing my profits down. Duh. Okay, but what if I don’t want to raise ride costs on my attendees just yet? I, for one, hate when individual rides cost money inside theme parks!
I see the cost of paying my staff wages. Those are my highest costs. I peruse their moods and their recent thoughts. They seem pretty happy, so I don’t want to let anyone go. I can, however, lower their wages. Begrudgingly, I start by experimenting with lowering their hourly rate, which for some reason can only be done in increments of $7 entire dollars. So my janitors go from $35/hr to $28. I brace myself for consequences.
This does little for my cost savings, and I notice that the longer I wait, my park value is actually decreasing. Slightly embarrassed, I realize I’ve been conflating park value with company value. I need to spend money in the game in order for the park value to increase. So I start making rides again. I take out another $5,000 loan, and I put in the only rides that can fit inside the perimeter of the park. They’re in the category ‘Gentle Rides’, aka, not the value-gaining Roller Coasters. Those require land size beyond my park’s perimeter.
Along the way, I try to incorporate some milk-at-the-back-of-the-grocery-store behavioral economics into my design, forcing my guests to walk past food stalls, photo booths, balloon stores, etc, on their way to rides so that my profits increase. I put in a swimming pool, which turns out to be a big hit.
But it’s still not enough. I go back and finally decide to increase individual ride costs, bringing them at most to $2 per ride. I increase the cost of a burger. I remove two of the three toppings from ice cream. *gasp*
Meanwhile, an entire quadrant of my park is taken by a gorgeous tree-lined plaza that was there when the round started. I don’t want to touch it, thinking that perhaps it’s a place where my guests might like to walk with their loved ones as they take breaks from rides. Or maybe they would like to pull out a book in this lovely place of solace. This won’t happen because they are sim characters and don’t read, but I would like to at least offer it.
One giant inflatable pirate ship pool slide later, I hit $60,000 and reach Entrepreneur level. I didn’t have to cut trees, but I did have to navigate unhappy staff, who had become increasingly petulant and lazy. There’s a ‘discipline staff’ button, but as a fan of positive reinforcement I try to instead offer educational training, but the effects are short-lived. I increase the salaries of those with the lowest laziness percentage points.
But guys, in order to reach Tycoon level, the ultimate level, the glorious namesake of the game, I have to reach a park value of $100,000. This feels insurmountable. Not only will this require a lot more upkeep on staff, mechanics, costs, checking on guest satisfaction levels and clean paths and all that, but I have run out of room in my park completely. My rides are up against the perimeter fence of the park, which is nestled in a valley of trees and mountains.
Do you see where this is going?
Do you know what I have to do next?
It dawns on me. I have to buy the land outside my park. I have to cut down the trees. And level the land. It is the only way I can add ‘Inverted Hairpin Coaster’ or ‘Spinning Wild Mouse’, which are upwards of $7,000 and are the most surefire way of increasing my park value.
And animals. The other money-makers I’ve been avoiding are animals. Scanning the offerings, I see I can add a caged elephant to my theme park for my guests viewing pleasure. Or a monkey. Or a tiger.
I save my file.
I leave.
