RollerCoaster Tycoon

Last week, we reported on a new effort from Atari to bring the Rollercoaster Tycoon franchise to the Switch via an investment campaign like Kickstarter. The minimum goal was set at $10k, an extremely reasonable goal that was passed in a matter of hours. The usage of crowdfunding certainly raised a few eyebrows; Atari may have had its historic collapse in the 80's, but surely it couldn't be doing that badly still.

Fred Chasnais—CEO of Atari—recently sat down with Polygon to discuss the campaign, which is still ongoing, and had some interesting things to share. For one thing, StartEngine was used not because the company was hurting for cash, but to test the waters for future games from the company. Here’s what was said:

From a strategy perspective, as a publisher, we are doing this game. From a financial perspective and cost of capital perspective, it makes sense for Atari to try and test some new sources of funding to see if these sources could be available down the road for more games.

Seeing as how the campaign is still going, there’s a chance it could reach its upper limit of just over a million dollars. When asked how likely he thought this would be, Chesnais had this to say:

I don’t know. For me, it’s irrelevant. What relevant for me is not the percentage of funding. What is relevant for me is, can crowdfunding constitute a source of financing for my portfolio of more than 200 games?

It's a fascinating interview to be sure, and you can find the rest of it here.

What do you think? Will you be getting Rollercoaster Tycoon? What do you think of Atari using StartEngine for this project? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

[source polygon.com]