While an official Roller Coaster Tycoon 4 would be excellent news, it’s a fake trailer that has everyone up in arms. A user at NeoGAF found an “official preview trailer” for Roller Coaster Tycoon 4 on Youtube, under the Youtube property of Red Coin Games. It has since been taken down by the user, with the CEO of the alleged company claiming “he was hacked.” It was a cruel move to fans of the game series itching for a new title.

There are several issues that made me and anybody who follows reason and logic believe that this was all an “elaborate” troll from the beginning. It was even reported on as the news broke as a true story, only to have been noted as fake as the dust settled. Even Mike Bithell, the creator of “Thomas Was Alone,” discussed the events that unfolded. However, the clues of its illegitimacy were there from the beginning.

-Red Coin Games doesn’t have an official website. It has a page on Indie City and a Twitter account. THAT’S IT! The reason, apparently, is due to problems “legally and memory wise,” a huge red flag.

-Sol Williams (CEO of Red Coin Games) insisted that Chris Sawyer, creator of Roller Coaster Tycoon, owns 50% of the Roller Coaster Tycoon IP and he gave it to Sol’s company to work on through an “online posting” looking for devs. This goes against the fact that Atari failed to sell the rights to the franchise, retaining them in the face of bankruptcy.

-The trailer for Roller Coaster Tycoon 4 is a blatant rehash of this Intimidator roller coaster video. Despite the alleged notion that the company is working with Kevin McVeen on development of Roller Coaster Tycoon 4, there is no proof other than Sol Williams’ word. Otherwise, it looks like Red Coin slapped some words on top of a stolen video and adding a made up card at the end.

-Both Chris Sawyer and the Kevin McVeen, who were supposedly working with Red Coin Games are near impossible to reach and neither have Twitter, meaning they would have had a much harder time confirming or denying this announcement.

-On August 9th, the CEO teased an upcoming zombie game with this image:

Despite an image search bringing up this image from 3 years ago.

He even said that he created the image himself.

Now, the huge question is whether or not Sol Williams is lying about being hacked. I really, REALLY hate to make such definitive statements, but there is little opportunity to believe that it wasn’t either an attempt to grab attention for himself or put his “company” name out there to the public. Some people believe that any press is good press, and already Sol has claimed that he will work on a Roller Coaster Tycoon 4 simulation of his own. He’s leveraging this controversy to inform a wide audience about his work. It’s entirely possible he’s trying to make the best of a bad situation, but has everything to lose if he wasn’t hacked in the first place.

So, there you have it. A big hoopla was made about a trailer for Roller Coaster Tycoon 4 that turned out to be fake. Fan-made trailers for fictional games are cool when they are made in jest, but this controversy was plagued in malicious attempt that upset hopefuls. Hopefully Mr. Williams has learned his lesson and whatever he actually develops in the future comes from his own merits.