Rollercoaster Tycoon World publisher Atari has revealed the game's business model, as well as its PC-centric features that will help support the game in the coming decade.

Senior producer Matthew Labunka mirrored comments made by Atari last year that mobile entry Rollercoaster Tycoon 4 and this upcoming version would be 'completely different', confirming that it would be a "premium" experience without free-to-play elements such as micro-transactions or build timers.



"The mobile game was designed very much for the mobile audience," he told Digital Spy. "It is a Rollercoaster Tycoon game, and you can build a rollercoaster and you can build your theme park and manage it, but it's a different game, right?

"Our fans are hoping for the PC game. We're making sure that when we make the PC game, we're taking some of the lessons we learned from the mobile game and adapting the PC game to that.

"One of them being there's no micro-transactions in the PC game. That's just not what a player would expect, and we're making sure we don't do that there.



"There's no build timers - the game is a premium, full PC game. So there's a challenge mode, there's a simulation mode - when you're building your park, just the same way you would have ten years ago, but with some pretty cool new features associated with it."

One of those features is the support for user-generated content, an element that is "really important" to Atari and "part of the franchise".

Right now the team is investigating options of whether to give players in-game assets - such as pre-made buildings, walls and floors to make creations - or allow them to import files from their own editors.

"We want this game to go on for the next ten years, so we are building the foundation for that," Labunka explained.



"We're designing the base game, and we're going to build the tools that allow people to just make it really cool and special."

For those who don't want to create or download user-generated content, there are plans for official, developer-made content to be added to the game after release.

"We have a list of what we call expansion packs, we have DLC, and we're also going to be releasing free functionality as well," said Labunka.

"Because we believe you've invested in our game and we are going to invest back in the user, and so if we come up with a really cool feature that we think every player should be able to have, we're going to give it to them."



Another PC-centric feature will be multiplayer.

Previously, Atari said that the game would support the ability for players to all contribute to the same park. This has now been replaced with the idea of "theme park companies", where individual parks join a group and compete with other groups in global rankings, a system designed not to compromise solo play.

"We looked at, 'How does a theme park work in real life?' It was one of the questions that we asked ourselves pretty much every day," Labunka said.

"We've noticed it's not four people owning an individual theme park and trying to build it together. Everyone has their own theme park, but they're maybe part of a larger company, whether it's Universal Studios, Six Flags or Disney.



"We're designing a multiplayer that emulates that model. You're going to be able to go in, form essentially what is a guild with your friends, compete with them and try and be the best theme park company in the world.

"At the same time, you can have a hundred of your own parks, and you're just choosing one or two of them to be part of this group."

He continued: "You can still visit a friend's park, you can go on all their rides, you can do things there, but we are moving to a system that we think allows for just much cooler stuff, and much more scalability, to be honest.

"We're going to encourage people to play the multiplayer mode. We're going to have unlocks and achievements. We're going to make it fun and interesting, and you're going to be able to talk to your friends.

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"But at the same time, Rollercoaster Tycoon always has been a very personal experience, where you can spend days on your own and just design the most perfectly themed coaster - and we're going to allow for that as well."

Labunka also reiterated comments in a recent developer blog about the graphical quality of the game's first trailer, saying a Unity 5 build will bring improvements, and that this is a game "we're going to do right".

"We're making sure we do this correctly, and we're making the game that the fans want," he said.

"We started getting early feedback from PAX, we went in, adapted, adjusted, grown the game and made it able to do more, and a lot of those things that the fans wanted - those more features - we are in the position to start looking at.

"We're pretty excited about that."

Rollercoaster Tycoon World will be available in mid-2015 on PC.

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