Roller Coaster Tycoon Used to Illustrate Housing Market

June 4, 2007
The U.S. housing market is down - for now.

But a clever use of the build-your-own feature in Roller Coaster Tycoon by The Speculative Bubble shows what a wild ride real estate can be. 



The data underlying the roller coaster design can be found here.



 
Buzz It

Comments

Submitted by cfulp (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 06:04.
Very clever!

Submitted by Keaton2008 (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 06:19.
meh. filler.

I was hoping that the coaster car will fall off the track at the end.

Submitted by Brokenscope (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 08:37.
I can't see the video, which version was used?

Submitted by x(wai)x (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 09:51.
Hehe, clever. Who'd have thought tracking real estate prices could be so much fun? ;)

Submitted by A-wel Cruiz (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 10:39.
This remind anyone else of the Simpsons episode "Special Edna" with the Enron Rollercoaster that ended in the poor house?

"Mmmmm, that's good satire!"

Submitted by Jabrwock on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 10:53.
Pretty neat, although it would have been cooler had it included something that showed what time period of the graph you were currently on. Sort of like those birds-eye maps for racing games.
-- If your wiimote goes snicker-snack, check your wrist-strap...

Submitted by Nekojin (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 12:28.
I have to ask: If the house prices are nearly twice as high as they've ever been, why does everyone keep saying the housing market is down? Seems to me like it's due for a crash...

Submitted by finaleve (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 12:36.
I believe that was Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, but then I'm just guessing. I haven't played RCT games since 2.

But that's pretty interesting. Prices are indeed high.

Submitted by GoodRobotUs (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 15:20.
It was Tycoon 3, very good game, but it doesn't like multi-processors much, and struggles doing graphics at night, even on Core2-6600 with an X1950 for some reason :( Still, certainly a good game, as can be expected from the guy who wrote Elite ;)

Interesting use of the data, not exactly as 'wild' as it must have been for the people with money involved, but still an interesting way of presenting data.

Submitted by hayabusa75 (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 16:48.
Not to be deliberately negative, but that was one of the most useless things I've seen in recent memory. Without actual dollar amounts to reference, the only thing that video shows is relative ebb and flow. Not only that, but viewing it from POV instead of side view prevents you from gaining an accurate perspective on the differences in fluctuations. To me, the whole thing came off as someone trying something different only for the sake of being different, and it doesn't hold up particularly well.

@Nekojin:

I believe people may be referring to the actual rate of increasing prices, not the nominal level of the prices themselves. I know my home in CA has not increased in value nearly as much this year as it did in the first three that I've owned it.

Submitted by Matthew (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 16:49.
Ahh, RCT3, how I love you so. Even if your stupid light bloom makes the screen totally wash out in the daytime on the desert scenery.

I agree, some scenery (or even just captions) to mark out key moments would've made it a much more interesting piece. Or they could've coloured the tracks to highlight certain periods.

I hope their next project is history of the dotcom bubble as presented in The Movies.

Submitted by Neeneko (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 16:58.
@Nekojin

People are saying the housing market is 'down' because it has started to collapse. Prices are still nice and high, but foreclosures are going through the roof and that is causing a rapid drop in housing value.

So a slow pop.

Submitted by Father Time (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 17:41.
They need signs showing you what year you are in at the ride at that point or maybe the cash. Also I would've love to see the car crash.

Submitted by GoodRobotUs (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 18:20.
Heh, there's a great trick with an unfinished Coaster, and one long road from the entrance.

Jack Thompson wouldn't approve, even if no-one actually gets hurt ;)

They should use the British housing market, you'd have never got off the damn start hill :( Let's just say I hope I'm not on it when it reaches the top.....

Submitted by Nekojin (not verified) on Mon, 06/04/2007 - 22:31.
@Neeneko: "People are saying the housing market is ‘down’ because it has started to collapse. Prices are still nice and high, but foreclosures are going through the roof and that is causing a rapid drop in housing value.

So a slow pop."

But that's not what people have been telling me. People have been telling me - for the last 5 years, mind you - that housing values are low, and I should buy while I can. But prices haven't been "low" for at least 8 years... even the prices from 5 years ago were much higher than previously.
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