GameSpot Alan Dunkin called it "another fun management simulation from the mind of Chris Sawyer." His praises included the custom naming of everything in the park and position-accurate, real-life sound effects. However, he disliked the limited speed of the game, reasoning that "when you're trying to manage your newest amusement park, time is ticking by, perhaps faster than you'd like." He also criticized the limited amount of scenarios and the player not being able to make their own.
IGN Jason Bates also called it a fun game. He wrote that making custom rides could take a very long time and be very frustrating at first, and players would have to pay too much cash to tasks such as changing land levels, re-positioning trees and build walkways, while they design their rollercoaster. However, once players mastered doing so, "You'll get a lot of pride out of designing some crazy, twisting corkscrew that winds in and out of lakes and hot dog stands, painting it bright neon pink and orange, and giving it a name like the Vominator. And then when the kids start lining up for those $5 tickets, you'll be ready to start saving up for your next ridiculous extravaganza."
Game Revolution's Ben Silverman highlighted the game's graphical style: "The nature of the game just doesn't call for fancy graphics, and thankfully things run smoothly. The detail level is very cool, from the green-faced nauseous guest to the marquee scrolling the name of the ride at the entrance." He also praised the endless amount of possibilities in designing rollercoaster rides, as well as the huge amount of specific detail, such as the location of a food stall, the player should and can focus on of their park, with the only slight criticisms being the "sloppy" interface. Gary Eng Walk of
Entertainment Weekly, who graded the game an A, called it "Quite literally, the thrill ride of the summer", and in 2003, the magazine ranked
RollerCoaster Tycoon number 68 on their list of the "100 greatest videogames". Aaron Curtis of
Los Angeles Times praised the game, saying that it is "simple enough to enjoy right out of the box but sophisticated enough to keep even the most obsessive park planner happy for weeks." The Xbox port received mixed ratings due to very little improvement. The only exclusive features are no menu buttons (they were accessed by holding the X and B buttons) and a magnifying glass
cursor that can be toggled by clicking the left thumbstick.
PC Gamer US and
CNET Gamecenter nominated the game for their "Best Real-Time Strategy Game" awards, but these went to
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings and
Homeworld, respectively.
RollerCoaster Tycoon was also nominated for "Computer Game of the Year" and "
Computer Strategy Game of the Year" during the
AIAS'
3rd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards; both awards ultimately went to
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings. During the
4th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the expansion
Loopy Landscapes was nominated for the "
PC Simulation", "PC Game of the Year", and "
Game of the Year" awards; the first award went to
MechWarrior 4: Vengeance, while the latter two went to
Diablo II.
Sales According to PC Data, it was the third-best-selling PC game on the week of July 25, 1999, and rose to number two the next week. It was the second-best-selling PC title that same month, and was the third-best-selling of August of that year. It returned to number two on the week of August 29 – September 4, as well as taking the number-two spot again for the month of September. On January 18, 2000,
RollerCoaster Tycoon was announced the best-selling PC game of 1999. Its sales in the United States totaled 719,535 units that year, for revenues of $19.6 million—the third-highest gross for 1999. Chris Sawyer said in response to the commercial success of the game, "I think everyone is a bit stunned by the sales success of RollerCoaster Tycoon, myself included. I always believed in the game concept myself, but I hadn't expected it to have so much widespread appeal among game players of all types."
RollerCoaster Tycoon also received a "Gold" award from the Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (VUD) by the end of August 1999, for sales of at least 100,000 units across Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
RollerCoaster Tycoon proceeded to become a long-term success in the United States.
GameSpot's Trey Walker noted in late 2001 that it had "appeared in the top 10 [weekly sales] lists almost continuously" during its first two years of release. Domestically, it sold another 749,749 units and earned $20.32 million from January through October 2000, according to
PC Data. These numbers rose to 1.25 million units ($32.99 million) by the end of the year, which made it the second-biggest computer game seller of 2000, behind
The Sims.
RollerCoaster Tycoons success continued in 2001: it placed again at #2 for the year, behind
The Sims, and earned $21.9 million with 953,953 sales. By July 2002,
RollerCoaster Tycoon had sold over four million copies. ==Legacy==