The Fallacy of "All Green" Rides: Family Values and the Fear Factor

[Narad]

So, do kids actually ride coasters labelled for "Adults and Teens only" in the coaster menu? Sorta the "you must be this tall to ride?
Or this only applies to "all ages" coasters?

Interesting find though.

Very interesting question. I tested with a dive coaster. Made it really gentle, less than 2 fear and Nausea at .43 and put it free. Then watched, not a single group labeled as family would ride.

I changed it a bit to increase nausea be keep fear low and still no family would ride.

I watched the start of the queue. Families would approach and immediately turn away and go elsewhere without any thoughts to give me a reason why. Looks groups with kids, won't ride coasters marked as adult/teen only.

So based on my completely thorough investigation of only a single coaster [wink], I conclude it does not apply quite so well to teens and adult only coasters.

 

[Bullethead]

Saying tickets sold is fully a function of decision to ride is not entirely true; the throughput matters when you reach the point where there is always a full ride's capacity of guests in the queue for the next loading. It does not matter if the queue barely reaches or is 5 miles long--through-put is the limiting factor.

Customers decide whether or not to go on a ride way in advance of getting close to it. They can be clear on the other end of the park. In any case, this decision is usually made far away from the ride so must be based on the ride's ratings and any rep it's gotten by word of mouth or promotions. Anyway, you see them make this decision in their status window. Once they make this decision, they start walking towards the queue entrance. It's only when they get to the ticket gate that they compare the ticket price to what they're willing to pay, and they compare the length of the queue to how long they're willing to wait. If either exceeds their tolerance, they change their minds and walk away, thinking "this ride is too expensive!" or "the queue is too long". If they decide to stay, they think "this ride is a great value" or "I don't mind waiting for this ride", and get in line.

This means that through-put only impacts the decision of the fraction of customers with low queue tolerance, who had already decided to go there in the first place. And even for them, through-put only matters if it can keep the wait within their low tolerance. Which isn't likely if the ride is popular enough to have a substantial queue anyway. That queue is made up of folks who had already decided to go on that ride, and who don't mind waiting for it. Those are the only people you're ever going to sell tickets to, and then through-put matters in how many of them you can process in a given time. But it's likely that the folks who go away due to queue length wouldn't have stuck around even if they only had 1 wait on 1 train. Some folks just have unrealistic expectations. But hey, you can't please everybody.

Anyway, the bottom line is, through-put has an insignificant on sales. Everybody you're putting through the mill has already decided to be there, and you can only sell tickets to those people. Through-put has zero effect on those who don't want to go on that ride in the 1st place.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Very interesting question. I tested with a dive coaster. Made it really gentle, less than 2 fear and Nausea at .43 and put it free. Then watched, not a single group labeled as family would ride.

I changed it a bit to increase nausea be keep fear low and still no family would ride.

I watched the start of the queue. Families would approach and immediately turn away and go elsewhere without any thoughts to give me a reason why. Looks groups with kids, won't ride coasters marked as adult/teen only.

So based on my completely thorough investigation of only a sinbgle coaster [wink], I conclude it does not apply quite so well to teens and adult only coasters.

Yeah, I gave it a test too. LOL

I didn't realize wooden and especially hybrids were "all ages".
I don't know about the rest of the discussion, but my take is, building lower stat coasters for families is a good thing to give families more to do in your park.

I built a Junior (Wendigo) coaster with a 4.45 fear rating and got very few families. Only a few kids tolerate up to 4.5 Fear.

I would love to see a heat map of population dispersion. Would putting all your "gentle" rides in one area tend to keep families in that area? Or would they still want to go to the Hotdog Squad on the other side of the park.

 

[metsfan1025]

Customers decide whether or not to go on a ride way in advance of getting close to it. They can be clear on the other end of the park. In any case, this decision is usually made far away from the ride so must be based on the ride's ratings and any rep it's gotten by word of mouth or promotions. Anyway, you see them make this decision in their status window. Once they make this decision, they start walking towards the queue entrance. It's only when they get to the ticket gate that they compare the ticket price to what they're willing to pay, and they compare the length of the queue to how long they're willing to wait. If either exceeds their tolerance, they change their minds and walk away, thinking "this ride is too expensive!" or "the queue is too long". If they decide to stay, they think "this ride is a great value" or "I don't mind waiting for this ride", and get in line.

This means that through-put only impacts the decision of the fraction of customers with low queue tolerance, who had already decided to go there in the first place. And even for them, through-put only matters if it can keep the wait within their low tolerance. Which isn't likely if the ride is popular enough to have a substantial queue anyway. That queue is made up of folks who had already decided to go on that ride, and who don't mind waiting for it. Those are the only people you're ever going to sell tickets to, and then through-put matters in how many of them you can process in a given time. But it's likely that the folks who go away due to queue length wouldn't have stuck around even if they only had 1 wait on 1 train. Some folks just have unrealistic expectations. But hey, you can't please everybody.

Anyway, the bottom line is, through-put has an insignificant on sales. Everybody you're putting through the mill has already decided to be there, and you can only sell tickets to those people. Through-put has zero effect on those who don't want to go on that ride in the 1st place.

I understand your point and just made a different thread because this thread has made me think more deeply about guest behavior. However, while I tend to agree with your assessment of how guests do things, I still disagree that through-put does not impact profit.

Let me rephrase--through-put determines profit for rides that have reached their "queue length equilibrium" for popularity. While there may be short-term fluctuations, for any ride that is popular enough to always instantly have full rides, the profit is determined by through-put times ticket price.

While the decision process you mentioned may determine what equilibrium queue lengths actually are, it does not really determine profit in the long term in the case I mention above.

 

[breezerHOG1]

Saying that the simulation is broken because some players have found a way to cheat the system by designing rides that make lots of money is not entirely fair. Yes it highlights some balancing issues but no matter how well designed the simulation is, people will always find a way to cheat it. You can't direct all the criticism for that to the developers. It's up to the player to decide if they want to play the game 'properly' (how the developer intends) or whether they want to find exploits to expiedite progression.

I never said the game was broken, I pointed out one tiny little thing that I understand can't be perfected. But there are many many ways the game could be improved, and saying that players are not playing "properly" is a silly way to design a game. Clearly an unexciting circle should not be a major money maker