All his life, 28-year-old Marcel Vos from Meppel plays the computer game Rollercoaster Tycoon. He has been making YouTube videos about it for a few years, which are viewed so often that he can live from it.
Vos has 156,000 subscribers and his videos get hundreds of thousands to millions of views. “I was able to buy an apartment through the merits from my YouTube account. I never expected that. But it’s fun.”
Vos is hidden behind two large computer screens in a small office in his apartment in Meppel. He has headphones on and through a large microphone he speaks to a text for a video he makes about the legendary game that came out for the first time in 1999. “I started playing when I was four or five years old,” says Vos enthusiastically. “And since then I have not really stopped.”
Rollercoastertycoon means roller coaster magnate in Dutch. You can build amusement parks in the game. “And I make videos about that, about how the game works.”
About 6.5 years ago, Vos posted a video on Reddit. Then the ball started rolling. Someone had forwarded his video, so that the subscribers suddenly flowed in. In one of his most popular films, he explains how he built the longest roller coaster ever in Rollercoaster Tycoon. The roller coaster lasts no less than 135 years.
“I even got a trophy for it, from YouTube,” says Vos with a big grin. He thinks it all is a bit absurd. And at the same time he is actually proud of it.
In the meantime he has broken that milestone again. In 2023 he built a new record -breaking roller coaster. “Then you are talking about a three with 78 zeros,” he says about the duration of the roller coaster.
What is so nice about building things like that? “For me, they are technical, arithmetic challenges: how far can I go? How long can something be?” You must be able to count on it. “At school that was always my best profession.”
It was never his dream to become YouTuber. Vos studied astrology at the University of Groningen, but he did not finish that. “I was already too busy with my YouTube account.” For the time being he will continue to make videos about Rollercoaster Tycoon. “As long as I still have nice video ideas, I will continue. And I still have them.”