Alton Towers Alternate History Moments

[Secret Weapon]

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this, but just a quick question:

With the success of the Nemesis ride in 1994, and the relatively low cost of game development at the time, should Alton Towers have leveraged the success of the brand and created a Nemesis computer game for the Sega MegaDrive, and turned Nemesis into a brand beyond simply theme parks*?

They also could have created Nemesis cereal boxes as well, and perhaps even a CBBC / CITV cartoon alongside (similar to Sonic, Mario, etc); there may have been some comic books created at the time, but I think that children had mostly stopped reading these by the 1990s.

Such things are not unheard of, as the Pirates of the Caribbean ride later became a successful film franchise, and many other products have crossed industries (the Michelin food ratings came from the tyre company, record labels came from furniture companies, and the Guinness World Records came from alcohol!).

*The only thing working against it is that John Wardley was heavily opposed to the idea of using the ‘Nemesis’ name at Thorpe Park (whereas I saw it as a positive, and a compliment to his work at AT), and so I’m not sure if he would have opposed its use in other media?

 

[QTXAdsy]

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this, but just a quick question:

With the success of the Nemesis ride in 1994, and the relatively low cost of game development at the time, should Alton Towers have leveraged the success of the brand and created a Nemesis computer game for the Sega MegaDrive, and turned Nemesis into a brand beyond simply theme parks*?

They also could have created Nemesis cereal boxes as well, and perhaps even a CBBC / CITV cartoon alongside (similar to Sonic, Mario, etc); there may have been some comic books created at the time, but I think that children had mostly stopped reading these by the 1990s.

Such things are not unheard of, as the Pirates of the Caribbean ride later became a successful film franchise, and many other products have crossed industries (the Michelin food ratings came from the tyre company, record labels came from furniture companies, and the Guinness World Records came from alcohol!).

*The only thing working against it is that John Wardley was heavily opposed to the idea of using the ‘Nemesis’ name at Thorpe Park (whereas I saw it as a positive, and a compliment to his work at AT), and so I’m not sure if he would have opposed its use in other media?

They did have the Nemesis comic for opening yet never went beyond that as its strange that they never went all out with it such as giving us a prelude comic of Nemesis before coming to Earth, even giving us a Nemesis vs Nemesis Inferno comic if the latter ride still happens.

Yeah, it's not hard to think that during the mid 90s had Tussauds really wanted to, they could have milked that Nemesis cow for as long as they would liked? Would we get say a feature film though? Honestly I doubt that unless the ride becomes more popular with how much they promote it?

One downside could be that the park trying to create the next Nemesis that is often said might be even harder than our timeline as it's unlikely they'd have a ride with such a wild backstory and marketing as successful as Nemesis with maybe Oblivion having some potential appealing to the Y2K crowd. A comic with the Lord of Darkness does have potential I'll be honest.

 

[Secret Weapon]

People don't always see the opportunities that are placed in front of them* - especially when the opportunities belong to another industry.

Alton Towers were already thinking ahead to their next ride after Nemesis opened, instead of also recognising the wider potential of the Nemesis brand that they had just created.

(*One example is the PlayStation; Sony were about to discard their prototype gaming device after the Nintendo partnership fell through, so that they could return to regular consumer electronics, until Ken Kuturagi persuaded them to develop it as a standalone device instead)

If the Nemesis cartoons etc had been successful then my guess is that Tussauds would have had to put significantly more thought into the naming of future rides, and SW5 would probably not have been called "Air" because it didn't feature a marketable character or theme.

My guess is that Nemesis Inferno may still have been Nemesis-themed, but it may have had more of a direct tie-in to the original (e.g. perhaps a second Nemesis creature, rather than a volcano)

Marvel Comics managed to create multiple characters (Spider-Man, Hulk, X-Men, etc), so Alton Towers could surely have done the same as well?

AT would then have become the place where the characters come to life (similar to Disney Land), instead of just being a place to go on rides.

In hindsight, rides such as "Corkscrew" were wasted opportunities, because the ride featured no marketable theming at all (beyond a basic logo that could be printed on T-shirts, etc).