I know this might seem like a strange comparison, but I’d almost liken RMC in the 2010s to what B&M were in the 1990s, in a sense. I know that B&Ms
very highly received these days on the whole, whereas RMCs still get mostly glowing reception, but if you go back 20-25 years, B&Ms were the hot thing to buy. The Inverted Coaster (the thing that really got B&M going places) was a similarly revolutionary new product to the IBox Track when it was first invented, if not more so, and the level of precision, quality and just the general type of ride experience that B&Ms provided were something that the industry had never seen before at that point in time, in a similar sense to what RMCs were in the early to mid 2010s.
However, the industry became more saturated with B&Ms over time; towards the end of the 1990s to the start of the 2000s, they kind of stopped being the “new and exciting thing” in the industry. I’d also say that this was the sort of time where other manufacturers were devising new and exciting things, and almost trying to beat B&M at their own game to a degree; this is the sort of period where Intamin really started to flourish, for example, with huge new installations like Superman Ride of Steel, Millennium Force, Expedition GeForce and Top Thrill Dragster wowing enthusiasts across the world in the late 90s to early 2000s, as well as new innovations like the Accelerator Coaster proving very popular. This is kind of starting to happen now to RMC, I’d say; loads of companies are starting to build very “RMC-style” attractions now, and possibly with greater overall success in some cases (time will tell on that one).
The other thing that I’d say happened with B&M as their coasters grew more prevalent that I could possibly see happening with RMC over time is that the style of coaster they pioneered and the type of elements used on their rides almost became a little old hat, a little samey. Now I personally think that B&Ms are terrific rides, and I firmly believe in their mantra of quality over fast innovation and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but they definitely developed a formula with which they liked to design rides and stuck with it to the letter. For example, many of the multi-looping and inverted coasters they built in the 1990s and 2000s followed a very pre-set sequence of elements that was rejigged slightly for each different ride; the first coaster to use this “formula” so to speak was Kumba in 1993. Over time, the company built more rides with this style of layout and this style of elements, and while none of them were direct Kumba clones, the result was many, many rides which arguably feel pretty similar to one another on the whole, almost interchangeable in some cases. Many of the company’s coasters and elements began to feel very vanilla as B&Ms became more prevalent, and while they’re still very highly received on the whole, a common criticism of B&Ms these days is that they feel too similar to one another, and don’t really push the boat out or do anything too unique.
While I don’t think RMC layouts are built to quite such a rigid “formula” as B&Ms arguably were in the 1990s and 2000s, I’d argue that many of the elements used are very, very similar between the company’s coasters, and they have developed a very set style of ride that they build and stick to building in the same way that B&M did in the 1990s, and I’d argue that this is beginning to result in some of their coasters feeling pretty similar to one another in terms of elements and sensations in a similar manner to what B&Ms started to after time. Of course, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with this if the coasters being built are highly received, in my view, and there’s of course the very likely potential that RMC will pull off more absolute blinders like Steel Vengeance that just wow everybody, in the same way that B&M still pulls off rides like Shambhala and Fury (amongst others) that take the industry by storm, but I think that if RMC were to build a more mid-size coaster of a less impressive scale, of the type people were raving about in the early to mid 2010s when the company’s coasters and elements were far less common, I almost think it would be met with somewhat muted reception, with enthusiasts almost adopting a kind of “been there, done that” kind of mentality towards it in a similar way to the reception that many of B&M’s later coasters have been met with.
So before I ramble on for too long, what I’m basically trying to say is; I don’t think RMC have gone downhill at all, personally, in the exact same way that I don’t think B&M went downhill after the turn of the new millennium. I think the problem is that the products they offer are not necessarily the big, exciting new thing in the industry anymore, and other companies have begun to catch up to them. I know that the comparison of B&M may seem odd given that the two companies build very different coasters, but I think the two companies are possibly more similar to one another than you’d expect.
P.S. I should preface this by saying that I’ve never ridden an RMC, so feel free to correct me if everything I’ve said about their coasters is wrong!
And no, the Raptor coaster was not to be a "small experiment" - we've covered this extensively through coverage as they've opened. RMC is excited to get more Raptors into the world, and further iteration on the coaster type with Jersey Stunt Pilot.
