McDonald's Video Game

I looked at McDonald’s Video Game by Molleindustria. Molleindustria “Radical games against the dictatorship of entertainment." Molleindustria aims to re appropriate video games as a popular form of mass communication. Their objective is to investigate the persuasive potentials of the medium by subverting mainstream video gaming cliche (and possibly have fun in the process).

In addition to English, this game allows the choice of playing in eight other languages including Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Danish, Turkish, Portuguese, French, and German. This videogame is a digital parody of McDonald’s corporation and the objective in this complex strategy game is to make money. Behind every burger, french fry, and ice cream cone, there is a complex process you must learn to manage from the creation of pastures to the slaughter, from the restaurant management to the advertising of the product.


I perused the 30 page game tutorial that teaches how to control each of those four sectors:

Agricultural
Use land in South America to create pasture or soy cultures. Options include raising more cows per acreage of land. Soy can be grown more abundantly by using genetically modified plants otherwise known as GMOs. GMOs allow the use of more potent pesticides to minimize insect damage. GMOs are grown next to grain production used by human consumption of the local people. Rainforest can be decimated to establish pastures and soy cropland.

Feedlot
Overfeed relatively skinny cattle with high-calorie soy-based fodder to help produce fat and greasy burgers for consumers. Make sure to produce enough fodder and avoid the epidemics. Automatically slaughter cattle ready to be changed into hamburger meat. Soy-based fodder is stored in a cistern. Time and money can be saved by adding the industrial waste i.e. oils, waste, and other “s---“. The trade-off is not so healthy cows versus the convenience. Use hormones to fatten up the cows and get them to market faster as time is money. Let’s use the organic matter from slaughtering the cattle, make animal flour, and mix it in the fodder - remember, waste not, want not! Get rid of diseased cows that eat the too unhealthy fodder before slaughter. Avoid scandal by destroying diseased cows with BSE caused by the use of animal flour. Cattleman will oversee the feedlot and alert you when something is going awry.

Restaurants
Make them efficient and optimized. Make sure restaurants are well-supplied. Keep human resources prompt and motivated. Motivate your crew by rewarding them with “employee of the week” badge or reproach them. Fire the most ungrateful. Stock the fridge with plenty of meat from the feedlot. Train the cooks like efficient assembly workers, cashiers need to be ready for customers by standing at their registers, attract customers with advertising, and train managers to alert you when things are not right.

Headquarters
McDonald’s is not just a chain of restaurants but rather a brand, a lifestyle, a symbol of western culture’s superiority. Make strategic decisions regarding McDonald’s corporate image. Your marketing department will set up the most sophisticated and pervasive (annoying and obnoxious) advertising campaign. The PR office will help to fend off environmentalists, consumer associations, and other radicals. Make sure to please the board of directors by making sure their capital bears dividends. The vice director will notify you when the board is unhappy.

I tried playing this game several times but was unsuccessful at each attempt. Each time I wasn't able to supply the restaurants with enough hamburger meat and the restaurants in turn lost business. In addition, corporate became very unhappy! It was challenging since the game progressed much too quickly and there were many other factors to consider while playing the game. I would certainly say that for the most part, this game closely simulates how the fast food industry operates. If nothing else, this game aims to educate and perhaps entertain, if I can learn how to play it!

This game reminds me of the time right out of college and before becoming a teacher. In my desperate attempts to land a career, I hastily agreed to being recruited by McDonald’s. They wanted to fast track me into a management position. After being growled and yelled at by the hungry lunch mob, I decided that working in the fast food industry was not for me. I should have learned that after my six-month stint at Carl's Jr. after graduating from high school. Working at Carl's Jr. was a real eye-opener in terms of how the fast food industry is designed to gain profits with the least amount of expenditure. It thrives on the available cheap labor force i.e. students, immigrants, seniors, etc. as it pays minimum wages without benefits. One of the few people who actually reap the benefits of profit sharing at the restaurant level are the managers who in turn train their employees with the least amount of invested time. It is standard practice in the fast food industry to "recycle" their employees every 3 to 6 months; they will quit or be fired and move on to another fast food restaurant.

At lunchtime, I ate my free meal and drove home never to return. On a positive note: one week later I received a pay check for my four-hour workday. ;-)