McDonald's: The Video Game

Warning! Mature Content! The following work contains material and themes that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images that may be disturbing to some viewers. Mature articles are recommended for those who are 18 years of age or above. If you are 18 years old or above, or are comfortable with mature content, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another one. Reader discretion is advised.

McDonald's: The Video Game
I ain't lovin' it.
Platform(s): Internet Release Date: 2006 Developer(s): Molleindustria.org Publisher(s): Molleindustria.org

McDonald's: The Video Game is a simulation flash game developed and published by Italian developer molleindustria.org (the same developer behind Operation: Pedopriest and Phone Story) in 2006. It was meant to denounce shady business practices and actions carried out by the fast-food chain McDonald's.

Why We Ain't Lovin' It

1. The game is a little misleading. It is apparently disguised as a normal restaurant simulator, but as you play the game you will realize that there is a lot of disturbing content. See WWALI#3 for more details.
2. The game is very hard, and often for the wrong reasons. You start with $50,000, but each pasture costs $10,000 to use, and cow farms cost $5,000 to maintain. Aside from that, the "Employees' wages" takes up $2,400 monthly and the maximum you can earn is straight up $1,800 when all three customer lanes are full.
   • On top of that, there's the extras you can enable at the HQ, but most of them barely affect anything except for the Food Pyramid (needed to counter the Obesity association fine), and McDonalds for the third world (helps somewhat increase customer rates and prevents the Anti-globalization movement complaint from triggering). The rest are just filler and don't do anything to help you make any more money, because the customer lanes are your only method of making money.
3. Only three out of five complaints actually affect your company:
   • "Organized workers" (by firing too many people at once) which stalls your customers for a bit. This is punishing because it means no money can be earned at the time. While the manager complaints about unhappy employees, this is virtually pointless because the employees get paid the same way regardless and don't do anything else.
   • "Obesity association" and "Consumer's associations" (by slaughtering diseased/mad cows before they're grabbed by the machine) involve fines. The Obesity association is the worst because it fines you $8,000 every second time it happens and essentially punishes you for not using the $600 a month Food Pyramid. While Consumer's associations fines you $6,000 if it happens every second time, it can be easily be prevented via executing the sick/mad cows, but even that requires quick reflexes to ensure that those cows aren't taken by the machine. On top of that, it seems like the feedlot employees that manage these cows are oblivious to the medical problems that the cows have.
   • "Environmentalists" (by destroying many forests within a short period of time) and "Anti-globalization movement" (which is indicated by low customer rates but rarely through destroying forests) do absolutely nothing to the company and are just filler.
4. The game takes itself extremely seriously, to the point of being offensive and/or disturbing, and even the "cleanest" acts have some kind of dark moral implication. Among the actions you can perform, there are:
   • Destroying forests labeled as "thousands-of-years old rainforests".
   • Destroying native villages, with the locals being heavily implied to be killed.
   • Diluting food for your farm animals with several kinds of waste, resulting in a higher likelihood of them catching illnesses and dying.
   • Mobbing factory employees, cooks, and servers to work at the best of their potential, even if they're unhappy (due to several factors like low pay, long working hours, or strict company standards).
   • Even the commercials/advertisements for your fast-food joint, depending on your actions, can count as misleading or outright false advertising at best or have some extremely disturbing implications at worst.
   • Last but not least, you have a whole department dedicated uniquely to bribing law enforcement and public officials (Public Relations Office).
5. Due to this being a flash game, there is no way of saving your progress, meaning that every time you play the game, you're going to have to start the game over.
6. The game can get boring and pretty soon, due to having to restart it over and over again.
7. There is little to no music in the game, except for the title screen. The title screen song is a short loop that plays continuously.
8. Mediocre sound effects.
9. While the game's mechanics are actually pretty good, it's still too little to differentiate it from other simulation games like The Sims or SimCity.

I'm Lovin It Qualities

1. The game has a lot of content for a Flash game.
2. The gameplay mechanics are, surprisingly, pretty refined.
3. The graphics are pretty decent for a Flash game.
4. Overall, despite its flaws, the game is impressive for a satire Flash game.
5. Since the 2019 update, the translations are better, and the game is slightly more polished.

Trivia

• An alternate version called Burger Tycoon exists, which removes references to McDonald's.
• A fast-forward button is shown in the Help section when it shows the game's UI, which apparently has been cut due to unknown reasons.

Comments

Loading comments...