''McDonald's Video Game'' is a

Flash game A browser game or a "flash game" is a video game that is played via the internet using a web browser. They are mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer. Some browser games are also available as mobile apps, PC games, or on co ...

published and developed by the

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

-based group

Molleindustria Paolo Pedercini (born 1981) is an Italian game designer known for making Flash videogames based on provocative left-wing socio-political points of view, on topics such as labour market flexibility and Queer theory, in explicit opposition with ...

in 2006. It is described as an "anti-

advergame An advergame is a form of advertising in video games, in which the video game is developed by or in close collaboration with a corporate entity for purposes of advertising a brand-name product. While other video games may use in-game advertising (s ...

", meaning a

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

of various companies and its business practices. It has also been classified as a

newsgame Newsgames are a genre of video games that attempt to apply journalistic principles to their gameplay. Newsgames can provide context to complex situations which might be hard to explain without experiencing the situation firsthand.According to "News ...

or an editorial game by Ian Bogost. ''McDonald's Video Game'' is a satirical

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...

of the business practices of the corporate quick-service restaurant giant

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

, taking the guise of a tycoon-style business-simulation game. The game presents the player with four views: the farmland, the slaughterhouse, the restaurant and the corporate HQ. Through each of these views, decisions can be made which will affect the fate of the player's company. In the game, the player takes on the role of a McDonald's CEO by choosing whether or not to feed the player's cows genetically altered grain, plow over rainforests or feed the player's cattle to other cattle (a practice known to spread

mad cow disease Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is an incurable and invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. Symptoms include abnormal behavior, trouble walking, and weight loss. Later in the course of t ...

). The player can also choose advertising strategies and public official corruption to counteract opponents of the player's actions. Some choices within the game, such as the opportunity to demolish villages or bribe public officials, paint the corporation in a negative light. These aspects of the game are unflattering to McDonald's, who issued a statement saying that the game "has no association with McDonald's and is therefore a complete misrepresentation of our people and our values." On some websites (such as

Kongregate Kongregate is an American web gaming portal and video game publisher. Its website features over 110,000 online games and 30+ mobile games available to the public. The company also publishes games for PC, mobile, and home consoles. It was purchase ...

), Molleindustria released a version of the game called ''Burger Tycoon'' which is exactly the same except that it eliminates all mention of McDonald's such as the franchise logo and a

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...

replacing the

Ronald McDonald Ronald McDonald is a clown character used as the primary mascot of the McDonald's fast-food restaurant chain. He inhabits the fictional world of McDonaldland, with his friends Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, Grimace, Birdie the Early Bird and ...

mascot. This was done in order to avoid copyright sanctions. All online instances of the game currently suffer a bug wherein the "Slaught-o-matic" does not produce patties when slaughtering cows, rendering the game unplayable. The only way to play is to download the game directly from Molleindustria's website itself. The game has been translated into nine languages: English, Spanish, Italian, Finnish, Danish, Turkish, Portuguese, French and German.McDonald's Videogame splash page
accessed April 7, 2015.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:McDonald's Video Game 2006 video games Art games Video games developed in Italy Business simulation games Criticisms of companies Flash games Freeware games Humanitarian video games McDonald's Parody video games Single-player video games Top-down video games Indie video games Browser games McDonald's video games