''McDonald's Video Game'' is a Flash game published and developed by the

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

-based group Molleindustria in 2006. It is described as an "anti-

advergame An advergame (portmanteau of "advertisement" and "video game") 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. Whil ...

", 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 exposin ...

of various companies and its business practices. It has also been classified as a newsgame or an editorial game by Ian Bogost. ''McDonald's Video Game'' is a satirical

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

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

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

, 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 always fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. Symptoms include abnormal behavior, trouble walking, and weight loss. Later in the course of th ...

). The player can also choose advertising strategies and public official corruption to counteract opponents of the player's actions. Choices within the game include demolishing villages and bribing public officials. McDonald's 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 124,000 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 (biology), 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 ...

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, an ...

mascot. This was done in order to avoid intellectual property infringement. 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.

References

External links

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