McDonald’s Video Game
April 15th, 2008 jmorgan
The McDonald’s Video Game has the goal of illustrating the consequences created by McDonald’s in the real world and shows what must be sacrificed for people to live the lifestyle that they do. After playing this game I asked myself, what was the point? This game is supposed to show how McDonald’s operates and explain to people what the price is to support the company but this game did not convey any of those ideas to me. This game did not register with me because I felt it was to childish. From the get go the player is in a losing situation and must work quick to get the company on its feet. Having to manage every aspect of the company added to the intensity of the game but made it seem fake. No person would ever have to manage so many parts of a company by himself nowadays.
We have discussed how certain games are capable of having social influence but why does this game not have any of that influence? Super Columbine RPG had a huge impact on me because it was about a a real experience that could happen at random anywhere. Stop Disasters also reflected real experiences that were capable of having an impact on my life. These two games had major social implications and made me think but this McDonald’s game seems so trivial to me. The social implications of games only seem to have an effect on people who already support the beliefs in the game. In Super Columbine Massacre RPG I had little to no previous knowledge of the subject at hand so I was able to absorb all of the knowledge. Stop Disasters ad an influence because it was a game that implied ideas that I agree with. Prior to the McDonald’s game I had already heard of the problems discussed in the game, and in all honesty, I did not care as long as the burgers kept tasting good. Because I had already had a conceived notion of the McDonald’s issues, the game had no real impact. Seeing this I find that video games are most influential in their social implications when the ideas introduced are either understood or new. Games are not excellent at changing preconceived notions when the player is adamant about what he or she believes.
To make a powerful game, the game must pertain to new issues or discuss topics that could eventually affect anyone. If a player has a personal connection to the game, whether through understanding or a sense of fear, the game has that much more of an effect. The previous games we have played all created a personal connection to me because they created in me a sense of fear in that the situations could dramatically impact my life at any given time (natural disasters and school shootings). The McDonald’s game had zero social implications directed at me simply because I did not care about the topic at hand. When designers develop a game that is meant to have social implications, they must keep in mind their target audience and the topic at hand which they are discussing.
Entry Filed under: Game Log
2 Comments
1. Billy | April 17th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I agree, this game did not have much effect on me. I think the main reason that this game does not have a big effect on people is it focuses more on the gameplay elements than on the message. The cartoonish characters and the sarcastic humor in the way it describes detractors of McDonald’s took away from the seriousness of the message. Also I did not know whether to take many of the claims made in this game as the truth or not. Some things portrayed on the game made me wonder if they were true such as using industrial waste in food for the cows or food preparers spitting in food. Unlike an article about McDonald’s that would be completely serious and would provide references as to the source of the information, there are no sources of the information listed in this game. In this way reading the details of producing McDonald’s hamburgers in a newspaper of magazine would have more of an effect than this video game. Showing a sick cow simply with a green face almost trivializes the idea putting a sick cow in to the food supply. I also agree that having to manage every aspect of the company made it seem fake. The game is trying to say too much, it criticizing McDonald’s for deforestation, globalization, food poisoning, mistreatment of employees, use of waste in cow feed, and corruption along with many other things that are nearly too many to list. It is hard to be affected by a specific aspect of the game because it throws too much information at the player at once. This complexity makes for an interesting game, but is not that good at sending a message. So this game does not have as big an effect on people because it focuses more on the gameplay than on criticizing McDonald’s.
2. Beth | April 21st, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I’m inclined to agree with the two of you in this matter. What threw me off in the McDonalds game was the unabashed bias of the game creators. Their smugness emanated from all aspects of the game; I could practically smell it. The fact that Ronald McDonald was turned into a snarling sharp-toothed villian and everyone who works for the company was portrayed as either a mindless drone or a greedy corporate pig with no sense of conscience really made me question the validity of what was being presented. It was like the Fox news of political videogaming- presenting only warped distortions of the truth and portraying the opposition as motivated solely by an amoral and destructive agenda. What’s sad is that some of their arguments are probably actually genuinely valid criticisms, it’s just that their attitude in making these arguments is a huge turn-off.
While I disagree with Ledonne’s ultimate conclusions in the Super Columbine Massacre RPG, I think this is a more successful example of a game that imparts a message. At the very least, it explores the complexities of an issue in greater depth and adds to the player’s understanding of it. I never really thought of it before, but I suppose that, just like every other method of attaining information, in videogames, especially those intended to be accurate representations of reality, you always have to be conscious of the source. It makes me wonder how the less obvious political assumptions in videogames can affect our outlook.