The McDonalds System
To explore how game systems are used in real games, I played McDonalds’s Video Game by Molleindustria. I really enjoyed this game. In the tutorial part, the game explains the attributes of each object in such a sassy voice yet to the point. I realized games could be as effective in documentaries or nonfiction books in conveying social criticism. For example, the game explains the pastures as:
Agricultural sector:
If we had to rear all the cattle we need in our part of the world, our cities would drown in an ocean of cow shit. Pastures and soy culture need a lot of land and South America is one of the best places for it. Obviously you have to conquer your land as our forefathers did. Remember the old saying: \under every forest there is a lawn”.
LOL
In this game, the objects are cattle, pasture, fodder, money, cashier, etc. Each object has attributes that closely model their real-life counterparts, like cattle having to be fed certain times. And the relationship between the objects (internal relationship) closely model the relationship between the real-life counterparts as well. For example, cattle have attributes such that they need to be fed and they get slaughtered unless they have Mad Cow’s Disease or a virus. Every action earns or costs money. Without marketers not making enough ads, there aren’t enough customers. The environment is the pasture, slaughterhouse, McDonalds shop, and the corporation.
The art of this game belies the serious subject of this game. The illustration style is like any light-hearted flash game, but the writing tone is serious and harsh, and the system itself is impended to doom. The value of this game is the harsh realities of fast food chains. This game really closely models the reality of running a fast food chain. Every action either spends money or earns money, and the player has to juggle multiple environments and objects simultaneously, being careful there is everything needed for a certain action, listening to the demands of various workers, and making sure the company isn’t going bankrupt. In the busy environment, where everything is focused on making ends meet, the intricate nuances of corporation ethics is necessarily ignored, just like in real-like corporations in this capitalist world.
