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McDonald's Interactive Grows Up and Leaves Home
McDonald's Corporation has a baby software company all its own, primarily for the purpose of developing company-wide training sims. Or they did, until today.
McDonald's Interactive announced today at the International Serious Games Event that it was through working for a corporation that cares more about fattening up its chattel than long-term survival.
Their reasoning is both sound and admirable. The whole story is laid out at the website, and I dearly hope that when it was delivered at the conference today, it received a standing ovation.
Scientists believe that to avoid ever-more-likely calamity, we must reduce our emissions by 70% very quickly. Since governments won't do that without popular pressure, helping to generate revolt is the only responsible choice, the only true CSR.
The most interesting bit about the whole thing is how they reached this decision by watching young McD's executives play their build-the-fast-food-corporation simulation. The eager young bucks consistently made simulated in-game environmental and sociological decisions that resulted in the end of the world.
First one to melt the ice caps gets a tiny pie.
Godspeed, McD Interactive. Get yourself a real name and get the hell out of there.
Read press release and entire story of the simulations here. (No seriously, go do it) [McDonald's Interactive]
READ MORE: environmentalism, mcdonald's, simulations
I'm pretty skeptical of this story.
I can't find any Google results for a "McDonald's Interactive" game company. None. The closest results I get are interactive menus and a section of AOL, circa 1994l.
Under what loose confederacy of businesses does a company named "McDonald's Interactive" have the ability to just break off from its parent company? None I've ever heard of. If such an entity existed, it would be owned by McDonald's just to prevent this sort of nonsense.
The domain appears to have been registered only two months ago.
The press release has a remarkably childish quality to it. This sort of internal schism would be the wet dream of any Morgan Spurlock humper - it's all just too good to be true. Oh, the executives played a game and it led to the end of the world? They programmed that scenario in, did they?
I call bullshit. I may be wrong on all this, of course, but I'm afraid we may have just been punked.
I did actually see a McDonald's Resturaunt simulator of sorts, a few months ago. And it did go into the supply chain, getting the beef and the potatoes and all that. So it's very possible this is legit.
As well, the speech was given at the SErious Games festival, which is a real event. Is the whole thing fake? Considering that I saw the simulator with my two eyes (but for the life of me I can't Google it), I believe it. I don't expect anybody else to take my word for it, but I believe it.
by Karmakin on 06/05/06 09:12 PM
I'd have to agree with Florian on this one, as the entire thing seems really unlikely. At least, the reason they give seems false: "We ran a simulation and it turns out that McD's is harming the enviornment".
Seems more like some green politics in play here, but I guess we'll know before too much longer. If its true, that'd be impressive.
by Pepboy on 06/05/06 09:17 PM
Karmakin, are you sure you aren't thinking of this game?
http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/advertising/antimcdona...
More evidence: download the PPT. It's amateurish. The slides that match the phots on the site have obviously been cut and paste in as whole (pixellated) images from the phots on the page.
Google searches for Andrew Shimmery-Wolf come up empty.
if this is for real, why can't I find any Google results for any of the key players involved?
LOL... the number of assumptions you have to buy into to believe this story is staggering... McDonalds can bring about the end of the world? And here I was worried about terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons!
by Measure on 06/05/06 10:13 PM
Ha! The domain mcdonaldsinteractive.com corresponds to this:
http://www.mcvideogame.com/index-eng.html
Total anti-McDonald's propoganda.
Punked, Eliza! PUNKED!
That's weird. Somehow my comment (which I thought was the second comment) isn't here.
Anyways, to sum it up, I agreed with Florian on this one. It's gotta be a hoax.
by sigloiv on 06/05/06 10:44 PM
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