McDonald's in serious games hoax
Grave words indeed, delivered at the International Serious Games Event on Monday. However, as Water Cooler Games explores, the delightful speech about games causing environmental change was, in fact, a set-up.
Related to the anti-McDonald's game we reported on back in February, the hoax presentation is a subtle and brave attempt at needling a large corporation, although others at the Serious Games Event may disagree with the choice of platform. Regardless of its (lack of) authenticity, the closing remark from the speech is a noble sentiment: serious software can change the world.
[Via Wonderland]
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Reader Comments
(Page 1)2.
Exactly #1. Theyll make games and sensational remarks like this til the
cows come home, but never once directly touch on the problem with
religious missions, corporate fraud or genocide.
but lets mkae a thousand more games about destroying communism. right.
Posted at 10:48AM on Jun 7th 2006 by Cullen -1 stars
3.
While these are valiant aims and goals to be sure, these sorts of
tactics leave a bad taste in my mouth. When I finished reading the
piece I wasn't even sure of what was going on, it seemed pretty fishy,
but I'd be worried that my ass would sued into oblivion for portraying
a major corporation like that.
I advocate social
responsibility from both corporations and citizens as well, but this
smacks of red paint on fur and Greenpeace boats causing accidents at
sea. In some cases civil disobedience are necessary to deal with a
truely unjust system or law. It should not, however, be applied top
every problem that someone has with any corporation. It should be
reserved as a tactic for dealing with truely severe issues (ie. Vietnam
or an end to Racism). By applying these sorts of tactics to every
little problem you devalue the truely important issues that can be
resolved no other way. I'm sure right now there are a lot of people
that hear about this and think..."Wow, what a great tactic...." The
question is that next time we want to abolish something on the level of
slavery and people look the other way because it's just another
protest/march/ad campaign because we've overrused the impact of civil
disobedience they won't even make the connection.
4. Can we get a game where we maybe slap some sense into the fat fucks who eat this shit anyway? :)
Although,
if the presentation was a hoax, those in charge did a damn good job of
getting past security, and fooling the entire audience. Cudos to them.
~HotShotX
Posted at 10:56AM on Jun 7th 2006 by HotShotX 2 stars
5. I can think of a good serious game that might be interesting, though it wouldn't go far enough for these folks.
Imagine
a sim where you're trying to build your own fast-food franchise. You
get to set up the menu items, creating them yourself based on a wide
array of choices within the game. And there are consequences to each
choice - maybe you get more customers by putting in fatty foods, but
you have to deal with more protestors/random property damage and
regular lawsuits from idiots who ate too much. You could create an
entirely healthy eating establishment, but you have to really struggle
to get it widely established. And that's not even getting into options
for advertisement, specialty foods (ciabatta bread!), placement, and so
on.
Get a developer on the phone, because I'm about five in-game options from creating Fast Food Tycoon.
Posted at 11:30AM on Jun 7th 2006 by 32_Footsteps 12 stars
6. RT Mark is behind this. Email them and get a reply. You'll see in the header info that their mail traffic is coming from rtmark.com.
Posted at 1:09PM on Jun 7th 2006 by bandersnatch 0 stars
7. Yeah Greg2k, because McDonalds' only fault has been that they make a lot of money.
Posted at 2:04PM on Jun 7th 2006 by Pickypants 1 star
8. "Yeah Greg2k, because McDonalds' only fault has been that they make a lot of money."
can you name another? yeah.. i didn't think so.
*waiting for people to begin makiing shit up about McDonald's to justify their dislike of the restaurant*
Posted at 3:11PM on Jun 7th 2006 by Rare Hare 1 star
9. well, they lied about the amount of transfat in their foods and they lied about their being beef in their french fries. the latter may not seem like such a big deal to some, but ask a follower of the hindu faith...
Posted at 3:40PM on Jun 7th 2006 by mr 0 stars
10.
"Although, if the presentation was a hoax, those in charge did a damn
good job of getting past security, and fooling the entire audience.
Cudos to them."
Actually, it doesn't sound that hard. Imagine
your the host of a small games conference and a company like McDonalds
says they want to send a speaker. You aren't likely to decline.
And
not to mention, from reports of people in the know this was probably
the Yes Men. They're the group that convinced several business
confereneces they belonged to the WTO and made presentations
representing them. You should check out the documentary (The Yes Men),
it's pretty funny what they got away with.
http://www.theyesmen.org/movie/
They call it Identity Correction: "Honest people impersonate big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them."
http://www.theyesmen.org/
Fun stuff. I took a class taught by one of the group.
Posted at 4:04PM on Jun 7th 2006 by Probot 6 stars
11.
"well, they lied about the amount of transfat in their foods and they
lied about their being beef in their french fries. the latter may not
seem like such a big deal to some, but ask a follower of the hindu
faith..."
sources? yeah..
i have no idea about the
transfat issue but i imagine it's as big of a lie as the one about the
fries. not only is there NOT BEEF IN MCDONALD'S FRENCH FRIES.. THIS A
HOAX, PEOPLE.. but they actually produce burgers made of goat meat for
countries such as india, where the dominate religion is against eating
beef.
don't believe me? look it up. instead of a big mac, india has the "Maharaja Mac", made with goat meat.
to
my knowledge, McDonald's has always been incredibly truthful about the
fat content in their food. they just don't advertise it on the wrapper
like Subway does..
Posted at 6:37PM on Jun 7th 2006 by Rare Hare 1 star
12. #11,
No
hoax, they fried their fries in beef fat. Lawuit happened in 2001.
Settled out of court for $10 million. (Note: They probably would have
won, but didn't need the bad publicity.)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/05/national/main511109.shtml
#3
"While
these are valiant aims and goals to be sure, these sorts of tactics
leave a bad taste in my mouth. When I finished reading the piece I
wasn't even sure of what was going on, it seemed pretty fishy, but I'd
be worried that my ass would sued into oblivion for portraying a major
corporation like that."
According to the Yes Men, no lawyer has
been able to point to any law they're breaking. Corporations have no
more power than any one else; they just have a lot of money. And McD
knows lawsuits, even when they win, aren't their friend. (See: McLibel
case). Plus, the guys behind this have RT Mark as their own corporate
sheild, so that helps.
As for what actually happened, I can only
guess. But usually, the Yes Men set up a fake website, then get invites
to events. They speak and cause a sensation, getting headlines about
topics no one would have mentioned otherwise, and then fade away.
Despite what the post says, I doubt this is related to any actual game.
"I
advocate social responsibility from both corporations and citizens as
well, but this smacks of red paint on fur and Greenpeace boats causing
accidents at sea."
Who exactly was hurt by this? McD got some
bad press, but that was the point. The goal was to bring attention
issues about how McD is affecting the world.
"In some cases
civil disobedience are necessary to deal with a truely unjust system or
law. It should not, however, be applied top every problem that someone
has with any corporation. It should be reserved as a tactic for dealing
with truely severe issues (ie. Vietnam or an end to Racism)."
You
shouldn't ever be reserved about something you feel strongly about. You
have every right to get mad at any little thing that bothers you.
Limiting your passion to "truely severe issues" is like only voting in
Presidential elections. You forget how much the little things add.
"The
question is that next time we want to abolish something on the level of
slavery and people look the other way because it's just another
protest/march/ad campaign because we've overrused the impact of civil
disobedience they won't even make the connection."
That's the
great thing about this. It isn't just another protest/march/ad
campaign. This is a new creative outlet for voicing dissension to major
corportion's apathy. It's cool if you don't agree. (I actually don't in
this case.) But there's no reason to stop people from voicing their
opinions in creative ways. Despite how unimportant this issue is to
you, there are people that care about it.
On top of all that,
this would have been a really good oppurtunity to bring up the Serious
Games Event and discuss some of those issues, but sadly, Joystiq
dropped the ball on that.
Posted at 9:53PM on Jun 7th 2006 by Probot 6 stars
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1. You can't change the direction of any company solely with games, movies, or shocking news reports. The company will only change direction if it notices a drop in profits or problems in some particular department.
And how about a game that tackles killing truely evil people/organisations, instead of a perfectly legitimate company which killed nobody but just happens to make a shitload of money?
Posted at 10:36AM on Jun 7th 2006 by Greg2k 0 stars