In this game, you own and operate McDonald's. You have the choice to try to operate ethically or make decisions like using genetically modified soy or administering bovine growth hormone. If you go the ethical route, you bankrupt the company and lose.
The game then forces players to become "the bad guy" gleefully firing workers, plowing over rainforests, and bribing nutritionists in order to stay profitable.
This is continued exploration of some work I recently had published for a culture jam project in response to the documentary "The Corporation". There are a lot of layers working here. There are thoughts about food deserts, how multinational corporations prey upon them, and finally how particular images regarding development are used to sell the idea of what hunger should look like.
In the 20th century India's Mahatma Gandhi famously used the hunger strike as political protest. In America today we demonstrate by eating fast food.
Call it an “eat-in,” call it a “buycott”: By whatever name, it’s a tactic that’s growing in popularity. As Wednesday's Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day indicates, it’s a form of protest Americans find increasingly easy to swallow.