Hamburgers and the Law

McDonald's: The Video Game

The elements of the McDonald's video game are: strategy, planning ahead, and a knowledge of what pleases consumers. You have to make all of the decisions in the game to make the company money, so you must plan ahead and strategize about what kinds of decisions have the desired outcomes. The game appeals to the player because we can all relate, having seen McDonald's chains in our neighborhood.
All of the elements of the game listed above work together when the player plays this video game by pulling them in and keeping them interested and thinking on their toes, which makes the game all the more captivating and compelling to the player.When someone plays the McDonald's video game, they want to keep playing because it is so easy to lose, yet hard to make money, which is one of those little snags in the game-playing world which gamemakers use as a secret weapon to keep players satisfied with the game that they are playing.
The goal in the game is to make as much money as possible for the company and to not go bankrupt, so it isn't one of those games where you can really win or beat it. While working behind the scenes for McDonald's it is the job of the player to make all of the decisions for the company, and you can tell that you made good decisions when they earn you money. To play you have to chose what land to raise cows on, grow the soy they eat, slaughter them, and sell them to the public as hamburgers. You have to choose to corrupt politicians, nutrionlists, health workers, and environmentalists to make sure activists don't rise up and deter future customers from buying the product. The company shareholders will tell you how much money you are making each year, and if the growth is sufficient. Success in the game is measured in dollars, so the more you make the more successful you are. If you lose more than 35,000 dollars, then the company automatically fires you because you made the go bankrupt.
The reason the player wants to keep playing is because the game is so easy to lose. You get totally engrossed in the workings of the company that you start making big choices for the company that you think will help you make money, but they send you spiraling into debt. If you can come up with a solution, you can get the company back on its feet, but in most cases they fire you. So, what do you want to do? You want to start a new round and prove to the McDonald's managers that it was wrong to fire you and you deserve your job back. Or your land becomes polluted and you can't make any more money off of it. What do you do then? You start using some of the land that you have been growing soy on to raise cows for patties because you don't want to run out at the restaurants. So the pieces of land that once produced soy becomes unusable. Then, gradually, you can't use any of your land, so there's no soy and no cows. There is nothing left but to go bankrupt and lose. SO- you want to start again. It is a viscous cycle, you never want to stop playing, even though you know that there is no way to win. It's a fact of life. But at least it's fun while you play it.
MolleIndustria, . "McDonald's video game." McDonald's video game. MolleIndustria, 2008. Web. 16 Apr 2010. <http://mcvideogame.com/game-eng.html>.

Do I Have A Right?
A division of the "Our Courts" games, in "Do I Have a Right?" you play as a lawyer at a law firm, hiring the right lawyers to argue for your clients cases. If you think that the clients have a right to fight for their cases, you match them up with the right lawyers and send them to court. You get points for winning cases and sending away people who did not have a right to fight for their cases.
The elements of Do I Have a Right were: strategy and a knowledge of what was illegal and what wasn't. The game had those elements so it was challenging to pick out the winning cases from the crazy ones that didn't stand a chance. This game appeals to players who like decision-making and strategizing, because that is what is needed to pair the winning lawyers with the right cases.
The elements of the game work together because the two elements are cohesive, and it is easy to bend them to fit the topic of the game, the courts. Another reason that they work together because they make the goal of the game harder and easier to reach at the same time.
The goal of the game is to make it through a week at the law firm, racking up as many points as possible with the cases won AND those sent away to hire new lawyers with the skills that the law firm was lacking in winning the last cases. The more points you have, the more lawyers you can hire, which makes it easier to win. At the end of the game there is a score card for the total amount of cases won, lost, people turned away, and total number of points that the law firm had at the end. The more points and cases won at the end, the better your lawfirm did in the game. Success is measured in points, and there is a limit to the number that you can win, and that is because you can only fo through a set number of cases in each round, winning and losing at different intervals, but you have to spend at one point or another, to buy lawyers to fight the large number of cases flooding the firm, and to post ads in the local paper so clients notice the firm. It is easy to rack up points, but it is also easy to pair the wrong lawyer with the client, therefore losing you the case.
The gamer wants to keep playing because it is easy to win and the scenarios are varied with each round. The clients keep changing, and it is easy to get caught up in the cases while ignoring perspective clients. Like the McDonald's game, the player is engrossed, but this time with the workings of the law firm, not a chain restaurant.The player is interested in a game like Do I Have a Right because: 1. they like to strategize, 2. they like taking a look inside the workings of a law firm, or 3. they like to argue like a lawyer, because that is what the player gets to do.

Our Courts, . "Do I Have a Right." Our Courts: Do I Have a Right. Filament Games, , n.d. Web. 19 Apr 2010. <http://www.ourcourts.org/flashgames/dihar/>.