
The Yes Men seem to have struck again, this time at the International Serious Games Summit in the UK. The PowerPoint presentation was delivered (theoretically) by a crew from McD's "Interactive Division," who described a "serious game" that simulated possibilities for McDonald's in a climate-unstable future.
Sometimes, regional temperatures would swing to extreme hot or cold. More often, global sea-level would start rising uncontrollably over the course of a decade, ruining pasture and cropland, destroying low-lying restaurants and destablizing society so that many other restaurants ended up being looted, or so that no one around could afford hamburgers anymore...
...The concept of Abrupt Social Change, or ASC, is an old and respectable one, a shortcut from rationality to the nerve centers of power that has often accomplished what more systemic approaches cannot. The British Occupation of India, the Vietnam War, even feudalism in Europe were only ended through ASC movements.
Read the whole press release here. via: BoingBoing
The presentation http://www.mcdonaldsinteractive.com/themostseriousgame.ppt is enlightening. And, according to various websites also Molleindustria (http://www.mcvideogame.com/index-eng.html) was involved.
I've read that RTMark was behind it. More here: http://eyeteeth.blogspot.com/2006/06/gaming-mcdonalds-rtmark-abrupt-social.html