How to Master the McDonald's Video Game

Last Updated: October 8, 2020

The McDonald's Video Game is a parody game that lampoons the McDonald's corporation. You'll be making unethical decisions to ensure that you're always making money. The game is tough, but there are a few tricks you can use to guarantee income for as long as you want to play.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Getting Started

1
Pause your game. The first thing you need to do after starting your game is to pause it. You'll quickly go bankrupt if you try to manage the company without the game paused. Keep the game paused while you do everything in this section. You can find the Pause button in the upper-right corner.
- Don't worry if these initial steps make you go negative, you'll quickly make the money back.
- Note: you'll still see animations while the game is paused. When the game is unpaused, the Play button flashes.
2
Build three Soy fields. Click an empty pasture and select the "Soy" option. Build three of these.

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3
Switch all three Soy fields to Genetic Modification. Click a field and then click the DNA symbol. Repeat this for all three farms.
4
Build four cow pastures. Click four empty lots and select cow pastures for each one.
5
Switch to the Feedlot and turn on Hormones. The Feedlot has a picture of a cow on the button. Click the scientific-looking machine at the back of the room and select "Hormones", which has a syringe as an icon. This is all you'll ever need to do in the Feedlot screen to keep making money.
6
Switch to the Restaurant and hire a cashier. Click the burger button to switch to the Restaurant view. Click one of the registers and hire a cashier. You'll only need one as you start the game.
7
Hire a grill worker. Click an assembly line in the back of the restaurant and hire a single worker. You'll only need one for now.
8
Switch to the Corporate view and enable the Corrupted Health Official. Click the McDonald's logo to open the Corporate view. Click the desks in the front and then click the "+" button, which will corrupt a health official. You will be leaving this option enabled for the rest of the game.

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Making Some Money

1
Unpause the game. Once you've completed the above steps, you can unpause the game. Your bank account will likely be fairly negative at this point; don't worry too much about it, as you'll soon be making money hand over fist.
2
Wait for two soy harvests. You'll see tractors harvest the soy every few months. You don't have anything to do until you have made two harvests.
3
Remove Genetic Modification from one Soy field and sell it. After the first two harvests, you'll only need two soy farms for the rest of the game. Select one and remove the Genetic Modification option (this will get you more back when you sell it). Click the Sell button after removing Genetic Modification to sell the single Soy field.
- Pausing the game while making any changes can help keep you from getting overwhelmed.
4
Wait for two cow harvests. Like the Soy fields, your cow pastures are "harvested" every few months by cranes that grab the cows. Wait for two of these harvests to happen before moving on.
5
Fully staff your restaurant. Once you have completed two cow harvests, it's time to stock your restaurant with employees. Add employees to all of your available registers and assembly lines.
6
Enable the Food Pyramid and Third-World Marketing in the Corporate screen. Click the marketing department on the left side of the Corporate screen and enable the Food Pyramid and the Third-World Advertising options. The Third-World Advertising has a handshake as an icon. Only enable these two, and never disable them.

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Maintaining Your Empire

1
Monitor your cow pasture fertility. The above steps are the main things you need to accomplish in order to start raking in cash. From here on out, you'll be maintaining your infrastructure so that you continue to bring in cash every month. One of the most important things to keep an eye on is your cow pasture fertility, as this can negatively impact your meat production (Your soy fields should be fine forever since they are genetically modified). You can see your pasture fertility when you select the pasture.
2
Swap out your pastures when fertility starts to degrade. Once your pastures start losing fertility, you'll want to remove them and build a new set in different squares. This will allow the old land to heal. Wait for a cow harvest, then pause the game. Sell all four of your cow pastures and then build four new ones. You'll have two empty spaces, and you'll need to demolish two squares of rainforest. This will be the only time you need to demolish any rainforest squares, and you should never have to demolish city squares.
- When your fertility degrades on the new squares, you can switch back to the four original squares, and so on.
3
Corrupt a Climatologist when you destroy the two rainforest squares. You'll want to have the Climatologist corrupted to prevent a negative impact on your business when you destroy the rainforests. You don't need to keep the climatologist corrupted forever, and you'll only need to ever destroy two rainforest squares. Use the Detractors information on the Corporate screen to see when you can disable the climatologist.
4
Keep your restaurant crew happy. Whenever you see an unhappy crew member, either give a badge for encouragement, or fire the employee. Avoid the Discipline option, as it is rarely effective.
5
Corrupt a Politician when firing crew members. You can avoid negative backlash from firing employees by corrupting a Politician from the Corporate menu. You'll only need this enabled when you're firing someone. Use the Detractors window in the Corporate screen to see when you can disable your corrupted politician.
6
Continue the cycle of rotating pastures, maintaining crew morale, and corrupting officials. At this point, everything should be fairly self-sufficient. You'll just need to perform the steps in this section whenever necessary to maintain your burger empire. You should see lots of money coming in each month, except the months that you're replacing pastures or corrupting officials.
7
Watch your soy and beef supply. It may take several years, but you may eventually notice a surplus of soy or a shortage of beef. Add a pasture for a while to increase your beef production and get rid of your soy surplus at the same time. You should only need the change for a little bit to fix the imbalance, and then it will be back to business as usual.
8
Ignore your advisers. You can pretty much ignore any complaints or warnings from your advisers and just continue making money without issues.^{[1]
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Community Q&A

Question

I keep seeing grillmen spitting in the burgers before serving them. Should I be worried?

Community Answer

Yes! You should either reward them with a badge (the first button on the left when you click the employee) or fire them. Before firing them, make sure to corrupt a politician, so the workers won't be able to complain as easily.
Question

What should I do when a cow gets sick? Should I kill it?

Community Answer

Yes, because otherwise, later in the game, people will start making complaints about how they’re getting sick because of the cows who were sick spreading their disease.
Question

What is the end year to win the game?

Community Answer

There is no end year to win this game. However, there will be a Game Over screen if you bankrupt the company (you need lots of negative money to go bankrupt).