In 1955, that is around 52 years back, Ray Croc opened the first ever McDonald's. Since then it has become the world's largest food service system with over 30,000 restaurants in 100 countries.

Given a chance, who wouldn't like to run this huge empire, which is the reason for its huge popularity and addictive nature?

This is the concept used in this free online game called Can You Run McDonald's? Making money in a big corporation is not simple at all. Behind every sandwich there is a complex process we must learn to manage. We are given complete possession of the McDonald's empire. Right from grass root level of growing fodder and rearing cows, to the finer details of management! The procedure goes like, plant crops like soy and wheat. Grow pastures. Rear cows. Generate meat. Turn it into hamburgers and sandwiches. Sell them. Earn cash! Well it's not as easy as it sounds though! The most interesting aspect of the game is that it is not left to just make and sell hamburgers. All the finer details of running a successful empire have also been included. Running a business is no joke. You have to take care of everything, right from environmentalist, labor unions, to politicians.

By hook or by crook you have to get things done to get your profit. This common practice happening around us has also been included in this game. As they say, money makes the mare g! So you have to bribe certain elements which are detrimental to your progress and keep moving on!

The game is divided into 4 sections: agriculture, feedlot, fast-food (sales counter) and the head-quarters. As do all modern corporations, McDonald's manages production in different parts of the world. Our job is to supervise all these four sectors. In this free online game we have to switch between the sectors, and balance and manage them all. We begin from the agriculture section and plant fields of wheat and soy. Pastures and soy cultures need huge land and which better place than South America for this! We have to acquire land as our forefathers did. As the old saying goes, "Under every forest there is a lawn!" Land can be bought to either create pastures or soy fields. The interesting feature of this free online game is the minute details. After buying land, we can make it more productive by increasing fertility. Thus the basics of cows and fodder are taken care of.

This brings us to the feedlot. Every American dreams of a fat and greasy burger! Sadly so, the cows coming from the pastures are slim and hence don't yield fat meat. So they are bread here for some months and overindulged with high quality soy-based fodder. Again we have to make sure there is sufficient fodder for all the cows and avoid the epidemics and deaths due to hunger. The cattleman is the supervisor in charge and warns of any diseased or mad cows or insufficient fodder. The healthy cows are then butchered for meat. This brings us to the fast food selling section. People live fast and want food on the go. Fast food restaurants are actually the cathedrals of our age and hence require everything to be efficient and optimized. Customers are our gods so we have to avoid queues by supplying hamburger for the kitchen and making human resources prompt and motivated.

Another important aspect of the game is managing the crew. It is an art. To keep our employees motivated we can reward them with an "employee of the week" badge or reproach them. Or maybe even fire them! The restaurant manager alerts us when something is amiss. And finally the headquarters of our mega chain of restaurants. This is the final sector of this free online game. McDonald's is not just a fast food chain It is more of a brand. It has become a lifestyle and a symbol a symbol of western culture's superiority. Here we can make strategic decisions about the corporate image. This includes marketing, PR and the works. Finally we have to please the board of directors.

Such fine aspects and complete control of this huge empire, makes this free online game highly addictive! After all who wouldn't like to run McDonald's?!

Siddharth Mehendale is a free online games review writer. McDonalds Game mentioned above can be found in the miscellaneous game category.

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