Like other huge consumer brands, McDonald's has never ignored the value of great video game tie-ins.
MC Kids on the NES in 1992 started this trend, followed by Global Gladiators on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. The company has made themed video games with Treasure in the past, most recently working with Krool Toys to develop Grimace's Birthday for the Game Boy Color.
However, the process of partnering with a company like McDonald's is not an easy one, as Treasure discovered when it partnered with the fast food giant on the aforementioned McDonald's Treasure Land Adventure in 1993. Initially, it was stipulated that Ronald would not be allowed to defeat enemies and would remove the lava present in the game. McDonald's even banned Treasure from displaying its burgers on the ground, and almost all references to the company's flagship food product were removed from the final retail release.
With this in mind, it's easy to understand why industry veteran Peter Molyneux turned down the prospect of working with McDoland in the early '90s.
In a 1994 interview with EDGE magazine, Molyneux (still at Bullfrog (a company he co-founded with Les Edgar in 1987)) said that the studio had been approached by McDonald's for a tie-up game. It revealed that.
McDonald's approached us about collaborating on a game and specified that there should never be a shared edge in the game. Because kids can imagine Ronald skewering or something. And we need to use these characters like this and paint them with this color. .. Basically, they say, “Play this game this way, don't do it any other way.”
It would be interesting to think what McDonald's game would have been like with Molyneux's input, but unfortunately we'll never know now.
