The Great Pizza Wars
Behold: a tubby nine-year-old boy obsessed with computer games and cheese pizza; absentminded, shy, and prone to angry outbursts; selfish, hyperactive, and if he didn’t find immediate joy in a task – he didn’t do that task. He would skip homework because “my dog ate it!” and couldn’t be bothered to come up with a more original excuse because The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Transformers cartoons lived eternal in his mind. These antisocial proclivities landed The Boy in “special education” classes, but the more The Boy was treated as “special,” the worse his behavior became, and he retreated ever deeper into computer games.
The Boy’s Mom didn’t know what to do with him. She noticed The Boy’s digital obsessions and that they were violent; after all, Zelda featured a young boy that slayed monsters with swords. The Mom thought that if she replaced the violence with educational games that this would not only improve The Boy’s behavior – turning him boastworthy for soccer-mom-watercooler-confab – but also show that she cared about his interests, because above all else: she truly loved her son.
The Mom took The Boy to the local electronics store and told him to pick two computer games from the educational section. It was the year 2000 and stores were packed with computer games containing the prefix “Sim’” and the suffix “Tycoon”; these morphemical games were baby’s-first-capitalism; business simulators wrapped in graphical-interfaces targeted toward children. The Boy immediately gravitated to the vibrant theme park packaging of RollerCoaster Tycoon. He quickly dismissed the dated graphics of DinoPark Tycoon. SimCity 3000 was also considered but it intimidated The Boy with its technicalities. And just when The Boy was about to call-it-quits, he noticed a glimmering jewel calling out to him from the discount pile. The jewel was an Italian caricature sporting a floppy chef’s hat and a white apron stained with what was hopefully pizza sauce; he sported a mustache even more extravagant than Freddie Mercury’s during the recording of Queen’s 1980 album “The Game” and was grinning into the camera while holding a pizza-with-the-works as if breaking the fourth wall to summon The Boy into a universe of freshly cooked pizza pies forever. Not only was pizza The Boy’s favorite food, but Queen was also his favorite band – and by this logic: Fast Food Tycoon was bound to be his favorite game.
After The Boy came home and ate a few slices of pizza for dinner, he slid the pizza-shaped disc into the tray of the Windows 98 computer in Dad’s office and clicked through the many prompts of the installer. Upon boot, the words “Fast Food Tycoon, Eat Here” flashed in cold cathode above a seedy street corner that was positioned between a club and a pizza joint; the club was red carpet, and the pizza joint was a money-laundering scheme; both owned by the same organization. The Boy was about to learn many important life lessons.
Fast Food Tycoon – or Pizza Syndicate, as it’s known in Europe – is a business simulator centered around managing your own pizza franchise, created by the German developer Software 2000 and published by Activision in North America in November 2000. When the game starts, you are given the option to make your own pizza person, choosing their picture from a premade selection of Italian caricatures, selecting their name, and adjusting their starting stats from a long list that rivals the most complicated of role-playing computer games. Once your character is created, you are thrown into the sleazy world of pizza and quickly realize that you are smack-dab in the middle of an all-out pizza war between ancient crime families. And there’s no hope of survival unless you sell your soul to the mafia for better ingredients, better pizza, and guaranteed protection from getting whacked by Papa John. Once you become a made man in the dark underworld of pizza, you crawl your way up the pizza chain from Chuck E. Cheese Capo to Don of Domino’s and, if you’re lucky, to The Godfather of Pizza.
*The Boss evaluates your Pizza Performance; he is not impressed.
Fast Food Tycoon is as much about making the tastiest pizza as it is about sending armed goombahs to rival pizza joints; bursting with such depth as “goths like meat on their pizza” to “should I poison the food at Mario’s Pizza Palace or should I just plant a bomb instead?” to “which style of music should I play to attract the correct demographic?” to “should I bribe the mayor or just save the money for more machine guns?” All the while fudging numbers and trying to make the perfect pizza pies only to perpetuate The Great Pizza Wars – an endless cycle of pizza-funded violence.
Fast Food Tycoon teaches children many valuable lessons about the stygian horrors of not only pizza but also business and humanity as a whole. It teaches children that bribing the mayor has massive perks in the form of blind-eyes and tax-exemptions. It teaches that if you plant rats in a restaurant, the Department of Public Health will shut down that restaurant. It teaches that pizza joints are a surprisingly efficient way to launder stolen bank money. It teaches that fear is one of our most powerful motivators. And above all else, it teaches that pizza is very serious business.
Of course, The Mom had no clue that Fast Food Tycoon bestowed these valuable life lessons upon The Boy. To her, Fast Food Tycoon was just another educational business game for her son to level up his business acumen and help on his path to becoming a fitter, happier, and more productive human being. When she watched The Boy play, he was simply managing ledgers and decorating restaurants and there was nothing to be concerned about. The Mom was so impressed by Fast Food Tycoon’s ability to engage The Boy that she recommended her neighbors buy the game for their children, and thus, the ancient cycle of pizza violence continues to this day – The Great Pizza Wars rage on.
When The Boy looked back, he realized that Fast Food Tycoon was not prescriptive; instead, it was a warning – a commentary on the dangers of unregulated capitalism, the prominence of quid pro quo in the private and public sectors, and that, while fear and violence may rule humanity, the golden rule always kicks in and you will eventually reap what you sow; be that in the form of delicious pizza pies or a bag over your head in Papa John’s basement.
(Originally published on 4/8/2024)