KFC's bizarre VR training game locks you in a room until you learn to cook chicken the...

Cal Jeffrey

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Kentucky Fried Chicken, or KFC as it is now branded, has never been a company afraid of doing strange things to get noticed. It has released songs, comic books, and gadgets like photo printers, USB chargers, and Bluetooth game controllers attached to its take-out packaging. It even recently partnered with Huawei to create a limited edition Enjoy 7 Plus smartphone.

However, none of its previous publicity campaigns hold a fried-chicken-scented candle to its most recent entry into the bizarre. Eater reports that the fast food chain has started employing virtual reality to train new employees. On the surface, this might not seem so strange. After all, Walmart announced a couple of months ago that it would be using VR to train its employees by the end of the year.

It's the way that it is presented that makes KFC’s VR training so weird. Instead of being like a realistic chicken-cooking simulation, the company has made it into a strange and somewhat creepy room-escape game. It even has an evil-sounding Colonel Sanders voice coaxing you through the program the entire time.

"This game will teach you how to make my Original Recipe chicken … the hard way," the demonic Colonel exclaims between fits of coughing. "Until you learn how to make my chicken right, you will not be allowed to leave!"

The game then has you running through the five steps of cooking KFC chicken – inspecting, rinsing, breading, racking, and frying. The whole in-game process only takes about five minutes to finish, and expediency is apparently the reason the chicken franchise is moving to the VR training method. According to a KFC press release, the simulation does in 10 minutes what hands-on training needs 25 minutes to complete.

The training game was developed using the Oculus Rift and as you would expect, is not publicly available. The video walkthrough above, which was clearly performed by an A+ chicken cooking expert, is probably your only chance to see the trainer in action. Well, unless you are looking for a job frying chicken.

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And you think that's fun, try actually LEARNING the KFC way or at least what it used to be .... talk about challenging!
I guess that's why they call it "the hard way." Watch complaints in quality go up after they implement this. lol
 
I guess that's why they call it "the hard way." Watch complaints in quality go up after they implement this. lol

Actually, since PEPSCO acquired KFC, it has been more heavily franchised and in doing so, "quality" is left to the local operator with very little investigation or correction by the parent company. For this reason you will find (as in my little community) two of the KFC's run to excellent standards and the third absolutely abysmal. In the days when Harlan Sanders owned and operated the chain, he would make regular visits to his concessionaire's and if they were below his standard he would give them a severe warning. If it was the same upon his return, he would pull their franchise rights. A real task master ..... as every restaurant chain should be!
 
Actually, since PEPSCO acquired KFC, it has been more heavily franchised and in doing so, "quality" is left to the local operator with very little investigation or correction by the parent company. For this reason you will find (as in my little community) two of the KFC's run to excellent standards and the third absolutely abysmal. In the days when Harlan Sanders owned and operated the chain, he would make regular visits to his concessionaire's and if they were below his standard he would give them a severe warning. If it was the same upon his return, he would pull their franchise rights. A real task master ..... as every restaurant chain should be!
Yeah that is the way it always is when a corporation takes over. I worked for a pizza restaurant chain in the Pacific Northwest that had about 27 stores. The owner, Abby Broughton got up in age and sold out to a conglomerate from southern California. Everything went down hill from there. They threw Abby's rule book in the trash and changed almost every aspect of the business. Quality went way down and so did profits. They cut costs everywhere including taking away employee bonuses all to end up making about the same margins Abby was making. It's still around but several stores have closed. We'll eat there When we travel to Oregon, but the pizza is still not as good as it was back in the day.
 
The Curse of Frankenchicken

"GENETICALLY MANIPULATED ORGANISMS"
In spite of the fact that one of its two main allegations is so effortlessly disproven, the "mutant chicken" rumor as exemplified in the viral email below continues to enjoy a phenomenal circulation (see link below for to look at a six-legged variant):

Subject: Boycott KFC
Dec. 27, 1999
KFC has been a part of our American traditions for many years. Many people, day in and day out, eat at KFC religiously. Do they really know what they are eating?

During a recent study of KFC done at the University of New Hampshire, they found some very upsetting facts. First of all, has anybody noticed that just recently the company has changed their name? Kentucky Fried Chicken has become KFC. Does anybody know why? We thought the real reason was because of the "FRIED" food issue. It's not. The reason why they call it KFC is because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens. They actually use genetically manipulated organisms.

These so called "chickens" are kept alive by tubes inserted into their bodies to pump blood and nutrients throughout their structure. They have no beaks, no feathers, and no feet. Their bone structure is dramatically shrunk to get more meat out of them. This is great for KFC because they do not have to pay so much for their production costs. There is no more plucking of the feathers or the removal of the beaks and feet.

The government has told them to change all of their menus so they do not say chicken anywhere. If you look closely you will notice this. Listen to their commercials, I guarantee you will not see or hear the word chicken. I find this matter to be very disturbing. I hope people will start to realize this and let other people know.

Please forward this message to as many people as you can. Together we make KFC start using real chicken again.

http://www.takepart.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/spider-chicken.jpg
 
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