I love a good ol' physical promotion. Whether it be driving halfway across the city to grab a random Call of Duty cosmetic from a Papa John's pizza (a somewhat rare chain in Glasgow), or considering a daytrip to Manchester to grab a Final Fantasy 14 boba tea (that one died in the concept phase), I love when videogames ask me to do something IRL. Activision Blizzard is, perhaps, the king of real-life promos - it feels like there's at least one CoD X Monster campaign per year, and you're currently able to grab a snazzy bow tie for your World of Warcraft character if you live in the UK. To celebrate Midnight's launch, the MMORPG's developer dropped a brand new, genuinely fun-looking Pringles campaign in Germany, but as with so many things these days, people quickly became the problem.
The core premise of the event was simple: Midnight-themed QR codes popped up on Pringles can-inspired pillars across six different German cities. Scan them, answer a quiz, get the mount: it's not an earth-shattering campaign by any means, but at least it gets people out and about, and potentially socializing.
Things quickly went south, however. Unfortunately, scanning the QR code simply sent players to an open Pringles website, with a small, World of Warcraft-themed quiz being the only barrier to getting the mount. With only 3,000 Thunder-Ridged Elekks available, players simply began to send the website's URL to their friends both inside and outside of Germany, causing the prize pool to dwindle almost immediately (within the hour, according to Wowhead).
The website is now inaccessible in the UK, with Pringles writing that it was "currently struggling with massive hacker attacks," and that the "mount belongs to the community, not any scalpers." The event is set to go back online on Tuesday March 17 at 5am PST / 8am EST / 12pm BST / 1pm CEST, with any new parameters currently unclear.
To add fuel to the fire, scalpers have been quick to start selling the codes online: one Ebay listing for the mount is asking for $250, for example, with Wowhead's imagery showing a range of different prices up to £431. Another on Skycoach, a boosting and gold-sales website, has it listed for $799.99 (I'm not going to link that here, though).
I don't think I really need to explain that scalpers are bad and that this shouldn't be happening; if I do, then I'd urge you to consider your life choices. Blizzard has, however, released a blue post that seems to allude to the promo, confirming that any "limited" promotional mounts will eventually lose their 'limited' status anyway.
"We've recently monitored a situation where a limited promotional mount ended up being much less available than players expected," community manager Randy 'Kaivax' Jordan writes. "However, we have a good plan for future access to the mount. Since the introduction of the Trading Post, we've considered each new promotional mount to be destined to eventually become available to players via the Trading Post. This allows us to first offer a new mount to a specific community, such as a single country, as a promotional item that has limited availability, and then later remove its 'limited' status altogether.
"It is our plan with each new limited promotional mount to bring the mount to all players at a later date in the Trading Post, and if we deviate from that plan, we'll let you know."
It's a decision that's split the playerbase down the middle. "So, what's the point of a limited promotional mount, to just have it faster?," one player asks on the official World of Warcraft forum, while another replies: "Just stop doing limited promotions like this instead then."
I, like everyone else, love the feeling of having a unique mount that I worked for, but also hate accidentally missing out on something. Generally, however, I'd argue that limited-time cosmetics should remain limited - I'm still vaguely butthurt over Tyrael's Charger. I'd hope that Blizzard walks away from this with a few lessons learned: be sure to region-lock your website (although, VPNs exist) and have a bigger giveaway pool. If you missed out, though, you'll still be able to get the Thunder-Ridged Elekk if you want it further down the line: better start saving up your Tender.