'Red Bull' Promotion - People Learned How To Cheat Destiny
The community was irritated/amused at first, but then quickly went about the business of buying Red Bull and disseminating Red Bull codes on the internet in about the fashion that you might expect. My first thought was that these would be pretty easy to cheat: you’d just need to go to a store, copy the codes off some cans and be on your merry way. As it turns out, it’s even easier than that.
As reported by Kotaku, people have figured out the algorithm that makes these codes work and are now self-generating Red Bull codes without the need to trek over to a 7-Eleven. AT first glance, this seems harmless: a few less cans of Red Bull sold.
But the real problem is that these codes represent real cans, sitting somewhere out there in a 7-Eleven refrigerator. So people could be out there buying cans and inputting codes that a scammer has already redeemed. NeoGaf is already getting reports from people now saddled with a can of Red Bull but no Destiny codes. Anyone that has drank any amount of Red Bull knows what a problem this can be.
I’ve contacted Bungie, and will update with any information, but they’re going to need to do something to address the situation: I can’t imagine either Red Bull or 7-Eleven are all that happy about it either. It effectively neutralizes the effect of the promotion months before the codes actually activate the quest. The likely fix would be to start using a longer alphanumeric code for the cans, but there’s no telling how difficult that would be.
I have no problem with this promotion in concept: it’s a little silly, but that’s a minor sin, at the end of the day. Aside from the scamming potential, however, the biggest problem is the exclusivity deal with 7-Eleven. A lot of people don’t live near a 7-Eleven, and Bungie is going to have to make that quest available through other means to avoid making a whole lot of people very angry.