Shade reached critical levels in the video gaming community on Wednesday, when the official Dying Light Twitter account posted an image lampooning recent promotional materials for Destiny: The Taken King.
In response to Bungie’s controversial decision to limit one quest in The Taken King to gamers who purchase specially-marked Red Bull energy drinks, the new Dying Light Twitter campaign has fans posting pictures of themselves drinking water in order to receive codes for in-game weapon dockets. As of this writing, there are more than 700 #DrinkRightDyingLight posts on Twitter, and the original tweet has been retweeted more than 3,000 times.
Destiny fans have known about the connection between Red Bull and The Taken King for nearly a month. In early June, a leaked photo of Red Bull cases marked with The Taken King copy surfaced, generating rumors that that expansion was, in fact, the promised fall 2015 release, codenamed Comet. These rumors were confirmed at Sony’s E3 2015 press conference. After learning that purchases of the energy drink would be the only way to access one of the expansion’s quests, fans’ opinons on the partnership turned decidedly southward.
We’re jumping on the latest trend in game marketing! #DrinkRightDyingLight > #DrinkForDLC pic.twitter.com/DQHr6MRFwi
— Dying Light (@DyingLightGame) June 24, 2015
More than simply skewering a poorly-received marketing decision, the above tweet from Dying Light lampoons everything about the Destiny blunder. Rather than asking fans to purchase expensive, sugary drinks from 7-11, the #DrinkRightDyingLight campaign rewards them for embracing a healthy – and virtually free – habit: drinking more water. It’s a promotion that anyone, even Destiny diehards, can get behind.
