343i: Double XP Promotion is HORRIBLE

Games Other Halo
1

Hi, I really hope someone high up at 343i/Microsoft sees this. This is very important to me.
As we all know, there’s a promotion going on concerning Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Halo 4. Buy some Doritos, and/or Mountain Dew, and get DOUBLE XP IN HALO 4 FOR A FEW MATCHES! Wow!
I’m all for this. This king of promotion is cool, EXCEPT…
The choice of food.
The choice (and I know it wasn’t made by 343i) is a horrible one, and there a wide ranging pool of reasons for this. I’ll cover a few, while others are too obvious to be stated. Let’s start with the Doritos.
1. Doritos contain a high amount of calories, and a high amount of fat.
-Calorie intake per day should be controlled if you want to stay healthy
-400 calories for a small snack is unacceptable
-High amounts of fat lead to fat people, especially in the case of gamers, because gamers are some of the least likely people there are to work out.
2. Doritos contain yellow corn.
-If we were living in a time before Genetically Modified Corn took over the yellow corn market, I would have no issue with this. But the fact of the matter is that all yellow corn in the world today is GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) corn, thanks to the “big man”. This is indisputable. There is a vast amount of scientific evidence behind this. I’m not going to provide it, because it’s too easy to find yourself.
-“Okay, so what’s wrong with the corn being modified?” you’re probably asking right about now. There are some surprising and alarming recent studies linking the genetically modified corn that dominates the world today, and the increased rates of cancer that the world is experiencing today. Even though this study hasn’t been taken to the maximum and been 100% proven yet, there IS evidence there, and that’s reason enough (for me at least) to be cautious about what we’re taking in to our bodies.
3. When you buy Doritos, you’re supporting the junk food business that is contributing to the poverty and obesity of many people around the world.
-This shouldn’t be too hard to understand. When you buy a product, a store makes sales. Eventually, the store must buy more of that product from the distributor. That distributor makes money, which then fund the business producing the product. This tells them, “Hey! Your business is working! You’re turning a profit! Keep selling (X PRODUCT) to those suckers!”.
-In the case of most businesses, this isn’t an issue. But it is with the FritoLay company. Why? Because they produce the majority of the junk food that you find in stores all over the North American continent, and possible even further than that.
-Basically: You buy Doritos. Company gets funded. They continue to corrupt impoverished bodies.
-It’s sensible how this contributes to obesity, but how does it contribute to poverty? Here’s how: Making junk food like Doritos is incredibly cheap, and and incredibly efficient use of time. You don’t need fresh food to produce chips. You don’t need healthy food to produce chips. All you need is cheap oil, cheap modified corn, and cheap sugars. This is amazingly simple and cheap when compared to the preparation and distribution of healthy foods like organic, seasonal, and locally grown vegetables. This means that the chips can be sold for an extremely low price, as opposed to a healthy snack, like a couple oranges. This means that impoverished people will, according to their best use of what little money they have, spend money on the cheapest food they can. And what foods are those? Chips, and soda (pop, whatever you want to call it). This is not an assumption, this is a very evident fact in the Americas, and Europe. Therefore, impoverished people are being essentially forced to impoverish their health, because it’s in their best interest from where they are in the world. If cheap food like this were to stop selling, oranges and more expensive, but more healthy snacks would actually become relatively cheaper, and a viable option for impoverished people.

This post is quite long, so I’ll make another, and insert my views on Mountain Dew once it’s ready to be posted.

Some points to clear things up that could be potential flamebait:
-I’m not saying that all GMOs are bad, or that Genetic Modification in general is bad. We don’t have enough evidence to definitively choose a good or bad descriptor for Genetic Modification. The reason we don’t have a wide ranging knowledge of it, like we DO for so many other things, is because Genetic Modification is a very recent development in human history.
-I’m not saying that GMOs account for ALL of the cancer we’re experiencing today. I’m suggesting that it could be contributing to it. There are other things, such as cigarettes and preservatives placed in foods (LIKE DORITOS AND MOUNTAIN DEW!) that have been found to cause cancer, and other horrible health conditions.

2

So, let’s move on to Mountain Dew.
Mountain Dew. When it first came out, people refused to drink it because of it’s color that is, and was reminiscent of radioactivity. Quite a silly reason not to consume something, but maybe they were on to something.

1. Mountain Dew contains INSANE amounts of sugar.
-Sugar. It’s tasty. It’s why we enjoy it in a wide variety of things ranging from candy, to cured meats.
-Sugar isn’t a horrible thing. But in massive amounts, it definitely is.
-On top of that, there are no NATURAL sugars in this drink. Oh, boo hoo, unnatural, go cry about it, right? Wrong. When I say natural, I don’t mean straight from nature. Human interference and ingenuity can be good. But when there are a number of oversights involved in that interference/ingenuity, things can turn sour.
-These oversight have caused a number of issues in our recent history. Things like Agent Orange were used without testing them properly, and thus ruined peoples lives for a scary number of generations. There are many more examples of this, but one is enough.
-In the creation of artificial sugars like glucose-fructose, there were a number of oversights made.
-Here’s a fact about glucose-fructose (an artificial sugar made from… You guessed it… Genetically modified yellow corn!): It’s one of the most unhealthy things a human can obtain and consume today. Glucose-fructose goes by many names, but one of the most common is High-fructose corn syrup. What’s so bad about it? It has been proven to cause type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome, osteoporosis and (there’s that black mass again) cancer. Those are all horrible conditions that are life ruining. These condition are all running rampant throughout the Americas, Europe, and many other locations in the world. Why? Because we’re consuming horrible things like glucose-fructose in the vast majority of our “cheap, affordable” diet.
-Glucose-fructose corn syrup sucks. But guess what. It’s actually only one of multiple artificial sugars included in Mountain Dew (for flavor), all of which have different horrible effects on health.
-Lastly, concerning these artificial sugars, they’ve all been proven to damage metabolisms, and cause fat storage to occur at an increased rate in the human body. One or two Mountain Dews a month isn’t a problem, but when it’s being promoted like this, it becomes a problem. You may not consume it like mad, but I know for a fact that there are a concerning amount of people out there in the world who DO. These people are ignorant to the harmful effects of these cheap foods. I’m trying my best to get this message across to 343i/Microsoft in order to, not stop, but at least slow the rate of consumption of these literally poisonous foods.

2. Why did I put 1. above this? I don’t know. Everything else concerned is said in the Doritos post, and I feel it would be pointless to repeat them for Mountain Dew post. You’re still supporting that exploitative junk food industry when you purchase Mountain Dew.

So, here are my closing remarks.
I’m not telling you to stop buying these foods. I’m not telling Microsoft to stop doing promotions like this. I’m trying to inform you guys. I’m trying to make a suggestion to Microsoft.
Here’s my suggestion for Microsoft/343i:
-Look into healthy, affordable snack foods.
-Think about how your promotion may affect your consumer base
I’m not going to tell you what snack to choose. That’s up to the marketers. But please, for humanity’s sake, try to promote something beneficial to society, as opposed to something detrimental to it.

Go ahead and tell me to have some self control and not touch the Doritos. Tell me “If you don’t like it, don’t buy it,” if you want to. The fact is, I do have self control. I don’t touch these things anymore. But what’s sad is that there are a lot of people out there that don’t have self control, nor the knowledge of the things that we are so privileged to have. Sometimes safeties need to be implemented with the unseen in mind.

Post away, my friends.

3

Here is a hint get the codes from ur dew/chips buds

4

> Here is a hint get the codes from ur dew/chips buds

I hope you’re joking. I don’t expect you to read my post (because it’s so long), but at least have the courtesy to remain silent when you haven’t read the source material.

5

Isn’t the code visible on the bag of Doritos? I could’ve sworn people were just grabbing the codes from the bags, and not even bothering to buy it.

6

These attitudes are getting annoying.

Don’t like something? Don’t buy it!

I don’t understand how this promotion is contributing to the obesity of America.

If you don’t want to get fat, don’t eat Doritos, assuming that Doritos will make you fat. I, personally, will not get fat by eating them, so speak for yourself.

Want the double EXP., but don’t want to get fat? Buy the Doritos, don’t eat them, give them to a friend, or any of the other options available to you.

Just because the Doritos are there, doesn’t mean you have to touch them.

If you had some self-control (and by “you”, I mean anyone who it fat off of Doritos), then maybe this wouldn’t be an issue.

I fail to see how FritoLay is at fault for “corrupting our impoverished bodies” when it’s the people who decide that they want to eat the unhealthy food in the first place.

And no, I didn’t read your article. I didn’t find it necessary, considering it’s 100% your fault if you get fat off of a food product that you know is unhealthy.

7

I missed the part where being force-fed Mountain Dew & Doritos was a requirement when I bought Halo 4

8

> Isn’t the code visible on the bag of Doritos? I could’ve sworn people were just grabbing the codes from the bags, and not even bothering to buy it.

This isn’t the point.
The point is that some of the unhealthiest foods on the market are being used to promote a video game, and the video game is being used to promote that food. This is like using movies and T.V. to market cigarettes to kids, because foods like these are just as potentially harmful.

9

Meh, its always been this way with video games and junk food. I doubt they will do a promotion for halo 4 with hummus and celery hearts.

10

> These attitudes are getting annoying.
>
> Don’t like something? Don’t buy it!
>
> I don’t understand how this promotion is contributing to the obesity of America.
>
> If you don’t want to get fat, don’t eat Doritos, assuming that Doritos will make you fat. I, personally, will not get fat by eating them, so speak for yourself.
>
> Want the double EXP., but don’t want to get fat? Buy the Doritos, don’t eat them, give them to a friend, or any of the other options available to you.
>
> Just because the Doritos are there, doesn’t mean you have to touch them.
>
> If you had some self-control (and by “you”, I mean anyone who it fat off of Doritos), then maybe this wouldn’t be an issue.
>
> I fail to see how FritoLay is at fault for “corrupting our impoverished bodies” when it’s the people who decide that they want to eat the unhealthy food in the first place.
>
> And no, I didn’t read your article. I didn’t find it necessary, considering it’s 100% your fault if you get fat off of a food product that you know is unhealthy.

>Didn’t read my article
>Attack my argument
>Didn’t read my argument
Sickening.

11

> > Isn’t the code visible on the bag of Doritos? I could’ve sworn people were just grabbing the codes from the bags, and not even bothering to buy it.
>
> This isn’t the point.
> The point is that some of the unhealthiest foods on the market are being used to promote a video game, and the video game is being used to promote that food. This is like using movies and T.V. to market cigarettes to kids, because foods like these are just as potentially harmful.

Now you’re just being ridiculous. Mountain Dew & Doritos directly give me cancer?

12

> Meh, its always been this way with video games and junk food. I doubt they will do a promotion for halo 4 with hummus and celery hearts.

Well, all a man can do is try.

13

> > > Isn’t the code visible on the bag of Doritos? I could’ve sworn people were just grabbing the codes from the bags, and not even bothering to buy it.
> >
> > This isn’t the point.
> > The point is that some of the unhealthiest foods on the market are being used to promote a video game, and the video game is being used to promote that food. This is like using movies and T.V. to market cigarettes to kids, because foods like these are just as potentially harmful.
>
> Now you’re just being ridiculous. Mountain Dew & Doritos directly give me cancer?

Potentially, yes. Even if they don’t give you cancer, buying them and eating them in mass amounts, like this promotion is suggesting you (and million of other more gullible customers) to do, WILL cause health problems later in your life.

14

> > Isn’t the code visible on the bag of Doritos? I could’ve sworn people were just grabbing the codes from the bags, and not even bothering to buy it.
>
> This isn’t the point.
> The point is that some of the unhealthiest foods on the market are being used to promote a video game, and the video game is being used to promote that food. This is like using movies and T.V. to market cigarettes to kids, because foods like these are just as potentially harmful.

That’s the marketing buisness for you. You want something to sell, you gotta make it something people love. In this case: Junk Food and Soda. It might be bad, but like I said, that’s marketing.

15

This is an extremely dumb topic… You do not have to eat/drink the products. It’s an offer and there’s no way that you have to take it. Seriously it is a free world, let people chose if they want the offer or not.

16

> > And no, I didn’t read your article. I didn’t find it necessary, considering it’s 100% your fault if you get fat off of a food product that you know is unhealthy.
>
> >Didn’t read my article
> >Attack my argument
> >Didn’t read my argument
> Sickening.

Reread that last part there. You know, the one where I said why I didn’t bother reading the argument.

It’s ridiculous to think that this is a corporation’s fault. If you, or anyone else, gets fat off Doritos, it’s their own dam fault!

Remember that case where the lady sued McDonald’s because she spilled coffee on herself but “didn’t know it would be hot”? That’s what you’re acting like.

I think it’s “sickening” that you would blame a corporation for promoting a video game.

Hell, video games make people fat and lazy, but you’re sitting here on a forum for Halo 4, probably munching on some Doritos right now, eh? Pretty hypocritical if you ask me.

17

I was honestly taking this post seriously, and considering your opinion, until you linked vague “studies” to GM crops giving people cancer, without linking those studies. I have no idea of how reputable the people making those studies are in the scientific community, or if they have any ulterior motive. (Possible “big organic” interests stamping on GM studies? Nah, I like to think I’m not that tin-hatted)

18

So what? It’s called freedom bro. If I want to buy crappy food to get more XP then that should be my choice just like if these companies want to get together and market their products they have every right. I don’t like Dew or Doritos but if they had it on Sprite and Peanut Butter Cups I’d be hitting the XP cap like a -Yoink!-.

Parents need to be responsible for what their kids are doing plain and simple. I’m so tired of the mentality in this country over the last decade. Quit cramming health crap down my throat. I’m fat and I don’t really care.

Sounds like OP needs to go occupy something.

19

Your problems lie not in the promotion, but in the products themselves. You clearly have done more research on the subject than I, as you care more than I do. Ultimately though, it’s a brilliant approach from a marketing standpoint. The target markets of Doritos, Mountain Dew, and Halo are all very similar, and this sort of cross promotion is genius.

I don’t mean to speak in rash generalizations, but I tend to thing gamers are usually educated consumers. I am well aware of the fact that Mountain Dew and Doritos are doing nothing to help me reduce the size of my -Yoink-, but I don’t care. The promotion benefits me in multiple ways. I’ve had a personal tradition of eating Doritos while playing Halo ever since I received and played Halo 2 Christmas Eve 2004. Caffeinated beverages enhance my game performance (through actual effects or placebo) and I prefer to drink them while competing. The double XP is…well…double XP.

My point it, I know it’s crappy for me, and I don’t care. The benefits outweigh the negative.

All that said, your work is appreciated, as any actions to educate should be.

20

This post has been edited by a moderator. Please do not flame or attack other members.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

This is literally the dumbest post I’ve seen yet.