Halo 4 Promotion Rewards Unhealthy Gaming Habits

[Aaron Sylvester]

At first I was like:

6 hours a day for 3 weeks playing the SAME game? You outta your mind!?

...Then I remembered when WoW was brand new and I'd lost my job a while earlier...
1½ months of nothing but eating, sleeping and gaming.

This behaviour is in no way good for you so shouldn't be rewarded, but I don't think it's "balk at" material.

Except that Halo isn't anywhere near as vast and varied as WoW, being a first person shooter.
I would get bored out of my wits after just the first ~6 hours or so, there is only so much stimulus the human brain can accept before you become completely numb to the experience and would rather eat rusty nails than play another minute : /

 

[Zyst]

I don't see the problem with this, I think people are going to do it regardless of whether there's a reward or not and you do NOT have to get this.

Stop being pissed off at nothing, if a grown ass adult (And yes this is an M game so I don't care about anything else) falls into malnutrition because of all the doritos and mountain dew they are drinking while playing Halo let them handle it, they aren't kids anymore and no one is forcing anyone.

 

[MindFragged]

The game is rated M. The target audience is responsible adults that are capable of monitoring their own health. Does anything more need to be said?

Well, there are people out there who DO spend too much time playing games. What they're doing might be stupid in a broad sense, but exploiting them for the purpose of promotion is rather poor show ('exploiting' is a strong word, but come on, the rewards are paltry).

Also, just to be clear, I don't expect any horror stories coming out of this about, say, someone having seizures after a 70-hour marathon. I also know that, regardless of the competition, there will people who play far more than is required to scoop the MS points. I just think that playing one game six hours a day for a month is not to be encouraged or cynically used in a marketing ploy.

 

[MorganL4]

Okay, so 800 MS points: $9.99

National Minimum Wage: $7.25

You can go do a job for minimum wage and in 2 hours earn enough money to buy more than the 600 MS points they are offering for 140 hours of play.

I'm sorry but this is no incentive.

use the 138 spare hours for something productive... Like spending time with spouse/partner or kids or friends or sleeping. ( maybe a bit actually playing Halo 4)

but PLEASE! NO ONE ACTUALLY DO THIS FOR THE POINTS!!!

 

[lancar]

At first I was like:

6 hours a day for 3 weeks playing the SAME game? You outta your mind!?

...Then I remembered when WoW was brand new and I'd lost my job a while earlier...
1½ months of nothing but eating, sleeping and gaming.

This behaviour is in no way good for you so shouldn't be rewarded, but I don't think it's "balk at" material.

Except that Halo isn't anywhere near as vast and varied as WoW, being a first person shooter.
I would get bored out of my wits after just the first ~6 hours or so, there is only so much stimulus the human brain can accept before you become completely numb to the experience and would rather eat rusty nails than play another minute : /

Very good point.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

they are giving us 22 days to rack up 35 hours?

it's nice of them to assume we have lives...

Let's see recently broke up, got 2 weeks paid leave from work due to injury, and bills are paid up to Dec. Only 16 hours left till I tap out.

 

[Legion]

The game is rated M. The target audience is responsible adults that are capable of monitoring their own health. Does anything more need to be said?

It shouldn't, but apparently it does. Of course it's much easier to blame the company for promoting this kind of thing than admitting that anybody who is doing so is completely and utterly responsible for their own behaviour.

 

[mjcabooseblu]

So they're "rewarding" gamers with $7 for what boils down to 160 hours of work? You know, you could likely go begging for an hour or two and would make more money, not to say that that is below the $7.25 per hour minimum wage limit. So people can play for 160 hours or work one for the same result... hmm

I'm hoping someone dies from this and Microsoft get fucking sued again and have to pay millions, like that radio station that held a "water drinking competition" to win a Wii a while ago and had to pay $16.5 Million: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/jury-rules-radio-station-jennifer-strange-water-drinking/story?id=8970712

The husband of a California woman who died after participating in a radio station's water drinking contest said he hopes a jury's $16.5 million compensation award following a wrongful death lawsuit will send a message to other corporations dealing with the public.

"It was a preventable thing," Billy Strange told "Good Morning America" today of his wife's 2007 death from water toxicity. The radio station, he said, "had the information months in advance that this could cause harm."

After two weeks of deliberations, jurors last week found Entercom Sacramento LLC, a subsidiary of Philadelphia-based Entercom Communications Corp., liable for the actions of its employees at Sacramento radio station KDND-FM, the Associated Press reported.

Jennifer Strange, a 28-year-old mother of three, was among 18 people who entered the "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" competition. They tried to drink as much water as they could without urinating in a bid to win a Nintendo Wii gaming console.

The game is rated M. The target audience is responsible adults that are capable of monitoring their own health. Does anything more need to be said?

-snip-

The game is rated M. The kids aren't the target demographic, they're a periphery demographic. They have no business playing the game in the first place.

And why do you hope Microsoft gets sued? If anyone dies from this, it's going to either be some dumb teen that thinks he can take it, in which case the game is rated M, or some crazy fucker that was already crazy before their misguided promotional whatever. Methinks they wouldn't be losing this particular case.

 

[Sonicron]

Wow. Just... wow. If you're really prepared to go for it, consider this:
600 MS Points have a value of less than ?10. Now put that value against 140 hours of gaming, i.e. doing absolutely nothing productive, and weep at the utter insignificance and worthlessness you yourself ascribe to your own life.
I love gaming as much as anyone here, and taking a break or two from work to enjoy yourself is good and healthy. But considering how much money you could make even on minimum wage, or even just how many fulfilling and productive unpaid things you could do in a timespan of 140 hours - wasting them all on less than ?10 should make you cry uncontrollably. Seriously.

 

[barbzilla]

How much actual money does 600 points equal?

For me, as a Microsoft-blessed sales rep? Two bucks and about five minutes of my workday to tell Microsoft how awesome I think Kinect is, or whatever they want me to pitch. (My "expert" discount makes the 1400 point xbox cards the EXACT SAME PRICE as the 2800 point ones. It's hilarious. And I don't even own one of their consoles!)

For regular schmucks? Nine bucks, plus tax.

What center do you work at? I worked at the Alpine center for quite a while, and there were no major discounts (other than my free 360s with kinect).

OT: I think this will end up flooding the game with idle people. People will load the game and clear an area just to turn their controller upside down with the stick moving to the left. Same thing people did with other games that reward you just for pure time spent in game (fable 2-3 I'm looking at you).

 

[Mamzelle_Kat]

While the promotion itself doesn't really surprise or shock me, what actually does is how cheap the reward seems to be.

I mean, 600 points is practically nothing. I'm not into the Halo games, but even if I were, I would not bother with that promotion since it doesn't seem worthwhile.

 

[ViciousTide]

600 MS points is roughly $7 cash.

140 hours for $7 cash?

Yeah, either consumers are idiots and fall for this, or they become investors and spend their time making real money.

 

[ViciousTide]

Oh this will be a fun month in halo 4, the other team quites except the idler spinning in circles for the 15 min countdown in BTB, wasting everyone else's time and angering them to the point of not playing also.

Cascading effect.

 

[cerebus23]

the prize sucks enuf said, the time to get it done in and the amount of time? please any gamer given 3 weeks can hit that, granted for a single game and especially for an fps, that is a bit much.

show a gamer an mmo game and they probably have that amount of time put in in a week. heck show me a mass effect game and for at lest 22 to 28 hours i am not doing much of anything as soon as i can get into the game. and i sure will have 30 some hours put in in 3 days for that series without fail.

7 dollars to do it? meh some gamers will get it just gaming however in the time given. they probably have 0 interest in the contest itself but in a few weeks to get that enough people will power game the game to win all that uber prize stuff.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

The stat in the article that is catching me is "the average Core gamer usually spends around 18 hours a week gaming" and personally speaking if I only ended up playing 18 hours in a week I would be very surprised. That being said 42 a week for a few weeks does seem a bit excessive, but not necessarily if someone takes time off work and really gets into a game. I remember a few years ago taking some vacation from work and in the course of a week ended up playing over 90 hours of a game.

 

[Buizel91]

Play game, get free stuff.

And people still find ways to complain, unbelievable.

 

[Buizel91]

600 MS points is roughly $7 cash.

140 hours for $7 cash?

Yeah, either consumers are idiots and fall for this, or they become investors and spend their time making real money.

And what if said people already have jobs? Then they are free to do whatever they wish. Don't brand someone an idiot because they want an easy 700msp why shouldn't people be entitled to do what they want with their own time and their own life?

 

[DugMachine]

Lol 600 points for 140 hours? What a rip off.

I will say though that 140 hours in that time-frame if you gave me a game like say... WoW? Easily done.