Halo Fans Buy Nail Polish for a Free Skin, get a Skin for Forza Instead. ( I Have SO Many Questions...)

[Shagger]

In a bizarre blunder for an even more bizarre promotion, Halo Infinite fans were left disappointed by getting a Forza Horizon 5 livery instead of a Spartan Skin for Halo Infinite with promotional packs of nail polish. That's right, nail polish (PC gamer article on the original promotion). For reasons that escape me, Microsoft partnered with the cosmetics company OPI to offer a Spartan Skin for Halo Infinite and a Forza Horizon 5 Livery with promotional pacts of OPI nail polish, both pictured below (To be fair, they do look pretty sweet).

 

 

 

The blunder was caused by the terms of claiming the in-game items not being fully explained by neither Xbox, nor OPI. You see, the Halo skin was only redeemable though purchases off of a select line of OPI nail polishes with names like “You Had Me At Halo,” “Can’t CTRL Me,” and “N00berry” (Somebody had to write those...) costing around $20 made through Amazon, whereas the Forza livery was only redeemable at the beauty and salon supplier Ulta, again at around $20. So, depending what in-game item you wanted, you had to shop at the correct place. Like I said, this was not make clear in terms and conditions at first. The conditions have since been updated to clarify this, but not changed. And if you wanted both, that's two purchases of the same thing.

 

To add insult to double purchase poverty, the Halo Skin isn't even in the game yet and doesn't launch until March 1st, so even those people who did get the skin will have to wait. The article I read from PC Gamer that sites an original article from Kotaku can be found in those hyperlinks.

 

Whether you consider this promotion to be something interesting and a progressive breath of fresh air, or an awkward, overly affectionate, mis-matched couple in public (and good for you if you can, because I honestly can't decide which), either way these people did not deserve to be deceived like this. Part of me feels that OPI and XBox were deliberately vague to capitalise on the very inevitable mistake people would make by buying thier nail polish from the wrong place. There's no way companies like this just "forget" to make things like that clear. Even if it was a genuine error, why is it necessary to buy from both Amazon and and Ulta to get both skins anyway? When someone like Monster Energy dose a COD promotion, you don't need to buy your promotional Monster Energy cans from a specific supermarket, so why was this necessary here? The right thing to do is allow people to claim both skins for both games regardless of where the nail polish was bought from. Many jokes can and probably will be made about this partnership I'm sure, but the insidious way this was done is no laughing matter and both companies should be ashamed of themselves.

 

Even though how scummy this was is the most important thing about this story, I just can't wrap my head around how this even came to be in the first place. I know I'm not not exactly "in the biz", but I feel it would take some bravery to show to investors a plan to market make-up and personal cosmetics to gamers. Am I really old fashioned, or does that not make sense?

 

Still, once you have done this;

 

 

... feel free to comment and offer your thoughts.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Shagger

[Techno]

My thoughts:

 

[killamch89]

Erm...I'm not sure to begin with my questions - Why has a gaming company ever given away nail polish in any kind of promotion? 

[Justin11]

Hmm, the mistake have been made already, their is nothing halo can do to change back the hands of time. The best they can offer to maintain satisfaction around those who purchased the wrong skin, it's simply to provide them with the real skin when it is launched officially by March. 

[Empire]

Xbox knows we're all addicted to this game so they did a tie in with nail polish so that we'd all go buy our significant others a gift. The Ultimate Wingman, Perfect for gaming girls and or boys who have girls in there life. I'm FLIPPING SINGLE

Ohh wait, American only, again…God damn it.

[Shagger]

3 hours ago, Empire said:

Xbox knows we're all addicted to this game so they did a tie in with nail polish so that we'd all go buy our significant others a gift. The Ultimate Wingman, Perfect for gaming girls and or boys who have girls in there life. I'm FLIPPING SINGLE

Ohh wait, American only, again…God damn it.

 

That does make sense being so close to Valentine's day, so it's actually more clever than I first thought. Doesn't stop it being a bit weird and very anti-consumer though.

[Heatman]

19 hours ago, killamch89 said:

Erm...I'm not sure to begin with my questions - Why has a gaming company ever given away nail polish in any kind of promotion? 

They probably don't want to spend much on the gift they give out or they probably have a business deal with the nail polish company.. Just saying.. 

[Boblee]

Whether they call this one a marketing strategy or not, it's definitely not impressing me at all. When am I going to do with nail polish? 

[Heatman]

10 hours ago, Boblee said:

Whether they call this one a marketing strategy or not, it's definitely not impressing me at all. When am I going to do with nail polish? 

Well, I think that some female gamers are most likely going to interested in the nail polish if it's one of good quality. 

[Boblee]

7 hours ago, Heatman said:

Well, I think that some female gamers are most likely going to interested in the nail polish if it's one of good quality. 

Now, that's something that I have overlooked when female gamers are involved in the mix. I think my sister is definitely going to fancy the nail polish. 

[killamch89]

On 2/9/2022 at 11:49 AM, Heatman said:

They probably don't want to spend much on the gift they give out or they probably have a business deal with the nail polish company.. Just saying.. 

But most gamers are males and I'm pretty sure they aren't really into that kind of stuff.

[Boblee]

14 hours ago, killamch89 said:

But most gamers are males and I'm pretty sure they aren't really into that kind of stuff.

Yeah, that's kind of true because even here I think it's only @The Blackangelthat's the known female we have here. 

[The Blackangel]

There's a few other girls around here. @StaceyPowers is a woman and so is @Alyxx. We're here, but there's definitely a LOT more men here.

[killamch89]

32 minutes ago, The Blackangel said:

There's a few other girls around here. @StaceyPowers is a woman and so is @Alyxx. We're here, but there's definitely a LOT more men here.

In terms of gaming, it's mainly men that are interested in gaming - that's their target audience and who makes them the most money and that's all companies care about. I just found the whole nail polish thing odd.

[The Blackangel]

True, most games are aimed at men. The statistics show them where the most money is, and that's the target they aim for. Women are a much smaller demographic in the gaming industry. We're not rare by any means. There's millions of us in the states alone. But there's probably at least 3 male gamers for every female gamer. Maybe more.