Marketing 101: THQ Rewards its Customers

When I first heard about the redemption program regarding NEW copies of Darksiders, I was ecstatic. But to my dismay, my version of the game did not have a mystery code. Then, when the news broke that you could also mail in your receipt, I immediately went home to search. But again came up empty. So, I remembered when I had bought the game and where I had bought it. It was on 01/15/2010, sometime after 930 pm, at a Walmart. Normally I would have gone to a Best Buy, but since those were closed and it was a spur of the moment, “I need to play this game” situation, Walmart was it.

So, I went back to that same Walmart’s customer service department, to see if they could re-print the original receipt. And they could! But to my disappointment, they could only print to some crappy dot matrix printer!

And so went my plea to have THQ honor this crappy receipt from Walmart and take advantage of their latest promotion. Originally put into place to reward pre-orders, each Darksiders game that went out in the first run had a mystery code placed inside the case, which looked like this:

And what should you have expected to receive for this mystery code??? How about a free game and not just any game, an AWESOME GAME! Taken straight from Darksiders community site, you will receive: 

•A digital Hellbook disc featuring Darksiders art, videos, and other awesome stuff! 

•A free copy of Red Faction: Guerrilla, a third person shooter featuring fully destructible environments... on Mars!

 I really want to go back to Mars in Red Faction and I could always borrow a copy from one of the numerous friends I gifted this to over Christmas (yeah, I really dug this game in 09), but to justify my inability to control my addiction and making the spur of the moment decision (my girlfriend and I shared) to by Darksiders could turn out to be the best way to start 2010. So with the letter, form, UPC and crappy receipt on there way to THQ, I will have to be patient....

*note image courtesy of Darksiders Community Site