Thanks. My problem was that the Music Store was not fitting on my screen, so the big square button on the right was invisible until I scrolled.
Very annoying site, IMO.
Sorry for the hijack. The discussion is very interesting, but . . . I tried it, and I can’t see any code. I’ve tilted the bottle every which way, and I just can’t tell whether there’s a code there or a “Sorry, Play Again” message. I can’t tell if I’ve “won” until I actually get the cap off.
It is a game of chance. Just because you can request chances to win for free through the mail, it doesn’t change the fact. A game of chance is not defined by whether or not it costs money to play.
I went over this already. I never said that poker and blackjack are games of chance. I already posted how skill will help you play better and using that skill is meant to be part of the game. There is not supposed to be any skill involved in buying scratch off tickets, that why I used that as an example.
What would you say if I said that I consider buying scratch off tickets a game of skill, wherein the better skilled players are able to make their own x-ray specs and see through the silver scratch off patches?
Their is no skill in wearing special glasses is there? Its just a way to cheat. Their is also no skill involved in tilting a Pepsi bottles either.
The Pepsi promotion isn’t a game of chance on many levels. First off, it doesn’t cost money. Every player receives full, 100% value for their purchase: a Pepsi. Also it is not recognized as a game of chance by the government agencies that regulate games of chance.
Wearing? No. But your thought experiment involves the skill of making the glasses, which would require quite a bit of skill. That would indeed make scratch offs a contest of skill for those people.
I think the main divide we have, which we will never cross to meet in the middle, is what is known as rules lawyering. Some people are of a mindset that in all things, only predefined rules are ethical measures to play by, and any attempt to gain advantage outside of those posted rules is unethical. The other camp values “thinking outside the box”, and anytime a previously unthought of clever method for gaining an advantage is discovered, it is a good thing and should be exploited. It’s simply two different ethical frameworks.
I’m not saying you are completely the former, nor am I completely the latter. But those are the two directions we are coming from, and I can’t foresee either of us switching sides. I’m cool if you’d like to just agree to disagree.
Well, I’ll peek and only take the ones withOUT codes. And if I get one with a code, I’ll post it online. I do remember some craiglist posting for these last time they did this promo. I myself wouldn’t spend the time to register, enter a long code and then try to think of 1 song I wanted.
Or this…Donate winning iTunes/Pepsi codes to benefit indie artists
TuneRecycler uses unwanted Pepsi/iTunes Store winning codes and spends them on indie bands available through the iTunes Music Store.
“When you buy major label music on iTunes,” Wilson explained, “the musician usually gets nothing, because they’re in perpetual debt to their label until they sell more than 500,000 CDs. And at best they only get 8-14 cents on a $1.00 song. We want to get some of Pepsi’s money going to actual musicians, not just record label CEOs and RIAA lawyers.” from http://www.boingboing.net/2004/01/30/donate_winning_itune.html
I think Ellis Dee put it much better than I could. It’s hard to meet in the middle when you are coming from different POV. Same with the blackjack thread.
I think it’s a matter of honor. If I’m playing poker and Ol’ Floyd accidentally exposes his cards to me while reaching for the guacamole dip, I’m gonna turn my head so as not to see his cards. The sporting thing to do.
Anyway it’s gotta make a person look like a real goomba standing there tilting Pepsi bottles. Some decorum people!
Whenever someone says “Who gets hurt?” I suspect they are doing something wrong or they wouldn’t feel the need to justify what they are doing with this lame cliche. It doesn’t matter who gets hurt. Some things are WRONG even if no one gets hurt. That is what some people can’t seem to understand. Tilting the bottle is WRONG, even if no one gets hurt. Stealing a penny from Bill Gates is WRONG even if he can afford it. Downloading a movie from some pirate site is WRONG even if you would never buy or rent that movie yourself and so the company is losing no money from you. There is RIGHT and WRONG and it has nothing to do with who is winning, who is losing. who gets hurt.
I disagree. Do you have anything more convincing to back up yoiur argument than “it’s WRONG because I say so”?
Yes, because he has lost something. Whether he’ll actually miss it is a separate issue.
That subject has been debated many times with no consensus in sight, here on the SDMB and elsewhere, and if you think you’re going to answer it once and for all through the power of CAPITAL LETTERS, you’re mistaken.
Wow, this thread is still alive! I pondered this since it first appeared and I’ve come up with my own conclusion, it is not imoral to tilt Pepsi bottles.
Why?
Pepsi knows the system is beatable yet continues with the curent format. Since they run the game and keep the loopholes I have to consider that using the loopholes is moral. I tried to look at it from Pepsi’s point of view and I see three types of potential customers, they are as follows:
The Gamer. This guy will tilt bottles to get freebies, he will buy more pepsi because of this. Bottom line: A win for Pepsi.
The Apathetical buyer. This customer doesn’t care, won’t look at a cap and buys pepsi because he buys pepsi. Bottom line: Steady pepsi customer, break even for Pepsi.
The Rube. This customer lives in a cave and thinks the game is honest, doesn’t notice when his winning percentage is far below one in three. Bottom line: Win for Pepsi.
In other words, pepsi wins because people think they can beat the system when in fact they are sucking up such a small percentage of Pepsi’s game revenue that it isn’t wothwhile for Pepsi to fix the system. Pepsi is playing the buyers for fools, not the other way around.
I have to say, shortly after responding to this thread–months ago, it was, the described promotion is over–I went into a convenience store to purchase a beverage. I mentioned to the cashier that if you looked at the bottles supposedly you could tell if it was a win or not (although mostly I got my pepsi products out of a machine, and my hit rate for getting free songs was excellent–almost 100%). The cashier and I looked at pepsi, mountain dew, etc. trying to see if we could tell whether the lid said it was a winner, and neither one of us could.
I remember seeing a site that showed you exactly how to do it. Can’t find it now, but I found one site that says you may need a flashlight. In any case, too late now.
Crap, didn’t realize this was an old thread until the end. But, what the hell:
The x-ray glasses thing is a bad analogy. A better one is, a roll of scratch-off lottery tickets is printed with defective scratch-off stuff that’s transparent, and somehow makes it all the way to market without anyone realizing. You’re in the supermarket, and you’re the first one to notice it. Right there in the front of the machine, next on the roll, is a $500 ticket. Do you buy it? Changing it slightly, same scenario, but you went into the store specifically to buy a lottery ticket, not knowing about this printing error, but the next ticket in the machine is a losing ticket. Do you still buy it, even though you know you’re wasting your money?
I’d say neither is unethical. It’s up to the manufacturer to make sure their product is competently designed. If they drop the ball, it’s fair game for the consumers to exploit the loop hole. To the extent that the game is a competition, it’s up to the other guy to not make a mistake or miss an opportunity. I’m under no obligation to limit myself to make it easier for him.
Although that’s all pretty meaningless, as I’m pretty sure this “flaw” was by design. Viral marketing, right? Get kids buying Pepsi instead of Coke because they know how to “rip off” PepsiCo and get a “free” song off iTunes. Better than a solid month of television spots and a lunar billboard combined.
Actually, who is winning, who is losing, and who gets hurt has everything to with wether something is wrong or right. If no one is getting hurt, then it’s not a matter of morality, it’s a matter of personal preference. “Who gets hurt” is the fundamental question upon which all ethical decisions are built. Saying something is wrong “just because” isn’t ethics, it’s religion.