I had just started playing Genshin Impact months ago. And upon finding out that there was a collaboration event involving McDonald’s, I was psyched.

Sure, McDonald’s is well outside of my typical menu. I care about my health, to the point that people are telling me that I could be a little heavier. But when I found out that I could get a special glider for my Genshin account, as well as a special in-game recipe, I was ready to remedy a problem that most people would be happy to have.

But, you saw the title. You know how it went.

The deal is, you download the McDonald’s app, and place an order for a couple Genshin-themed items on the menu. Then, you get a code to copy and paste that grants in-game items, and you could pick up your Genshin-themed meal and/or apple pie, and, if you’re lucky, you meet other fanatics who play this game, and fire it off over your favorite character, and why Sigewinne is totally underrated and you don’t have to be a psychopath to like her.

That was the deal. And it fell through.

First, and most catastrophically, I didn’t get a code. I checked my email, where I expected it to arrive, and then the spam folder. Nothing. I checked again after I picked up the meal, but still, nothing.

Before continuing, I’ll point out that rising fast food prices aren’t just bluster that you see on social media. Twelve dollars for a medium chicken sandwich meal that includes an apple pie? I heard that the overhead costs of keeping a business running (including energy, property taxes, and wages) are going up, but I wasn’t aware just how badly this impacted the cost of fast food. Just a few meals at McDonald’s, and you’ll have spent enough that you could have instead guaranteed a 5* on a limited banner.

But then there’s the meal. There was nothing Genshin-themed about it. The apple pie box was supposed to feature Kazuha, with his normally-soft features in battle-ready stern determination. Nope. Just the ordinary box.

As it turns out, you had to have emails enabled from the app to get the code. Which I didn’t. I was being punished for my own smart practices when using cell phone apps.

Because I figured this out in the dining area, I toggled on the switch for emails, then placed an order for just the Genshin apple pie. Minutes later, I got another apple pie, also in a regular non-Genshin box. Still no code.

And, to top it off, I didn’t even get my soda.

Having subjected the dubious calorie sources in the meal to my metabolic processes, I began to have a crisis. What was I even doing with my life? I decided to buy fast food, which I seldom do, because I wanted digital assets that don’t really exist for some cell phone game, and didn’t even get them. This game, enjoyed by millions, isn’t something a soulless fast food chain cares enough about to amuse you with a code and printed cardboard.

When I got home and checked Reddit, I discovered that I’m not the only one who had this experience. Many other players out there placed their orders, doing everything right, but still didn’t get their codes. Some players did, but for some reason, many of us didn’t.

From what I could glean, McDonald’s was actually manually sending the emails with the codes. If that’s the case, what’s up with that? I’d have imagined that it would have been an automated process: just place the order, and the code would be automatically sent to your inbox. Makes sense, right?

But no, instead it sounds like it’s more like place an order, and some untrained, unskilled worker at a data center (who probably hates Genshin Impact by this point) has to copy and paste an unused code into an otherwise manually generated email, on top of the many that he’s been swamped with in the few hours since the promotion began.

I can believe that the incompetence is McDonald’s fault. It stands entirely to reason. Mihoyo made a mobile game that’s relatively high production value, and played by millions of players, with frequent promotions that usually go off without a hitch. They’re software programmers and engineers, which are usually in the ballpark of SD+1, at least. While a bright person could end up working at McDonald’s for one circumstance or another, that’s usually the place where a person ends up if they can’t get hired anywhere else. (I spent a few months there. It was my first job, at the time, no one else would hire me.)

So, that’s it. I didn’t even get a Happy Meal toy. You know, a little something to set on my desk and sometimes look at before it eventually takes its place at a landfill, like so many other pieces of merchandise that are real enough to do so.

Maybe I’m making a big deal out of what is really just a mundane disappointment, like I can really expect McDonald’s to give a shit about those of us who enjoy things that aren’t McDonald’s.

To put things into perspective, a bunch of Hezbollah goons had their nuts blown off when their pagers exploded, so it’s not like I’m the saddest boy in the world, today.

I just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks for reading.

EDIT: Maybe I’m the asshole. Not the worst one, but it might actually be that McDonald’s is not to blame.

I decided to check eBay, and this is what I found:

See the second listing, where it says “116 sold”? That kind of seller is why people like me who want the wings and the apple pie recipe for our Genshin accounts can’t get them, because the system is swamped by scalpers who are buying $12 meals by the dozens, then selling the codes off for a hefty profit each. Genshin almost had a pretty cool promotion, but then a bunch of shitheads ruined it.

We might be missing out on codes, but at least a bunch of scalpers could afford to do the line, tonight. We might be pissed, but they don’t care, because they’re getting high.

Looks like Mihoyo might have to do something other than redemption codes for similar promotions.