Paying for products with bottle caps, even in the world of video games, is far from normal. Having a game company accept those bottle caps - all 2,240 of them - in exchange for its upcoming game is even stranger.
Yet that's exactly what one intrepid fan did for a copy of this November's biggest release, "Fallout 4."
That's right, somebody sent a ton of bottlecaps to Bethesda Softworks just to get free copy of the game, and it worked.
In the post-apocalyptic world of "Fallout 4," the main form of currency isn't the cash we're all so used to using. And given that you're in the post-apocalypse, there's no plastic to swipe or Apple Pay to tap. The only remaining currency with a hard limit and the convenience of traditional money is good ol' bottle caps (supplied in the game by Coca-Cola stand-in "Nuka Cola").
Let's be clear: 2,240 bottle caps is a tremendous amount of metal. Even if each came from a bottle that cost $0.50, that's still over $1,000 to aquire the bottle caps. Even if you bought them from a bottle cap maker that sells in bulk, it'd still cost upwards of $100.
Considering that "Fallout 4" will cost $60 when it launches later this year, this is more "hilarious stunt" than "smart financial decision."
That said, it's always possible that the game's publisher, Bethesda Softworks, will send over a fancy collector's edition (valued at $150), which comes with this insane collectible:
Bethesda Softworks
And that'd be especially valuable, as the collector's edition is running out of stock everywhere.
Either way, Bethesda's setting an awfully dangerous precedent here: send in value-less junk, and receive actual video game in exchange. We're betting a lot of offices are going to "smell like beer" before November arrives.
