College Student Plagued By Halo 3 ARG Related Calls

By now, we’re all aware of the Halo 3 “Iris” marketing campaign. One gamer is much more aware of it than most, though.

Michael VanderZand, a 20 year old marketing and advertising major at Grand Rapids Community College, has received hundreds of calls and text messages on his cell phone. Why? Apparently, “Adjutant Reflex”, the star of the marketing campaign, has been tied through rumors to a gamer profile on XBox.com. In this profile, there’s what appears to be a 10-digit phone number, with the last three digits replaced by XXX (This profile has been removed from the site). Since the last Halo ARG (I Love Bees), involved phone booths all over the country, fans assumed that something similar was going on.

So, in the true form of fans, they began calling all sorts of numbers that fit the redacted number. Imagine one fan’s surprise when he reached a strange voice mail recording made up of snippets from a Red vs. Blue episode. Unfortunately for VanderZand, a huge fan of the Red vs. Blue series, the voice mail was his.

Wednesday, after leaving his business ethics class, he realized that he’d missed dozens of cell phone calls. Then, he kept getting phone calls from area codes all over. He finally decided to answer a few of the calls. After several calls, he got someone to tell him how they got his number. “I end up telling the story to a guy in New York City who is on a 3-way conference call with his friend in California. So the three of us (East coast, West coast, Great Lakes) are trying to figure this whole thing out.”

He tried everything to stop the calls. His online assertions that his phone number wasn’t part of the marketing campaign went unheeded and unbelieved. He called the XBox support line to see if they could offer any help. Nothing helped, and he continued to get calls throughout the night, and while trying to study for finals.

The best part of the story is that this isn’t the first time his number has been called by overzealous Halo fans. VanderZand said, “this is actually the second time my number has been on the internet in a HALO-related prank. The first time it was a thread posted by this guy on gameFAQs that told people to call my number to reach the “Halo Coach” because “I’m the best”. I got the first call at 4 AM (again before a morning class) by a guy who wanted me to give him some pointers. Had it not been that late I may have. The ‘I’m the best’ part gave him away as it was a running joke. Luckily that thread got buried pretty quick.”

Can you imagine the pain this must have caused him? I know how rabid fans of any game can be, and Halo fans are no exception, especially with a game as hotly anticipated as Halo 3. Here’s hoping Bungie, Microsoft, or someone will at least acknowledge the trouble this caused him, and do something to at least ease the pain a bit.