In a quirky twist on a basic principle of capitalism, Bungie is asking Destiny 2 players not to buy its new spicy ramen coupon emblem.

The trouble started over the weekend with the discovery of the "Classy Order" emblem and, more importantly, how to unlock it and add it to your account. According to this Reddit thread, some suspect an inside source at Bungie, while others say that a glitch in an old duplicate was part of the process, but whatever the specifics, people were spending money to get a completely cosmetic item.

That's why senior community manager dmg04 tweeted a warning about buying it, and also lamented the detrimental effects of data mining.

"Do not buy spicy ramen coupon emblems. It's Bungie Day and is meant to be a free gift from us to you," he tweeted.

"Data Miners - please don't spoil content, be it stories or emblem codes. We know it's exciting to be the first to get cool info, but please respect the fun."

Destiny support team member Drewardo echoed similar sentiments:

However, others claim that this information was not dug up by data miners, but was revealed through the Destiny 2 API. While this may seem like a semantic point, the API is a publicly accessible resource used by popular third-party sites light.gg and destinytracker.com, in other words a well-known general source of information. One Twitter user complained that the real spoiler was not the existence of the emblem, but the fact that Bungie was giving it away, and that it was not revealed by the community, but by Bungie itself.

This incident raises interesting ethical questions about the role fans play in video game PR campaigns. While I am not unsympathetic to the plight of Destiny 2's developers, Bungie clearly wants it both ways: an eager and passionate fan base that is not too thrilled to know what they are not supposed to know. Bungie has designated July 7 as Bungie Day, a reference to the studio's apparent fondness for the number seven. As for the meaning of spicy ramen, there is a bit of lore about Cayde-6, Destiny 2's former hunter-vanguard. Before he was transformed into Cayde-6 Feet Under, he was a big fan of the Tower's ramen shop, which he called "the most spicy ramen I've ever had.