People are spending $40 on black market Modern Warfare 2 Burger King skins

The first time I've thought about Burger King in ages was earlier this week, when I learned that the fast food giant had teamed up with Activision for a Call of Duty promotion that's a real whopper: Buy a burger, get an exclusive operator skin based on fictional fast food chain Burger Town. My hopes were dashed (and my colon thankful) when I realized that of the supposedly 40 countries offering the Call of Duty meal, the United States is not among them.

Of course, Call of Duty players swiftly proved that if there's an exclusive goodie to be had, regional marketing disparities won't stand in their way. Soon after the Burger King/MW2 promo began, listings for the Burger Town skin started appearing for sale on Ebay. At the time of publishing, over 30 Burger King codes have sold for anywhere between $20-$40. Apparently the codes themselves aren't region-locked, so those outside the promo canopy can punch them into the official Call of Duty site to reap the rewards.

To get an idea of just how badly some people want this burger skin, which I must clarify is actually just a normal guy wearing a Burger Town shirt, $40 is about 10 Whoppers worth of dollars, or over half the price of Modern Warfare 2 itself (though it's possible some sellers are selling to themselves to artificially inflate prices). That's way, way too much dough to drop on any singular cosmetic, but I get why longtime CoD players feel the urge—the frequent appearance of Burger Town is one of the series' longest-running easter eggs since the chain's debut in the original Modern Warfare 2 (2009).

It's not clear what sort of dark dealings at Activision prevented the Burger Town promotion from including the US of A, Call of Duty's hometown, but I doubt whatever's meant to replace it can match this absolutely ridiculous ad created for the Burger King event. 

A lot to unwrap there: the surprisingly faithful recreation of Modern Warfare 2's HUD, the way they crawl through air vents like a secret agent when a true CoD protagonist would simply breach the door, the guy's callsign being "Burger Six," the way Burger Six makes himself an ice cream cone and immediately chucks it on the ground. It's all great, with the only low point being the reveal of a very unappetizing Burger King meal as a grand prize.

And that's not even as far as this semi-global burger bonanza goes. As shared by Activision Blizzard chief marketing officer Fernando Machado, Burger Kings across the world have received a total Call of Duty glow-up. Here's a BK in Puerto Rico with Ghost's imposing frame where normal doors used to be:

I'll shed no tears for missing out on La Casa Del Whopper's food, but I do admit that dumb Burger Town shirt with included white man does call to me. He could and should be considered the new official mascot of CoD.