Namco Bandai has sent out a whole bunch of beta codes for eager Dark Souls II fans, 5000 in total in fact. These codes were made available earlier yesterday.
Unfortunately, most people assumed this was similar to practically every other beta code program, meaning they would get personalized codes. They did not.
Those 5000 codes were in fact universal, so people abused the system and the codes were gobbled up quicker than most people could redeem them.
Fortunately, Namco Bandai and From Software will be doing more beta phases in the coming months leading up to release, so fans will have a chance then.
Dark Souls II is coming to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC on March 11, 2014.