I downloaded the game last night, it didn't ask for payment, so I thought maybe it would ask me to pay before I started playing...nope. Played the pillar of autumn mission all the way through, unlocked some achievements and everything. What is going on? It's not in my account purchase history, but is fully playable. Am I missing something??

You got a free game congratulations.

there's got to be something more to this....

Xbox Live was freaking out last night so it's possible you just caught it while it's proverbial pants were down.

I've done this a couple of times on Xbox360 when Fable 2 was accidentally free for a short time and another I can't remember. They screw up sometimes though this seems like a huge oversight.

Dark Souls was I believe the other game they made accidentally free.

Stop snitching.

@corevi: That isn't one that I got, but sounds plausible. It's happened a fair few times.

HA
thats just to funny. gratz

It's also happened on PSN a few times. I've grabbed Persona 3 FES and MtG DotP 2013 for free.

so has anyone else here bought it digitally? I assume it asked you to pay upfront then?

Just enjoy it while it lasts. If it was indeed a mistake, then it is a mistake over a game worth playing. If they ask you to pay up later then so be it.

I got Counter Strike GO for 13 cents on steam, because they fucked up on a sale once when it was supposed to be $13.

Be happy you got a free game. :D

w00t

@jeffhopman: It asked me for payment up front. I pre-ordered it last week digitally and it took the payment out then.

@brownsfantb: okay, thanks. I'm still thinking it's going to ask for money at some point, but maybe that's just pessimism.

I got a free physical copy coming today. I pre-ordered from the online Microsoft Store on the 9th and didn't receive it launch day, so I requested a cancellation so I could just pick up a copy in-store. After it was canceled at 3am on the 12th when the order was still "In Processing" I got an email saying it was shipped 6 hours later.

Follow up: They ended up charging me. I guess they knew.

The Australian Ubisoft store once had a massive muckup where nearly everything on the store was reduced to zero dollars. I got about $2000 worth of free games, and later, an email from them basically saying 'it was our mistake do we'll honour it, enjoy'

So that was pretty good.

That sucks that Microsoft didn't do the same and own their mistake.

@damodar: or maybe you should have a good conscience to begin with and not take advantage?

in this case i think it would suffice to revoke access to the game rather than outright charge you, though.

That's not how the system works. You aren't supposed to be able to download it without paying. At this point the license is already on your console (though likely not tied to your account). I'd imagine any profile on your system will be able to play the game indefinitely and you're never going to be prevented from playing and asked to pay, but that copy of the game is stuck to that specific console.

@ripelivejam: Having a good conscience would be not taking advantage of that situation with a decent company. In his case, it was Ubisoft, so taking advantage of that would actually be perfectly fine.

@doctordonkey: even if it's ubisoft, stealing is stealing. still not justified, and the company as a whole doesn't represent the individuals who probably are worked like dogs and deserve to be compensated.

That isn't stealing. Also individual developers don't actually make a portion of money off of every game sold, they have a fixed salary. They deserve to be compensated, sure, but some dude taking advantage of a website error isn't taking any money away from the people actually making the games.

I don't see how this is stealing. The dude basically just walked into a store where every price tag said "Free". Also, as @darthorange pointed out, 99.9% of the people working on the games have a fixed salary.