You get Saints row 2 free with Saints Row 3 PS3. Across both europe and NA. And this was possible because of the online pass. Without the online pass, Sony wouldn't have had another way of knowing you purchased the game.

Kind of cool now I think about it. They changed their mind about the exclusive DLC but are providing an entire game for free. Online download of course.

This was made possible because of online pass how, exactly? There are systems of tracking ownership that existed long before that abomination did

Huh? What are those systems of tracking ownership? I am not defending online pass, its just a fact that if this game didn't have online pass they wouldn't actually know who bought the game at all. Now we get saints row 2 for free. An abomination indeed.

At least the PS3 owners can't complain here.

The first is not available on the PS3, and yes, you get it for free till Feb 13th 2012.

i don't think you know what you are talking about.

if they can track systems how do they know that you didn't buy it used? , oh and that "System" is called IP adress, everyone can access that info

I remember my Phantasy Star Online disc had a setup that you could register, but that did not prevent the game from being used by a new user had the old user sold the disc

Hence, no anti-consumer bullcrap, but you can know who has owned what

I see...well. The difference here is that thq already implemented the online pass, and this free game thing was announced later on. Like after the game released or around the release. There was no real reason to know the ownership, but I guess they took advantage of the pass.

Also I don't think the Phantasy star method could prevent people from abusing this offer. But I am not sure.

Had there been no pass, they would have had to do it some other way. Maybe it was still possible, since you can register PSP umds to PSN. But that system isn't really available on the PS3 right now, and would have been a lot more complicated.

Or they could have just stuck with the exclusivity .

I have an  idea... they could have just put a DLC PSN voucher for SR2 with every boxed copy of SR3.... gosh!

That's way too radical, get out of here with your radical thinking you radical!!

I think this happened close to the launch of the game or after it came out. If that was the case, how about the people who had already bought it?