grimshaw

An unknown newcomer in the anti-piracy scene, called Vigilant Defender, claims to have taken the May 2011 leak of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, added some of their own code, and then illegally rebundled it as an “official” release on various torrent websites.

After playing through the first couple of levels, Vigilant Defender’s additional code closed the game and directed gamers to a questionnaire that quizzed them about piracy: why they download, how much they download, whether they were planning on buying Deus Ex: HR when it was released, and so on.

It's no secret that I'm pretty skeptical of the longterm viability of just about any newspaper paywall. Among the "success stories," however, many people point to the Financial Times, which has a policy of only letting unregistered users see a single story per month before locking them out.

If you register (still free) you get ten stories per month. After that you have to pay (or you erase your cookies, or use Google searches, since you can get access if you come via Google).