Stolen from Slickdeals:

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8024d5307f1/?p=1&of=6&bt=0&sb=1&did=00000001-0000-4000-8000-00004d5307f1

Apparently a couple DLC packs are free, too (found at anandtech):

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/media/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8024d5307f1/?p=1&of=3&bt=0&sb=1#offers

Those DLC's have always been free so you can play CO-OP with your friend who bought them.. Is this the whole game of fable cause... I know that "part 1" has always been free.

General consensus on SD is that it's the full game. Apparently part 1 was about 2Gb? This is 6.59Gb. The site also says full game.

Yeah, I already own fable 2 but I told my friend about this and he is downloading it now

I clicked through from work and it says it's now in my download queue. Hrm, my xbox is off, will it download when I start it next time or will it wake up magically?

It will start when you turn it on.

Brian: It'll start when you next turn it on.

I'm starting the download now. I wouldn't be surprised if they invalidate all the downloads though.

http://twitter.com/thevowel/status/27477982098

They are saying it's Ep1, but the size is too big..there's some speculation that it may be letting you download the whole thing, then prompt you to pay to unlock the rest of it. I guess I'll find out if I ever get past the first part..

My friend clicked the download link, it told him he had to download an update. Restarted 2 or 3 times but it never popped up with the update. Then it charged his account 19.99 plus tax without even asking or confirming....

I have a save file of the whole game beaten (borrowed a friend's copy of the game once). I'll see what happens there.



That wouldn't make much sense, why would the website prompt you to download an update?

$10 says he went to the full game on the marketplace instead of that exact link + clicked download. At which point he would have been told like twice it was going to charge him.

tried it and got this

Guess they patched it up, which means it's quite possible that it was the whole game!

*hopes this download finishes*

Okay, VERDICT:

IT WORKED. I can play all of Fable II it seems. I loaded up my old character, which had beaten the entire game, and there was no issues, no prompts to buy more, or anything.

Here's what I think happened:

I think Microsoft INTENDED for the first episode to be free, as mentioned in the above tweet. However, someone screwed up and accidentally made the whole game free for a little while. And us lucky few nabbed it just in time, it seems.

I'm still wondering if they'll go back and invalidate these "purchases" though.

If they do, let me know asap and I will unplug my 360 from the internet until I finish the game.

Damn. I picked a good day to be away from home

The first episode has been free for a very long time...this is new that you could download the full game due to some glitch, of course.

I downloaded it, just verified a minute ago. I have no way of knowing if the entire game is playable right now but I was prompted to download an update. Declining it just signs you out of Live. I wonder how much this mistake cost them.

Like I said before, it's definitely the whole game, as I've got a character at the end of the game and it loaded fine.

The update had no impact on playability, I downloaded that update and it worked.

It did the same thing to me, and if you read the comments on Slick deals, it happened to a lot of people.

This is a serious problem with microsofts website

Yeah, I got what you were saying what I didn't know was if something had been done that would affect the playability of mine since the concern is that they will somehow. I'm guessing that even though it wasn't supposed to be free they can't really revoke licenses they dished out due to their error. I don't feel bad in anyway. I have paid far more than I would like to them because my kid has purchased all sorts of things. I wish they would add a simple button passcode to the purchase confirmation which would prevent unauthorized transactions. I generally keep it logged out of Live now and added a code to connect to Live but certain things need Live to work such as, for some reason, streaming MP4s from my PC and Netflix. He's four so he doesn't really have a concept that he is spending money when he downloads things. What is amazing is how well he navigates things such as the 360 and DS. I glanced down at the DS last night and he was playing Roulette (I have an Acekard with tons of games, including SCUMM-VM!).

It would seem to me that the "serious problem" was them giving the game away for free. Well, "serious problem" for them, that is!

It doesn't even work for half the people, that's the problem. If you go to Xbox marketplace on xbox.com, and browse for Fable II, it is listed as $19.99 not free. If you compare the URL on both the links, you see that the slick deals link has some added parameters at the end of the URL. There is definitely something fishy going on here.

Of course, it was a mistake and they probably did everything the could, as fast as they could, to limit the damage. All I know is I added it from the link provided and later last night I freed some space on my 360 hard drive and it downloaded fine and appears to work.

Funny thing, though, it's not listed in my purchase history. I guess, regardless of whether it works on my machine or not, they're not going to acknowledge that I have purchased the game. I'm curious if others here who got in on time see it in their purchase history.