For a few hours last month, the Xbox Live digital edition of Lionhead Studio's Fable II, normally priced at $19.99, was free. The discount was a glitch in Microsoft's system and was quickly rectified, but not before countless savvy shoppers took advantage of the brief and inadvertent deal.

I was not one of those lucky few, but I am someone who regularly grapples with the ethics of piracy. The theft of digital content is unequivocally illegal, yet pirates nonetheless justify their actions with a series of arguments — some tenuous, some less so. I wondered how downloading Fable II for free when it's rightly a $20 purchase was any different from piracy, and how strong its case would be?

For an answer, I turned to Jeffrey Seglin, professional ethicist. Seglin writes a weekly newspaper column for Tribune Media Services Syndicate entitled "The Right Thing", which provides an objective perspective on the right and wrong of any number of scenarios, from dealing with difficult landlords to keeping deathbed promises. In this past week's column, he addresses my question, "Is free Xbox game a fable?"

I confessed to Seglin that I wish I had known about the error, as I would've taken advantage of it to get a free game. But if I had, would I have been able to live with what I had done? The main argument I made was to compare the online Fable II to its retail origin:

"If I were shopping in a retail store and the clerk forgot to charge me for an item, I would bring it to his attention and expect to be fairly charged for it," K.G. writes. "When it comes to a digital product instead of a physical one, the situation somehow seems different. Is taking advantage of an online store’s mistake akin to theft? Do I have a responsibility to not partake of such an error? … [and] now that th[ose who downloaded the game] know [it was an error], do they have a responsibility to do something about it?"

Seglin's answer is one that owners of Fable II can feel good about, and one that I again liken to retail: if a product is advertised at one price but is "supposed" to be another, the retailer is expected to make good and offer the product for the advertised price, then correct the issue.

That's what I did when I invited international customers to subscribe to Juiced.GS, a print magazine I publish. A limited number of subscribers received a postcard offering renewals for $19/year, which includes shipping anywhere in the United States — which didn't do the postcard recipients, who lived anywhere from Europe to Australia, any good. Despite having to swallow the difference in shipping rates, I felt the only responsible recourse was to honor the $19 price. I doubt those international subscribers felt it unethical to save $7 off their usual renewal rate.

If I can acknowledge a mistake and not ask my customers to suffer for it, then it's fair for Microsoft to treat its customers with a similar respect. So enjoy Fable II any way you like, and lose no sleep over your good fortune.

Network World recently published their annual holiday gift guide, to which I contributed a review of Metroid: Other M. Though I gave the game a generally positive review, it was the weakest entry in the Metroid franchise yet, for reasons I didn't have space to go into in the gift guide.

Some of the game's limitations have been well-documented, including the bizarre oversight of the nunchuk controller in favor of reorienting the Wiimote toward the screen to fire missiles, which robs Samus of her mobility. What is often forgotten is that using the D-pad for movement is to the exclusion of analog control. Other M may be the first 3D game I've ever played that didn't allow 3D movement, which doesn't behoove someone of Samus's abilities.

The worlds through which she moves are also limited, but by the creators' imaginations. For example, in other Metroid games, the Gravity Suit has opened new and expansive areas to explore, ones with unique environmental effects. But the linear progression through Other M takes little advantage of such opportunities. The world is attractive enough, but running headlong through it will miss you only the occasional power-up, not a mission-critical secret, as there is no place for such adventures to await discovery.

There was more to the game than the action, but although I liked the attempt at providing our heroine with more backstory, the execution was fatally flawed. As Yahtzee Croshaw pointed out, the subplot concerning a traitor is abandoned halfway through, providing the player with zero closure. And the parent/daughter parallels among both friend and foe are overwrought and apparent, lacking subtlety.

I can rarely dedicate more than eight hours to a single game, so being able to finish Metroid: Other M in that time span was a relief, as I don't think it could've kept my interest any longer. I hope the next attempt at reinventing the series (or its return to a proven format) is as successful as Metroid Prime was.