Article by Tom Ohle
Anyway, I thought it was interesting because the article was written not only by CDProjects Tom Ohle, but because it was about piracy.
This method they took, I think would work only for smaller developers, but I'm glad to see it did help out in this instance.

Old story for Steam forums members. :P

Pirates come in three shapes and sizes.
First, the child pirate. They pirate the game because they want to play or try it, and most are probably in middle school or high school. They likely don't have money and wouldn't have bought it anyway.
Secondly, the 'average' pirate. Personally, I fit into this spot. If there is a game that I want to try but there is no demo, I'll download it. If I don't like the game, I won't play more than maybe fifteen minutes of it. If I like the game, after a few levels, I'll probably go buy it. Sometimes I completely beat a game if I like it that much - then I go buy it. Between Steam, Impulse, GamersGate, D2D, and now GOG, I have probably over 75 games that are download versions.
Thirdly, there is the ass pirate. No pun (really!) on it, but this is the person who will download it just because they can, even though they could afford it. From other 'fellow' pirates I have had the honor of sharing more than two words with, these people are at least very few and far between.
Others may have noticed something though, you never see a crappy game with a demo. I remember back in the day (Old school PC Gamer mag CD's) that used to be chock-full of game demos. Almost EVERY game used to have a demo. In the day and age where more people have broadband than not, I fail to understand why we don't see more.
Edit: Should probably say something that does pertain to that article... heh.
While what those producers did is cool, it has been done before. I do think dialogue is good, especially for indie devs. But once everyone starts doing it, it might not work so well anymore. Or at least not in the same way.
But it's like almost anything else in this world. If people like something, they will buy it. I look at it this way... I buy it if I like it because lets say the day comes where I get the urge to play it again. If I didn't buy it then, I'll probably have to now anyway. If it can even be found.
Otherwise you'll get stuck like me, with a broken Wing Commander Kilrathi Saga CD that EA won't replace because they 'don't manufacture it anymore' and are too stubborn to allow back-catalogs to be released, even though it would make them money. Which is funny, because I thought that's what they were all about.

The demo thing used to be vital for me, but now I tend to buy because of things I hear on the interwebs, thankfully I have the spare cash so that bad purchases don't annoy me too much.
I remember playing the hell outta the shareware versions of Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, and that made me buy the full version of both games.
Can you imagine being given a whole chapter (or about a third) of a game as a marketing tool these days?
Doom went on to be a huge hit, and still shifts copies to this day.

Pretty sure games can't talk to pirates.

paradoxjast: I think that the "average pirates" are the least common. I know many people falling into the 1st or 3rd category, but only a few who would buy a game they have previously downloaded because they liked it.

Well in Slovak and Czech Republic... Yep. May be different in US thou.

I was interested in maybe getting the game, but it's only available through Direct2Drive, Steam and retail in Europe.
The hompage lists additional info.

you have to have pretty strong self-control to go out and buy a game you already have sitting on your PC... either that or lots of spare cash.

Only the first seems to be true. Lots of people trying to excuse their piracy say that they "can spend the money better", "why bother buying something if you can have it free", <insert any pathetic excuse here>, so the lots-of-money thing is out.
As Fenixp said, it can be only "our regional problem", but I believe the farther you go to East (Ukraine, Russia), the less people buy legal software.

when the orange box came out, I didn't have the cash, so I justified it by pirating it.
Since then I have bought 3 copies of the game, and not out of guilt either, one for my main pc, one for my laptop, and one for my xbox 360.

So in essense they are lying about not combating piracy as Steam itself is a form of DRM. I hope Age of Decadence, when it comes out have opted not to use steam (or at least not tie copies from other places with it) as otherwise I can't buy it. (I even have free orange box promo code (came with HW) I'm never gona use :P)
I wish someone created GOG.com like store for selling indie games without DRM...

most indie developers who want to sell games without drm do so from their website, see World of Goo, The Path, etc..

I know, but the problem is most of their storefronts are hard and inconvinient (requiring to fill forms with all kinds of personal info etc.) to use and most only accept certain paying methods. I also don't fancy spreading my credit card info all over the net so centralised shop is prefered even if games would cost few $/€ more.
I'd buy at least Morning's Wrath and Spirit Engine 2 if such a shop existed (sold for 7.90€/12.20€ currently)