Does anyone know if they actually leaked "buggy" executables or its the actual "gold" executables? If its the "gold" I will not be happy. IMHO its coy protection like that in Titan Quest that contributed to "iron lore's'" demise. [well, it does appear to be a fairly obvious symptom ] Of course I do wonder if the pirates were just genuine pirates but stupid asshats or were plants.

Didn't some Titan Quest creator cry about pirates ruining the reputation of Titan Quest because they couldn't get over the copy protection and therefore hurt the sales? Still a game like Chaos Theory got quite a praise though it had Starforce. Yet, I don't think it was available on pirate markets at all and it just didn't work in the first place. Introducing obscure bugs to gameplay is bit different thing, as you can't get any data regarding to it being in game or copy protection features before some days after release...
Of course many games are not READY when they are gold and boxed. You just have to see which ones they are and wait for some patches. For an example Hearts of Iron 3 was quite interesting as the first patch seemed to break the game more than the 1.0 version did. One Finnish game magazine didn't even give grades to the game yet as it doesn't work like it's supposed to. I'm interested in it but I'll wait for it to be actually fixed and maybe get to some sales...

"It’s not a bug in the game’s code, it’s a bug in your moral code."
Brilliant one liner. Brilliant.

It should be noted that these hooks would also be triggered on legitimate copies that have been cracked to sidestep the DRM. It is not the source or legitimacy of the game data that triggers the hooks, only the executable itself. It would be quite possible for someone to buy a game, install a crack by a trusted group to get around the DRM/disc check, and then think any bugs lie with the game itself (it is after all clearly a console port, and some console ports are incredibly shoddy and untested).
While some copyright holders have claimed to seed false torrents this would not be the case with a "scene" release. Those who know what they are doing only ever download scene releases. The scene is self-monitoring; bad releases (incomplete crack, crack taken from another group's release, etc.) are marked as "nuked" so that people know what to download and what to skip. I'm not sure how exactly this system works, but work it does. Rubbish releases only trouble newcomers or the first few downloaders before someone with nuking power marks it.
While it would be theoretically possible to fabricate an anti-piracy release group it would be very time-consuming to do so and their releases would inevitably be nuked anyway, making people less likely to trust any future releases from them.
Some release groups are simply more attentive than others; a well-known group would probably check through every bit of a game to find all but the most well-hidden "hooks" to maintain their reputation of producing quality releases, while a newer group might rush out a quick release to get the bragging rights of cracking a popular new game before the bigger players managed to do it.

Wasn't it EA themselves that released Sims 3 on various torrent networks before it was officially released?
Also I'm pretty sure such an anti-piracy group HAS happened with movies and TV shows - they released in some format requiring a special player, which in turn contained malicious code. The movies could be descrambled with a perl script though, and invariably contained a different movie (but fully complete, if I remember correctly).

Lots of these official fakes have happened over the years, I remember a mate telling me once about an MP3 he downloaded that ended up not being the song he wanted but instead being an antipiracy lecture delivered by madonna.
The lawsuits for profit anti-file sharing detection companies are known to routinely run honeypots to try and trap people into giving them evidence. When that doesn't happen they sometimes just lie about it

I got that one too! It wasn't just one song either, they (whoever "they" were) did it to a bunch of songs. You download the track, it would actually start with the song your thought it was, then around 30 seconds in, the song would cut off and was replaced by Madonna lecturing.

I think there's other factors at work here, too -- besides copy protection.
Splinter Cell was an already well known series, with two games already behind it -- two very successful games that were critically acclaimed and sold very well. Plus, it also has Tom Clancy's name written on it -- and there were already numerous UbiSoft hits with his name on it before SC.
Titan Quest was the first iteration in a series really nobody was paying much attention to -- Iron Lore was not well known there, too. Though, TQ did get good reviews -- and I might add, it's an excellent action-RPG in the style of the Diablo series with a Greek Mythology setting thrown on top of it.
Plus, TQ was PC-only -- meanwhile, SC series was on the PC and consoles.