In 2008, Fable 2 had a unique pre-launch promotion in the form of Fable 2 Pub Games, an Xbox Live Arcade collection of three gambling minigames. The money earned from the XBLA game (and for cheaters, it was an awful lot of money) could then be transferred into the action RPG and fund further in-game gambling. Pub Games won't return for the release of Fable 3, but there is some kind of new tie-in that Lionhead plans to reveal in "early October" -- a few weeks ahead of the game's October 26 launch.

In an interview with Joystiq today at Gamescom, Microsoft's Peter Molyneux wouldn't get into details about the project, but did seem to fiddle with his mobile phone as he said, "It's more to do with this sort of thing." Molyneux previously teased another Fable 3 tie-in back in February, but that turned out to be the player-created NPCs. This appears to be something different.

The designer had some colorful commentary on Pub Games, describing the infamous exploit as a "disaster." After finding out that unscrupulous individuals could start the game with millions in gold, Lionhead had tried to pull Fable 2 out of certification in order to make the word "cheat" float over their head of anyone that left Pub Games a little too rich. He concluded jovially, "That's not going to f*cking happen in Fable 3!"