Shadow of Mordor's beloved nemesis system exists because the publisher threw a tantrum about second-hand sales

Remember that weird time about 15 years back when the videogame industry filled its nappy over the existence of second-hand games? Activision-Blizzard clamped down on them, following EA and THQ's lead, and one of Fable 3's developers said they were worse than piracy, which was the other big bogeyman of the day. One unexpected consequence of that weird industry huff is Shadow of Mordor's nemesis system.

Laura Fryer, who was vice president of WB Games in charge of the publisher's Seattle studios during Shadow of Mordor's development...