I thought sales DID get through the roof for that one?

The release of Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon for free by 2K Games is a great idea.
Railroad Tycoon is a great game and it's one of the games that started the economic tycoon games.

They did not "just" release it, it's been free for quite a while now.

The guy didn't say, "just," so quoting a word that wasn't used in no way makes a new point. Neither does the fact that you've known about it for a while. I say good for you, but clearly others here, myself included, didn't share your clairvoyance.
I also noted in my original posting that while many might already know about it, I didn't find a post about it. Thus I posted it so that people who didn't know--unlike you--could have access.
We're all very impressed that you knew and that you can quote what you assume people said instead of what they actually said.
However, neither of those things is useful.
I'm sure you have the best intentions though.

Whoever did not know before, does not deserve to know.

That's kind of ignorant. If someone didn't know about the game being free, they should have the right to know.
And I knew about this game being free for a long time.
I posted about the game being free at http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/65246-classics-for-free/page__st__495 (I use the name EugeneE3RD on that site). I link is to a forum post that lists commercial/shareware games which have been re-released for free download.

Back then it was fairly normal in whole Europe. Now it's Euro-kolkhoz.