But ultimately, why is that even a question? The still have that 600 hours of playing they've done, nothing can change the past. What has changed is the future

But ultimately, why is that even a question? The still have that 600 hours of playing they've done, nothing can change the past. What has changed is the future games: to get to the same point the were at they would, presumably, need to play about the same amount of hours. Maybe if they truly won't be able to restore the data (I expect they will), then perhaps some sort of conversion from hours for "in game" currency could be used, where the currency could be used for buing items or others stuff (map visibility?) applicable to the game. I haven't played Ghost Recon, though, so I don't know this is at all a realistic solution to the game.. and it would be relatively big effort to make this system for just this (hopefully) single-time situation.