The Sims 3 Racks Up Over 180,000 Downloads Prior To Release [Slashdot]

[DP ServBot]

Bloomberg reports that pirated versions of EA's The Sims 3 were downloaded over 180,000 times between May 18 and May 21. The game will not be officially released until June 2nd, and it does not make use of SecuROM for DRM. Quoting: "That outpaces the 400,000 downloads over three weeks for Electronic Arts' Spore, the most-pirated game of 2008. ... Copies of the game available on file-sharing Web sites aren't the full version, Electronic Arts said. 'The pirated version is a buggy, pre-final build of the game,' Holly Rockwood, a company spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. 'It's not the full game. Half the world — an entire city — is missing from the pirated copy.'"http://games.slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&op=image&style=h0&sid=09/05/29/0826228 (http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/05/29/0826228/emThe-Sims-3em-Racks-Up-Over-180000-Downloads-Prior-To-Release?from=rss)
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[TheRedEye]

Yeah, this is kind of scary. Spore was the most pirated game of 2008, and The Sims 3 is being pirated faster than it was during its first few days. Even scarier is that The Sims 2 was the second most pirated game of last year, four years after its initial release.

EA specifically went with zero DRM on Sims 3. I would imagine that once it becomes the most pirated game of all time, that decision will be reconsidered for future titles.

[Oobgarm]

http://files.myopera.com/mini_gamer1896/albums/576508/This%20is%20why%20we%20can't%20have%20nice%20thing s.jpg

[Kuros]

People just want to play it now I suppose. From what I've heard though, The Sims 3 comes with 1000 points to download any extras and that any expansions need to be verified online.

Not saying that will stop any pirates, but I think at least some people who are pirating now will go buy the game.

[Tupin]

There will always be piracy. Always. Unless you give away your products for free, of course. Heck, even ten/fifteen years from now when the game costs $5, some people will still pirate. The case here though is that people just want to play it early by any means necessary.

That said, I won't be buying The Sims 3. None of my computers have a good enough video card. :(

[Porksta]

I don't understand. People bitch when DRM is used on games to prevent piracy, then when it is not included they steal the game anyways?

[kupomogli]

Part of the blame should also go towards someone in EA who is distributing the games to the public.

I don't think Sims 3 magically uploaded itself onto the internet. This is the same with Rock Band Unplugged for the PSP which also made its way to the internet months before the release date.

[ProgrammingAce]

Part of the blame should also go towards someone in EA who is distributing the games to the public.

I don't think Sims 3 magically uploaded itself onto the internet. This is the same with Rock Band Unplugged for the PSP which also made its way to the internet months before the release date.

Yeah, EA should really stop giving copies to reviewers. It's funny, games that don't give out preview copies to reviewers tend not to have half finished builds uploaded to the internet... weird how that works.

I know i've personally been offered as much as $10,000 to steal a copy of a AAA title before it's release date. Personally, i have to walk through a metal detector when i leave work because they're so afraid of discs getting out.

I think this is one of the most depressing stories of piracy i've heard lately: http://kotaku.com/5264139/indie-devs-turn-to-in+game-ads-after-piracy-strike

[roushimsx]

Yeah, EA should really stop giving copies to reviewers. It's funny, games that don't give out preview copies to reviewers tend not to have half finished builds uploaded to the internet... weird how that works.
And of course, if you don't supply a review copy then people automatically start assuming that the game must be bad.

They should fingerprint the fuck out of the copies they send out for review so that they can trace the leaks back. The reviewers are the ones that should have to put up with DRM, not the end user (that inevitably gets boned).

Anyway, these stories are so silly. It seems like they use torrent trackers as their counters for how many copies of X or Y are downloaded; you can't even begin to calculate just how many copies have been pumped down the pipes, though. Hell, I bet there's a couple different releases sitting on your ISP's Usenet server right now.

Oh well, nothing new! Welcome to the world of PC gaming. Take a seat and make yourself comfortable.

[NayusDante]

I personally find this intriguing. When The Sims came out, everyone liked it, from the gamers to the nongamers. As they released expansions and the focus of the game shifted, I didn't think that the gamers and "tech-savvy" people retained interest, and that piracy numbers would go down. I never judged the average Sims fan to be knowledgeable enough to pirate the game. Maybe music, but not software.

I personally enjoyed The Sims and its first expansion, in terms of gameplay and concept. From House Party forward, however, the focus of the game shifted greatly. I loved the idea of a people simulator, but the expansions put more control in your hands, with less focus on the simulation element. A neat technical gem became a tool for people to live their own idealistic fantasies, which seems a little disturbing to me. Everything that I've heard about The Sims 3 seems to back up this continual drift away from being a simulation.

[TonyTheTiger]

I'm no fan of DRM. I personally think it encourages piracy. But anti-piracy measures in general are another story. The problem is that there is a circle of cynicism that never breaks.

A publisher releases a game without heavy anti-piracy measures in good faith and ends up watching that game get pirated to hell and sell relatively little. That makes this publisher and all others very cynical and they conclude, "If we're going to get screwed anyway then let's just DRM the hell out of our games. Screw them." The consumers get fed up with the super restrictive DRM and say, "Screw it, where's those H4x0rz and WaRez?" And the cycle continues.

Fingerprinting every beta is a good start. That'll at least limit leaks.

[ProgrammingAce]

They already finger print betas, but what is EA going to do when they find the reviewer who leaked it?

Most betas these days come with a warning like this: http://picasaweb.google.com/h4ckur/PhonePics#5341484521141451842

but if the reviewer doesn't listen and dumps it anyway, what's the developer going to do, stop sending discs to that mag? That only hurts themseves in the end.

[TonyTheTiger]

There might be some liability though I'm not certain about that. At the very least the reviewer can get fired. I know that if I were EA I'd tell the magazine that under no circumstances will I send you another review copy so long as that reviewer is able to get his hands on it.