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The Sims 3 Racks Up Over 180,000 Downloads Prior To Release
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.'"
Ill just wait and pirate the full copy when it comes out then. Thanks for the heads up EA i wouldnt wanna pirate a substandard version.
So guys, you kept saying everyone pirates because of DRM. Well, this doesnt have one now. What excuse should we use now?
People who pirate games on the average will never buy the real game, unless there is strong incentive to play online / multiplayer on an authenticated server.
I don't think I ever bought a PC game that I didn't HAVE to have a valid code for online play back when I was into Warez other than the Civ series which I expected to be great. Civ 4 was the last game I bought and gave it to a friend after loading the largest world with most opponents and it crashed at over 1GB of used memory 10 hours into it.
... pretending you have a life.
839*929
Nice move not using DRM, its a shame its still the most retarded "game" i can think of.
However I think the market for game actually lowers the piratism rate for The Sims. There will be lots of younger and older girls wanting to play this game aswell, and most of them (or their parents) will probably buy this game. Atleast way more than with other games. Now I must note that I'm waiting for this game too, so I wouldn't count it as girls-only game either. But the market is bigger with this title.
Now what makes me sad is that pirates will keep pushing statistics and sales down for usual games they like to play, and EA will just see that The Sims franchise sells so much better than the other games. Now here's a homework for you: Figure out if that will affect what kind of games they like to make.
"Holly Rockwood" -- awesome name.
Ok. Let me try this excuse:
"I pirated it because I couldn't buy it anywhere."
There. Done. I'm sure a number of people who pirated will end up buying a real copy once it's released so they can get the online content. But right now if you're itching to play the sims 3 or just see what it's like, you have no other options but to wait or pirate. Most people are quite impatient to say the least.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
I'm downloading it so that EA feel compelled to put the DRM back in for the expansion packs. I will then start a campaign to boycott DRM laden games which will be so popular that no one will buy any of the $ims 3 expansion packs thereby killing the franchise once and for all.
Who said that?
"His name was James Damore."
"I pirated it because I couldn't buy it anywhere."
Boohoo, god forbid that anybody have to wait a few days for something any more. Seriously, unless you are terminally ill and will likely to die before the official street date, why can't you wait. Don't you have anything better to do?
The game's target audience (twelve-year-old girls) probably wouldn't even know how to pirate it, they'll just ask their daddies to get it from the mall. Those who have now downloaded it are probably the bunch who download anything new on TPB as soon as it appears and never pay for anything anyway.
To put it succintly, no.
Sadly, the only thing that will ever kill the Sims is somebody making a better Sims-type game. That or putting them in a swimming pool and removing the ladders.
Actually, the original release (referred to in TFS, which was beta code) was propered earlier this week - the "current" pirated release is the RTM code.
Why wait? What's my incentive here? Oh right - I'd be doing something moraly right. No sorry. Not good enough.
People will always pick the easiest option. Excersising self control for 2 weeks isn't the easiest thing for most people.
If they could pay $50 and do a legitimate download I'm sure that at least 10% of the downloaders would have picked a legitimate copy.
I'm sure 90% would still have pirated it. But that's people who had no interest in buying the game in the first place but may want to mess around with it for a bit - they're not lost sales.
In Soviet Russia, the television watches YOU!
They're all trying the game... if it's good and it's missing an entire city, at least 50% will go buy it :)
Don't forget it's free publicity... but you'll never make EVERYONE buy it... simply because not everyone have money to spend on a PC game. If they don't buy now, they'll buy in the future! Just see it as "free publicity" for this franchise.
(I played SpaceQuest series when I was younger (pirate version... I was poor at the time...) and guess what? I own it now!)
(Another example : World of Goo was highly pirated... and check this : http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/01/26/world-of-goo-makes-appearance-on-npds-top-10-pc-games-list/ In the top10 US sales... because it's a GOOD game).
I can't call that English
Pirated copy is version 0.5 - it has half of the world. So the full version will be 1.0 - it has the whole world. When EA provides version 1.1 will I get 10% of world extra for free?
The article says it does not use SecureROM for DRM, not that it doesn't use DRM. Anyone know what it does use for DRM?
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
No, I "pirate" games that I've bought because of DRM - most notably Bioshock and Mass Effect because of their asinine restrictions on running things like Process Explorer while playing - though to be fair, even the cracked version of Bioshock wouldn't run if Process Explorer had been used since the last reboot.
Yeah, I said it. This actually hurt sales of TheSims3 this time. I was going to pre-order it, then heard there was a pirate version before release. One of my friends tried it and she said it was awful. Not enough items, too small, buggy, etc etc. At that point, I decided not only to not pirate it, but not to pre-order it either.
Now, if I don't hear rave reviews about it, I'm not going to buy it. And I'm not going to bother pirating it, either, for that matter.
So it's quite possible they'd lost my sale on the game... Only being extremely good will save it. (Without this, being merely 'good' would have been enough.) I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
The post has disappeared from EA's site, but
The game will have disc-based copy protection - there is a Serial Code just like The Sims 2. To play the game there will not be any online authentication needed.
Google's cache
Don't you have anything better to do?
You do realize that we are talking about The Sims players here.
The Long Now Foundation
The security model employed for offline gaming has nothing to do with pirated games downloaded.
It all depends on marketing, if you are good at it, a lot of people will buy & download it free from the net. DRM affects only buying customers and does nothing for the illegal market, this is why we hate DRM.
I don't understand why is so difficulty to understand the fact that you can never stop illegal offline use of your software.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I downloaded it and liked it. I'd like to buy a copy next time I'm at fry's but will probably download the full version when they have it up. It kind of made me miss the good days of shareware and demo's. Game makers stopped doing it because people would try out the game and not buy it because it didn't live up to the hype. Or the game just flat out sucked. This games lives up to the hype and I will buy it. For some it might not have lived up to the hype so they will not buy it. So the download numbers are not a good sample to prove that people that downloaded it liked it and should therefore buy it.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
They actually made a good reason to buy the non-pirated game. Kudos to the developers and marketing.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
Well, was there anything resembling a demo anywhere? The only reason I'd have for downloading a DRM-free game is to make sure it doesn't suck before I drop $50+ on it.
How many people who downloaded the leaked version will go out and buy the real thing?
Compare to DRM-crippled software, where there is a strong dis-incentive to take the thing out of the shrink wrap if you did buy it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Since it hasn't been released yet, why would there be a demo?
Wow you are like so rebellious and really stand out from the minless zombie sheep! I applaud your individuality! Thank you for saving us from the scourg
I read in a review they can now get out of swimming pools without ladders. You'll need a room with no windows or doors.
Here's my excuse: EA is pirating their own game as an excuse to get DRM back in the game.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
but you'll never make EVERYONE buy it... simply because not everyone have money to spend on a PC game.
I have the money, I just wouldn't want to spend it on the sims. I have the time and bandwidth to pirate the sims, but I'm not gonna do that either.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
I'm guessing you have never had a girlfriend/wife/lesbian lover, they eat it up. Mine can waste hundreds of hours and dollars on anything Sims. The office bookcase is literally filled with expansion pack boxes (they make "bonus gift" every birthday and Christmas).
I'm guessing this game is not going to show up on Steam. Pitty, I already have an account setup for her pop-top stuff, would have been nice to have had it in a single place (other than that shelf).
I don't understand where you come with 12 year old girl argument but The Sims is really an adult game, adult doesn't neccessarily mean porn btw.
I have seen 40-50 and even 60+ years old people play it, in fact for some people it was the first and only game they purchased. People still buy content for the game, even the first release still being played.
I read that too actually. It was in PC Gamers review. Damn EA for removing my choices for torturing my sims!
Can you imagine the level of security in such potentially billion dollar project?
If I was EA investigating it, I would check who would benefit from such leakage. They may come up with very interesting results.
I can tell as a person who had to carry betacam originals of some ordinary TV shows in a steel case, with guards hired to help and put them in bank safe myself, a hit like The Sims 3 won't leak that easy.
You're seriously asking if people who want to "play" Little Computer People: 2009 have nothing better to do?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I read in a review they can now get out of swimming pools without ladders.
That should be based on your Sims' BMI.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I raise your 9000 with over 9000.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Wait, demos are now released after the retail copy of the game?
I laughed until I hiccup'ed on this one. You are a dead man sir... but I must imagine the punishment you will receive will be worth it.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I did that once, made myself and my then-fiancee.
Sim-me spent the days wandering around seeking human interaction (mostly from Sim-fiancee) while she was really busy.
Then real fiancee went away to school in the Caribbean and pretty much dropped all contact; I saw her twice in a year and a half.*
I don't play the Sims anymore. It's like a virtual ouija board.
(So I started dating someone else...who is now my wife.)
This episode shows that pirates get to the game before your average consumer can touch it, meaning that there's a break in the production pipeline inside EA.
Their problem is their employees, contractors and distributors, not their customers.
Put another way: EA's biggest problem is EA. And all the DRM in the world (or none of it, for that matter) can change that.
And I am sure a greater number of those people will pirate the full copy. The old argument was that people pirated because of DRM. This shows that argument is false. People are just dicks and want stuff for free. So stop trying to morally justify it. I don't care if you do it, just don't try to make it seem like you are some sort of awesome freedom fighter because you are cheap and lack decency.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
There are a number of reasons why many will pirate it now. For starters, the game is obviously done and is sitting at stores waiting for June 2nd. Due to differences between The Sims 2 and 3 in terms of gameplay, people will want to start experimenting with it early to see if they even want to pay the money for the game. You have those who paid early for the Feb launch, and have lost those deposits(the pre-order coupon they got with their pre-order expired in April).
The list goes on and on, but the primary reason is you have a rabid fan base who really wants to play the new game, and don't want to be forced to wait until release. Many/most of these will not cancel their pre-order and look forward to their legal copy, so from that perspective, these are people who want what they have paid for or will be paying for in the next week. If you don't care, then of course it is easy to say people should wait, but if you are going to pay for it anyway, why NOT get it a few days early?
For the younger players, what is better to do, homework?
I see it now-- the new business model for games will be to embed advertising in the game itself and then allow it to be pirated. Those billboards in Sim 4 won't interfere with your ability to play or copy the game, they're just there to sell you other stuff you don't need, non-digital stuff you can't download from PirateBay, like graphics cards, video monitors, faster motherboards and diet sodas...
Why do you think one person speaks for everybody. The game is not even for sale, so how do you know it is not going to be bought? Do you know who has to deal with drm issues if present, the legit customer is who.
I am not convinced. A high BMI would give you more mass to haul out of the pool, but it would also make most of that mass much more buoyant. It probably evens out in the end.
I was sort of entertained that in Sims2 they even HAD a BMI. Or at least variation. I always wished I could change their height. A sim version of me doesn't look right unless it's short.
I got nearly all the expansion packs for the original, (I think Makin' Magic was the only one I missed) and three for the Sims 2.
The only two activities I ever really got out of the games were house designing, and trying to also create buildings which allowed the AI to perform optimally/doing stuff to mess with it. Trying to model the faces of famous people in the Body Shop in the Sims 2 and then upload said faces was a reasonably enjoyable method of wasting time, as well.
Apart from that, the Sims really doesn't offer anything at all unless you're playing it with someone else. If you're playing it alone, however, the boredom can literally become physically painful. To make it even worse, at least the Sims 2 only ran on Windows; Wine couldn't run the version of DirectX it used.
If you're going to buy the Sims 3, you will get the most out of the game by either a) not going into Live mode, or b) if you do go into Live mode, realising that what you're essentially doing is directing/producing your own soap opera. I can see that having limited appeal for women, but I would have thought that even for them it would get old pretty fast, because there's only so many different kinds of drama that the Sims' interactions can generate.
I'd rather play Nexuiz, or Warsong Gulch in WoW, personally; those games generate much more of an emotional response.
And at the low, low price of only $9.99!
Some of EA's disk copy protections doesn't work through wine, Simcity 3000 as an example, a classic I would like to play every once in a a while. I bought a copy of it for like a penny at Fry's but can't play it :-(
I would buy this new one if it works through wine, no way I am installing any Microsoft crap at home just to play a game.
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
So the amount of time and effort somebody else put into perfecting a massive piece of software counts for nothing if they don't get it to YOU, when YOU want it, in the medium YOU want and at a price YOU dictate? Sounds reasonable and unselfish. The reason most people torrent stuff like this is, basically, greed. There are some justifications, sure, but the whole "try before I buy" arguments and all its bastard offspring are pure fiction.
A high BMI would give you more mass to haul out of the pool, but it would also make most of that mass much more buoyant. It probably evens out in the end.
Having experienced a broad range in my life I have to say that no, it doesn't. Having more surface area means that you have more drag, too. It's the muscles that get you out of the pool.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
'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.'
So, EA decide to sell a game without making any demos available.
Then an EA employee manages to get a pre-final build of the game, with half the data missing, and posts it on torrent sites.
Then EA complain about piracy of a broken not-even-beta quality build ? I suspect a lot of people who downloaded it thought is *was* a demo, seeing as how it is apparently so broken.
Either it's a publicity stunt to show why we "really need DRM after all", or they have no internal security inside EA when any employee can walk out with in-design code. Or both probably.
See, having a high muscle mass, I always felt like I was getting cheated.
You mean I'm fat AND I sink? Way to go, physics.
I don't do it very often at all; I think I pirated 5 albums in 2008, and no games
Honestly, I wish I'd pirated World of Goo. It was way too short for $20 I thought.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
So guys, you kept saying everyone pirates because of DRM. Well, this doesnt have one now. What excuse should we use now?
Inferior distribution network? ;-)
Why aren't these guys officially distributing this game already with BT technology and a password scheme on thesims3.com?
Exactly. :-(
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Boohoo, god forbid that anybody have to wait a few days for something any more. Seriously, unless you are terminally ill and will likely to die before the official street date, why can't you wait. Don't you have anything better to do?
Maybe the user is interested in the game?
It's as if you ordered a camera and is a photographer. Do you want to wait it to arrive, or have it there to play with now?
It's a physical impossibility to get a shipping by the postal service skip ahead in time, but not with piracy.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
You are confused. It does have DRM, just not SecuROM.
You are confused. It only has serial.
I was going to make this very point but am glad I'm not the only one thinking this. EA of course is not the only company who's its own worst enemy (or best friend depending on how you look at it...because if it wasn't leaked early we wouldn't be talking about it, and that many fewer people would even know the game existed). Of course, if the 'leak' was done intentionally I am sure there was a cost analysis done as to the potential benefits vs. drawbacks (in order to monetize their consumer base as much as possible). But, I'm still in agreement...its not the consumer's fault that their product is available before they wanted it to be.
The old argument was that people pirated because of DRM
Nice straw man, but the real argument is that people who would otherwise have bought legitimate copies pirate because of DRM. Other people would have either pirated or gone without. When making financial decisions, you should ignore these people because nothing you will do will make them pay for your product. Punishing the people who want to buy the legitimate version with DRM does not make people who, as you put it, are just dicks, into customers.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:MD4JvRTKk10J:thesims3.ea.com/view/pages/newsItem.jsp%3Fitem%3D-608201177
The game will have disc-based copy protection
a.k.a. DRM
Cause this is a pre-release leaked copy. I'm sure lots of people just really want to play this game since its been a highly anticipated title. I have no doubt that many of the people who downloaded it already have legitimate copies reserved and will still go out and buy the game when they can.
The "DRM" you are talking about is just checks that you have the DVD in drive. That doesn't count as DRM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
"The term is used to describe any technology which makes the unauthorized use of such digital content and devices technically formidable, but generally doesn't include other forms of copy protection which can be circumvented without modifying the file or device, such as serial numbers or keyfiles."
Nobody ever talked about DRM when mentioning those serials since the 80's. It only means those situations when game exe or disc (or video content or whatever) contains those encryptions etc shit (that also can break more or less in certain situations).
Serial code is still a good, non-bothering system. It has some effect to bring down the casual copying, you can restrict online content with it and it works always.
Bullshit. I grabbed the final 3 expansions for sims 2 off torrents, tried them out, and promptly deleted them. I learned my lesson after the final sims 1 expansion...
The final expansion in particular. They took the demo concept of sims 3 (apartments, playing your sims while other families are active), tacked on the half assed magic stuff from sims 1, and called it an expansion.
The sims series is interesting and has a lot of potential, but it's really damn obvious the EA execs treat it as nothing more than a cash bag.
Need more money? Have a modeler modify 6 of the existing models to have some different angles, have a texture artist create a basic texture like duckies on blue background and use it for everything, and sell it for $19.99 as a stuff pack. Bonus if they can get some big name furniture maker to pay them to tag a name into the descriptions of the new models.
Reviews are bullshit. Demos are haven't been worth trying, if you can find one, since the fucking 90s. And game companies will tack a $20 price sticker on every 5 minutes of work they can get away with.
My money is precious to me, it provides a roof, clothes, and food to my little girl. I sure as hell am not going to toss it at EA every time one of their artists takes a day to make new textures. I download when needed to make informed decisions about where my limited budget is going to be spent.
And no, I'm not one of those 180k downloaders. Making the decision based off half a game is pretty damn worthless and a waste of bandwidth. I won't need to anyway, a friend of mine is planning on buying it when it comes out, so I can try it at his place this time around, just like he tried 1 and 2 at my place when they came out.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Mod parent up. This has NOTHING to do with DRM.
No sig today...
That's what they've always told us.
Or is it the other way around?
Time will tell...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Lets wait and see how well it sells before we point fingers. ;)
Most of those downloaders are probably just eager to get it early. It makes them feel special/happy. If the game is solid, that should translate into more sales.
Demigod did well enough, didn't it? Things looked bleak for it in the first few days!
I have seen the "Demo" out there and let me just say it is NOT worth the money they are charging. It is obvious that a lot of stuff was taken out of the game to be nickled and dimed to the public. If you buy it, you are getting ripped off big time, I suggest holding off a few years until they released a sims3 complete package for 20 dollars.
"Woops! We had someone steal the game from us... So - instead of charging you down the road for an expansion, we'll play dumb and just throw it in with the official release."
They got a buggy crappy half-finished game. The real meter here isn't who pirates it or how much; it's how many legitimate users do they get? The game might turn out a following 4 times bigger than Spore. It may also turn out that more people pirate it, but more legitimate users buy it as well, on a disproportionate scale. It's also possible we don't actually have a great way to tell who illegally downloads what, because, shit, then the RIAA could actually legitimately sue you for shit instead of just blasting a shotgun full of John Does at everyone and weeding out the results.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
So guys, you kept saying everyone pirates because of DRM. Well, this doesnt have one now. What excuse should we use now?
[Citation needed]
Who are these guys who said everyone pirates because of DRM?
No one (yet, though that's an argument for the next attempt to legalize drm enforcement goonsquads), I do have money to spare to provide myself and my family with entertainment, but it is not unlimited.
On one side I cannot go without entertainment of some sort, and computer games tend to provide the most efficient time/dollar ratio. On the other side I can't just blindly toss money at every new game and expansion that comes out. I have fallen for a couple bad purchases in the past (like that stupid 1001 games CD walmart had when I was in HS, chock full of demos and crappy card games).
If it came down to it, that I would have to trust 3rd party reviews and press info entirely for my game purchase decisions instead of grabbing the thing off a torrent and trying it, I just wouldn't buy. I'd pick up the occasional good one if someone I knew took the plunge and found a good egg, or if something got consistently good reviews and ended up in the $10 section of walmart, but that's it.
Call me a pirate all you want, but I saved myself $90 on those worthless expansions, and because I didn't waste that money I not only have it to purchase this new sims, but I'm not so disappointing that I'm not even considering the purchase.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
It's only a straw man if that isn't the argument other people use. You are just changing the argument to something that is impossible to prove. This is just how you feel...purely opinion. You might as well say that people pirate because God came down and told you to pirate.
But according to you, when making financial decisions, you want the company to focus on the smallest percentage of people. Those who are picky and know how to use a torrent. You want these people to be catered to? Sorry, Slashdot does not represent the average person. The argument to not use DRM because some small number of people claim they won't pirate if it is DRM free doesn't make financial sense. Since you like to interject with something that is purely opinion, here is my opinion back: these mystical people you describe, the ones that don't buy because of DRM, are probably still going to come up with bull shit excuse to pirate the game. Meaning you might as well put a cheap, effective DRM (like a CD key or sell through Steam) to prevent casual piracy.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Why does it matter the number of people that pirated the game?
That's irrelevant.
The question is, what effect does that have on Sales of the game? To date, no one can answer that question, and no publishers have been intelligent enough to do the research that answers that question.
Will the Sims 3 be available for digital download worldwide on release day? Will it cost 200% more outside the US to download the game if it is available?
Publishers are either disingenuous about DRM and Piracy or they are run by stupid and shortsighted people. It's probably actually a combination of the two.
And now the media, ever the bastions of Independent,intelligent and responsible reporting have begun to parrot statistics on how many copies are pirated. It's easier to find out the number of copies that are pirated than to find out how many copies were actually sold, if that number ever gets reported.
And that too is indicative of the underlying problems which never get addressed.
-Gel214th
You know, I have to agree with your comment on reviews being BS. So many games which got great reviews were bad or boring. So many which got poor reviews were really good, great, or fun. I was just thinking about that the other day playing Age of Conan. Everybody hated it. I played the 7 day trial this week. That game is just a plain blast. And I've been playing RPGs since Dragon Warrior 1 (NES) and Final Fantasy 1(NES), so I'd like to think I have some semblance of a decent opinion on RPGs.
Others:
Alone in the Dark: awful reviews, but if you learn some advanced techniques, is quite easier, and I would say because of the story and such, quite possibly one of *the* BEST games I've ever played. Never been hooked more on a game in *years*.
Dark Sector: alot of fun, not amazing but a pretty good alternative when you are done with RE 4/5. But got awful reviews.
Assassin's Creed: so much fun, yet got mediocre reviews.
OTOH:
COD4: amazing reviews. I thought it was the most boring, generic shooter I ever played. Would play it, think it was awful, put it down. I only gave it a few shots more just because it was supposedly a greatly reviewed game.
Half Life 2's: great reviews. To me, an awfully boring, un-fun game. Shoot a few guys, walk a few min. Jump on boxes. walk for a few min. shoot, walk, boxes, walk--rinse, repeat ad nauseum. i couldn't take it after a few hours total of playing.
So yea, I think ur totally right. When u said that, it just hit me--reviews are total bullshit. And as a side note, I almost forgot how they are just extensions of paid advertising.
I have no doubt the pirated version is buggy. The official release is buggy to the point of being unplayable.