News EA: Pirated versions of Sims 3 are a demo

[CardJoe]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/...3-are-a-demo/1

Electronic Arts hasn't been as devastated by the early leak of Sims 3 as you might expect, claiming that the pirated versions of the game are really more of a demo.

[ry@n]

He's just keeping his chin up, nothing will stop pirates from allowing the additional content to be downloaded/accessed. Im sure a lot of people treated leaked copies as demos anyway, untill it was realeased.

[DragunovHUN]

What they don't realize is that most pirates don't do research on the games they download. They probably don't even know about that second city, and just think the game just doesn't have all that much content.

[The_EXorcist]

or thats what pirates do with all their games anyway... if its good they buy it, if not, they didnt waste any money on a crap game

[liratheal]

I'm ****ing amazed.

I was fully expecting a "Our sales were negatively affected" stance.

Hats off to the guy.

[Veles]

Originally Posted by DragunovHUN

What they don't realize is that most pirates don't do research on the games they download. They probably don't even know about that second city, and just think the game just doesn't have all that much content.

Except for the popup at the start that says something along the lines of getting a new city if you register a legitimate copy of the game.

[UrbanMarine]

It doesn't matter now. If EA did their research, they'd find that there are complete versions of the sims 3 on torrent sites.

[I-E-D]

I give it two weeks from now until someone includes the second city and extra's in their torrents.

But yeah, at least EA are staying strong.

[Sombrero]

Actually, all that extra content (second city, new objects, etc) has already been available in torrent sites since BEFORE the actual game was released.

[delriogw]

Originally Posted by article

"In the game that was pirated there's [only] one city [out of two]... and Sims 3 has a massive amount of content, and a lot of it is downloaded once you register with EA... and join the online community".

the massive amount of content that you have to buy from the ridiculously overpriced online store you mean.... the same content that is also available on torrent from all over the place so people can get hold of it regardless.

while he's right that the initial leak wasn't the final release of the game, i doubt the more recent pirated copies doing the rounds are this early version.

i also suspect that a lot of people are going to be pirating this extra content as it really is exhorbitantly priced relatively speaking

[Skiddywinks]

Even without the content, you get all the gameplay, and that is what really makes a game. At least that's how I feel.

[naokaji]

The real reason revealed why they don't care:

they believe the average soccer mom ehh sorry sims player is too stupid to fidn the full version for free

Seriously though, Sims have a different target audience than most games, one that doesn't really know all that much about computers, so they most likely just shrug off the couple pirated copies and just cash in on the non gamer market.

[perplekks45]

Originally Posted by naokaji

The real reason revealed why they don't care:

they believe the average soccer mom ehh sorry sims player is too stupid to fidn the full version for free

QFT and rep++

[p3n]

Originally Posted by liratheal

I'm ****ing amazed.

I was fully expecting a "Our sales were negatively affected" stance.

Hats off to the guy.

Yeah right, hes just proud of his horrible 'internet required' DRM techniques...

[Nicb]

I think sometimes even thou piracy is wrong it can end up positive for the maker. We had a article on that a few months ago with "World of Goo" and how he was flattered by all the piracy and it really got the word out. He ended up making more than he originally thought.

But Yeah right Riccitiello! Common sense tells me from playing Sims 2 is that you can download the game and extra content with out ever using their server. In Sims2 you saved the "Extra Content" file when you had to backup or reinstall the game. So, I imagine that some ZipperHead out there zipped up that content and put it up on a torrent.

[Ross1]

it wasnt a demo, and all the content from online, second city etc was available on pirated version early on.

but it doesnt matter what the truth is, all that matters is these days you can manufacture to truth to what you want people to believe.

[smc8788]

It just sounds like he's trying to save face to me. He knows they can't beat the pirates, and he's just trying to convince those 'casual pirates' that they have to buy game to get all the features. Although this is a little strange considering to get all of the features from Sims 2 you had to buy nearly 20 expansion packs (how can people spend almost £200 on one game, just to get some new virtual tables and chairs?!).

[Skepsis]

<PIRATE> The Sims 3 content (including the extra town) has been floating around the net since the game was released. </PIRATE>

[frojoe]

this is funny because normally developers claim it hurt sales, and then everyone on the forums says it doesn't at all. This time he says it helped, and everyone claims it hurt sales. What do you want them to say?

[docodine]

Not really, my friend's been playing for weeks, and it's pretty much the full version... someone even cracked their store thing apparently.

I'm not a Sims fan, so I don't really care.