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

[lockwoodx]

Here is the article (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=apRPoA_dd_7U):

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.'"

Nice to know when they removed DRM/SecuROM from the Sims 3 it was pirated 50% less than Spore. You hear that greedy companies? DRM promotes theft not prevents it.

[Evil Avatar]

Nice to know when they removed DRM/SecuROM from the Sims 3 it was pirated 50% less than Spore. You hear that greedy companies? DRM promotes theft not prevents it.

Technically, the DRM or lack of DRM makes no difference since this was a beta. Beta's don't have DRM.

[GabeCube]

Here is the article (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=apRPoA_dd_7U):



Nice to know when they removed DRM/SecuROM from the Sims 3 it was pirated 50% less than Spore. You hear that greedy companies? DRM promotes theft not prevents it.

Erm, wouldn't it make more sense to compare the total of download at the same point in time in both games' lifetimes - if you look how many downloads Spore had a week prior to its launch, I don't think the number would be that high.

Just my two cents... I mean, once the game is out, people will be looking to download it much more actively, not to mention its launch campaign will be in full swing.

180 thousand downloads before the game is even out is a shameful number, and I wouldn't exactly use it as a case study AGAINST DRM...

[GabeCube]

Technically, the DRM or lack of DRM makes no difference since this was a beta. Beta's don't have DRM.

Really? That's funny - all prerelease media code I got from Electronic Arts (haven't tried any recently, though, that was a year ago) involved registering the installation with a proprietary DRM engine. True, it was not the same as the commercial copy, but DRM nonetheless.

[Ravenus]

Plus, the Sims is old school boredom, so who cares?

[kwolf]

Nice to know when they removed DRM/SecuROM from the Sims 3 it was pirated 50% less than Spore. You hear that greedy companies? DRM promotes theft not prevents it.
I would like to understand at least the mental methodology you used to normalize out other factors and draw this conclusion. Or is it just wishful thinking? Right, I thought so.

[thenumber5]

how about the wait for the game to come out before we damn the pirates for playing it, i have been playing it for 2 weeks now and plan to pick it up next week when it comes out. This i just like saying the Wolverine work print was going to ruin it's opening weekend.

What happen to this user base, when did it over ran with a bunch of but hurt anti-gamer's

[Evil Avatar]

I would say that the huge number of downloads is actually evidence that it doesn't matter if your game has DRM or not, that there are a lot of people who are going to pirate it either way.

The essential question for developers is to try to figure out how to turn some of those pirates into legitimate customers.

[saulob]

Btw, the final version is already out on the internet. Ouch.

[Mozgus]

It probably didn't help things that they sat on an essentially finished game for like half a year so that they could "focus on the marketing campaign". Why the fuck does Sims need a marketing campaign? Let just one or two soccer moms play it ahead of time, and within a week, you'll probably have a fucking million women lining up to buy your Sims game. It'll spread by word of mouth just fine. Use your audience demographic to your advantage, for fucksake. All the unexplainable overnight sensation media products seem to have mostly female followings.

[drowsy]

The essential question for developers is to try to figure out how to turn some of those pirates into legitimate customers.

Make games that actually interest the pirates. They have very little interest in games like Sims, but still want to try it so downloading is their way of doing that. I'd bet that probably at least 50-60% of the people that download the game, wouldn't buy it anyway because they just don't want it THAT much.

Also, I wonder when the media will realize that console piracy is going up all the time, and with some games has already surpassed PC.

[lockwoodx]

I would like to understand at least the mental methodology you used to normalize out other factors and draw this conclusion. Or is it just wishful thinking? Right, I thought so.

The Sims is the top selling franchise of all time for PC games so it should have been pirated more due to popularity.


More proof DRM harms more than it solves.

[kwolf]

More proof DRM harms more than it solves.
You keep using this word "proof" -- I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Nikells]

Fuck the pirates. I'm glad EA have focused once again on the needs of their paying consumers over folks who aren't going to give them money however hard they try.

I'll be one of the people buying a legitimate copy of this game, I freaking love the Sims and this sequel looks like it has a lot to offer.

[Ulysses]

Disappointing, only 180,000. I thought it'd have been far far more.

[lockwoodx]

Fuck the pirates. I'm glad EA have focused once again on the needs of their paying consumers over folks who aren't going to give them money however hard they try.

I'll be one of the people buying a legitimate copy of this game, I freaking love the Sims and this sequel looks like it has a lot to offer.


I totally agree and the lack of DRM makes the purchase all that easier for everyone.

[LostToys]

Disappointing, only 180,000. I thought it'd have been far far more.

Some people may be turned off, as the current release requires that you disable The SIMS 3 access to the internet. Many people don't run software firewalls or do not want to disable their network just to kill time in The SIMS 3.

[Orz]

The essential question for developers is to try to figure out how to turn some of those pirates into legitimate customers.

The only way to prevent piracy is to require constant online authentication. The only way to do that and not have users revolt is to do that via a compelling, robust multiplayer mode. Gamers have accepted multiplayer server authentication for a while now, because the authentication process grants them a reward of online play, that they would not otherwise be able to access.

Solely single-player games, or games with a weak multiplayer component, will never be able to turn large swaths of pirates into customers.

[Rhaze]

Good to know that there's more fighting reasons against DRM than for it.

[greenapple]

The OP's editorializing is so off it's not even funny.

Either a serious misunderstanding or some VERY twisted logic.

19K/day for Spore versus 45K/day for Sims 3. How on earth does that prove that DRM promotes pirating?

[ElfShotTheFood]

So this was pirated less because of the DRM it uses/doesn't use?

Yeah, okay.

[Valkyrist]

The OP's editorializing is so off it's not even funny.

Either a serious misunderstanding or some VERY twisted logic.

19K/day for Spore versus 45K/day for Sims 3. How on earth does that prove that DRM promotes pirating?

Math eludes him.

He also apparently needs to take a reading comphrehension course, because the sentance
That outpaces the 400,000 downloads over three weeks for Electronic Arts' Spore
in his own damn quote should have told him that it's being downloaded MORE than Spore. But far be it from me to knock someone off their soap-box.

[Freethis]

With Spore, a game I had pre-ordered and wanted very badly, piracy lost EA a sale. With Sims 3, a game I had no intention of buying (for my girlfriend maybe), piracy earned EA another pre-order and a first day sale. I really don't think that you can judge sales by pre-release piracy any more than you can from people downloading a demo. It's more a reflection the attention from a certain segment of the internet population. Moreover, that segment is probably a minuscule portion of overall Sims 3 sales, considering the game's popularity with non-gamers.

[Rommel]

Nice to know when they removed DRM/SecuROM from the Sims 3 it was pirated 50% less than Spore. You hear that greedy companies? DRM promotes theft not prevents it.

Is this like saying that the correlation of violence and video games is the same as causality?

[greenapple]

Is this like saying that the correlation of violence and video games is the same as causality?

Exactly the same.

Oh, except for the part where the correlation is the inverse of that stated, because the OP's math sucks. Flipped relationship and leap of logic, for the win.

[blackzc]

Plus, the Sims is old school boredom, so who cares?

Plus, (insert any game thats come out in the past 15 years) is old school boredom.:rolleyes:

Its all been done..