The Sims 3 Leaks, EA Calling A Plumber


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Good man inside.

Wait, what do you mean by "the PS3 uncracked", correct me if I'm wrong, but there are plenty of cracked games for PS3.

Sometimes no one bothers cracking something, there are quite a few games that have never been cracked, simply because the effort isn't worth it, or patches for example - not all groups bother to release a new crack (it's not always needed, but I assume devs include some sort of a modification to the security with each patch).

Then I shall correct you, the PS3 remains uncracked, you cannot play copied games on it.

The only argument you can make is some groups have cloned Blu Ray discs of PS3 games and put them online but

a) There is no way to play them

b) If a way arises to play them it's uncertain if they will even work in their ripped state (may need patched or re-ripped differently)

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I would love to know of the games that were cracked AFTER their actual release date. I'm sure that list is quite miniscule.

Anyway, I'm done arguing there is something more interesting I'd rather talk about and its something you keep mentioning. The future of DRM.

I don't think DRM is ever gonna die. The indie companies that remove their DRM, as noble/ignoble as that endeavor may be, are the same people that have jumped on Valve's Steam game distribution system, itself a piece of intelligently designed DRM.

Its intelligent because it provides a valueadd to the customer for purchasing the game. (sometimes at very awesome prices, check your weekend deals) It allows for you to login anywhere in the world and download your games and play them anywhere. (assuming EA hasn't added EXTRA DRM to your game) You never need to worry about scratched media, patches, activation, deactivation, cdkeys and more.

It pats the customer on the back for purchasing the game with their money, instead of slapping them repeatedly and treating them like a thief after they have gone all the way to EBgames and purchased the game.

This is the future of DRM. ValueAdded features only available to users that have purchased the game. Multiplayer is one of those features and it does a pretty good job of convincing people to spend the money.

The PS3 argument itself can be brought up. In addition to the constant steam of time consuming updates that Sony sends over to prevent such piracy, this generation of consoles have had more online services and much more downloads a pirate would not be able to take advantage of. The piracy situation for consoles doesn't make as much sense as it used to thanks to, in large part, by these valueadd features.

DRM can no longer be about screwing over paying customers and giving pirates a better user experience, even EA has realized this. I hope Sims 3 will be on Steam sooner or later.

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I would love to know of the games that were cracked AFTER their actual release date. I'm sure that list is quite miniscule.

Anyway, I'm done arguing there is something more interesting I'd rather talk about and its something you keep mentioning. The future of DRM.

I don't think DRM is ever gonna die. The indie companies that remove their DRM, as noble/ignoble as that endeavor may be, are the same people that have jumped on Valve's Steam game distribution system, itself a piece of intelligently designed DRM.

Its intelligent because it provides a valueadd to the customer for purchasing the game. (sometimes at very awesome prices, check your weekend deals) It allows for you to login anywhere in the world and download your games and play them anywhere. (assuming EA hasn't added EXTRA DRM to your game) You never need to worry about scratched media, patches, activation, deactivation, cdkeys and more.

It pats the customer on the back for purchasing the game with their money, instead of slapping them repeatedly and treating them like a thief after they have gone all the way to EBgames and purchased the game.

This is the future of DRM. ValueAdded features only available to users that have purchased the game. Multiplayer is one of those features and it does a pretty good job of convincing people to spend the money.

The PS3 argument itself can be brought up. In addition to the constant steam of time consuming updates that Sony sends over to prevent such piracy, this generation of consoles have had more online services and much more downloads a pirate would not be able to take advantage of. The piracy situation for consoles doesn't make as much sense as it used to thanks to, in large part, by these valueadd features.

DRM can no longer be about screwing over paying customers and giving pirates a better user experience, even EA has realized this. I hope Sims 3 will be on Steam sooner or later.

Value added features can only go so far. Some games are pointless with shoehorned in multiplayer. Some games will always remain a single player experience.

Steam is definitely one future avenue of curving piracy, but until digital distribution can become truly mainstream it's not a great avenue for certain games like the Sims.

I bought Football Manager 2009 a while ago on disc because it only cost me ?26, but steam wanted something like ?35. Funny thing was when I got home and installed from disc I had an option to integrate into my steam accoun:laugh:h: It's just like I own a steam copy now, but I also have the disc in safe keeping, even although I can re-download through steam if I format my PC. More games should be like that if still offering a physical copy. It also shows how crappy digital distribution prices can be...

For the record, FM2009 remained un-cracked for a fair few weeks forcing a lot of pirates to buy it. It has a licensing scheme in place. I think there's still bother every time an update is released for it (for the pirates).

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Steam isn't just digital distribution, you can ship physical disks that unlock via Steam.

My view of the subject is, piracy is never going away and you've got to accept that, but there should be incentives to encourage people to but the game. As said, not every game will benefit from multiplayer, but others will (so locking pirates to single player only when there's good multiplayer hurts them), or providing free content updates for people who have bought the game.

Although, locking down the system like they did with the PS3 certainly helps (a heck of a lot).

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Although, locking down the system like they did with the PS3 certainly helps (a heck of a lot).

Just to kind of kill that discussion off though, the PC can never be like a console, it's an open platform.

Consoles are closed platforms, no matter how much they may offer outside of games (you can even install linux on the PS3), it's still a closed platform on proprietary hardware (hardware modified for the PS3, you can't buy what's inside it for your PC).

Much easier for console hardware to stand up against piracy for longer spells of time, which is why devs are flocking to consoles this generation. PC gamers may complain about that (getting ports from consoles and what not), but the majority of you are doing it to yourselves by not buying PC games in the volumes that console gamers do.

Even although the 360 is compromised the risk is getting your hardware banned, enough to put some off. Again the PC can't ban you from squat. The Nintendo Wii is now heavily compromised (you don't need to void warranty) which definitely seems to be impacting on the sales of the hardcore Wii titles.

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What most PC gamers complain about is the half-assed ports (I know I do)

A good port is seamless, a bad port runs at half the speed on faster hardware.

Edit: Yeah, the PS3 runs Linux, but it's locked down to the point where you can't access the graphics card fully, although there has been work done on getting through the hypervisor.

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What most PC gamers complain about is the half-assed ports (I know I do)

A good port is seamless, a bad port runs at half the speed on faster hardware.

A bad port can't fully be excused, but part of that does come from developers shunning or not caring as much about the PC version due to their perceptions of how it will sell.

In the ideal world the PC should never even be getting a port, the PC is the most powerful out of the three (PC/PS3/360), it should be getting a version built up from the ground that scales well with PC hardware both low to high end. Not console ports that are insanely broken, Hi GTA4.

Ports though are born out of lower development budgets attributed to piracy on the platform. Why spend a $20,000,000 budget on the game when it's sales aren't going to even cover that? That figure is not uncommon in console gaming, in fact some titles like Killzone 2 are rumoured to be around the 40m mark.

Look at the PC versions of something like FIFA09 - The PC version should have awesome graphics and all the bells and whistles but instead the PC version is somewhere in-between the PS2 and PS3/360 version. The current gen console versions are superior... It's sad really but PC gamers do it to themselves.

Even good games/ports say Fallout 3 or Bioshock (I don't think any of these were actually ported?) scream of being tarded down for the "console crowd". Why? Well the main focus was probably on the console versions in development "affecting" the outcome of the PC version regardless of if it was a port or not...

Edited by Audioboxer
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In an ideal world, the game core should be written well enough to scale across the hardware. Look at Source used by Valve, the same source code is used to compile the PC version and the 360 version, their work on porting it to the 360 resulted in memory savings in the PC version.

Hell, the L4D version on the 360 was so close to the PC version that people found out how to rebind the game pad keys and run commands.

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Wow everything appears to be leaking these days :/

These days? Leaks and piracy has been going on since the dawn of digital media, almost - Then once every full moon a game or movie appears to leak way ahead of time, nothing new either.

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In an ideal world, the game core should be written well enough to scale across the hardware. Look at Source used by Valve, the same source code is used to compile the PC version and the 360 version, their work on porting it to the 360 resulted in memory savings in the PC version.

Hell, the L4D version on the 360 was so close to the PC version that people found out how to rebind the game pad keys and run commands.

L4D is in a sort of "special" scenario though. The 360 is much more akin to a PC in development than the PS3. Valve do not like the PS3 therefore will probably never release their games on it meaning they can do a better job of PC/360 cross platform versions.

However most other multiplatform developers will focus on 360/PS3 transparency long before they focus on PC/360/PS3 or PC/360 or PC/PS3 transparency. They'll put most of their budget into making the PS3 and 360 versions almost identical then the left overs will be left for the PC port, or outsourcing the PC port.

Regardless of how it's done it's a grim scenario because the PC should never be getting ports from the inferior platforms. You should always be working to your highest common denominator but that isn't going to be happening whilst PC piracy is rampant for a lot of devs.

Exceptions made though for hugely popular multiplayer games, I believe the COD PC engine was made from the ground up? However that ties into games with multiplayer modes being purchased because pirates can't play online. COD4 PC will probably have breached a couple million units, still behind the PS3/360, but enough to justify blowing a budget on a PC engine made from the ground up.

Edited by Audioboxer
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The COD engines are all derivatives of the Quake 3 Arena engine. Not much of that original code is left probably but there you are. Every IW-developed iteration of the game has had its engine successivley updated but not rewritten as far as we know.

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Regardless of the leak, I am still purchasing the Collector's Edition on June 2nd. It has been planned as a birthday present from my wife to me, and I am not about to destroy that with a hacked up version of the game. I'm not saying I haven't downloaded cracked games in the past, but if it's something that I'm really looking forward to/want to play, I will be patient and purchase it at the first opportunity.

I own the original Sims and every expansion for it (Making Magic twice so my wife and I can play at the same time), and I have purchased The Sims 2 and Apartment Life. I'm actually looking forward to The Sims 3, and I could care less about the DRM in place to attempt to keep everything legal.

While I agree that DRM can be annoying at times, it is still in it's infancy. I believe that, in time, DRM will become a viable deterrent, but not until enough research is put into perfecting it to be invisible in the background.

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I never understood the whining about DRM, I've bought quite a few games and never had any problem with re-installing them or installing them on other PC's.

Of course I've no idea how to spot a DRM based game.. but I just assume that all of the new ones are.

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Source: http://www.nidzumi.com/the-sims-3-leaks-ea-calling-a-plumber

Pretty harsh for EA, happened with Rock Band for PSP a month early as well. Clearly they have someone internally leaking things. Certainly doesn't help with the state of piracy on the PC platform as it is, although The Sims 3 should still sell well overall.

No links.

:)

PC Zone have reviewed it, but as far as i'm aware they're the only ones to have done so. They gave it 92% as well so it looks as though it should be quite good.

I would have to agree that a score of 92% seems pretty accurate.

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If one title can live through the piracy, it is the Sims. Honestly their core audience probably have never even heard of a torrent, nevermind all of the other outlets out there to download, so while I am not at all condoning or even saying it is cool this happened, it only affects a very, very small number of the people who will actually buy it. Most people downloading it right now are just doing so because it is a large title and it is three weeks early. They will DL it, install it, and maybe check it out once or twice. Maybe a small amount of those people will hook up their aunt or little cousins with it, but I believe they are downloading it simply because they can...

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I never understood the whining about DRM, I've bought quite a few games and never had any problem with re-installing them or installing them on other PC's.

Of course I've no idea how to spot a DRM based game.. but I just assume that all of the new ones are.

Several new EA games... Three or five installs and you are out of the game. Yes, you have deactivation tools and such things, but when you think about it, it is much easier just to download a cracked .exe file and replace the original one, instead of activating/deactivating the game, allowing it to home-call every few minutes/hours/whenever you start the game, messing with their support team to fix some issues and so on...

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It's the ultimate casual game. I doubt this early leak will affect sales significantly.

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Several new EA games... Three or five installs and you are out of the game. Yes, you have deactivation tools and such things, but when you think about it, it is much easier just to download a cracked .exe file and replace the original one, instead of activating/deactivating the game, allowing it to home-call every few minutes/hours/whenever you start the game, messing with their support team to fix some issues and so on...

except The Sims was supposed to be one of the first EA games with no DRM.

so with this game leaking 3 weeks early and some other titles now having DRM able to keep the game protected for 2-3 weeks or so after release.... I don't see a bright future for further no DRM releases.

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except The Sims was supposed to be one of the first EA games with no DRM.

so with this game leaking 3 weeks early and some other titles now having DRM able to keep the game protected for 2-3 weeks or so after release.... I don't see a bright future for further no DRM releases.

It's just a big game of ideals vs morals. It will rage on for some time.

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I'm guessing DRM has been broken for The Sims 3 ALREADY?

As I said, unless EA suddenly changed their mind. Sims 3 doesn't have DRM.

just the same age old CD key that was before all these DRM's

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Sims 3 supposedly has an online activation system, you need to block the game from going online plus there's no .exe included in the installation, I believe that's what it downloads when activating it. Not that it wasn't easily bypassed ...

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