Romanian site SoftSailor is among those reporting the supposed leak:
For the moment we can’t tell for sure if the game is real as the packed/unpacked leaks are sized somewhere near 5GB. The small size of the game makes us think that this is not the actual game, but maybe it’s an unfinished version of The Sims 3 life simulation game...[updated] P.S. From what I’ve read, the game is real and many are playing it right now.
Well-known torrent site The Pirate Bay, whose operators are appealing their recent conviction by a Swedish court on piracy charges, currently has a 4.94GB file named The.Sims.3-Reloaded posted.
GP: Pending confirmation from more reliable sources, we'll call this one a rumor for now...
Based on comments to the article it looks like it has been leaked:
I have to wonder if EA will try to use this to justify stonger DRM.
When I was young I had cowboys, indians and army men and thus today enjoy war games and strategy games, but also enjoyed Sinbad movies so I enjoy fantasy type games as well such as Neverwinter Nights. The Sims series is a Ken and Barbie game... it allows anyone to play with Ken, Barbie and their friends on the PC.
I completely agree... it's a Ken and Barbie game.
This is for women. This is for kids, This is for idiots. Etc. If you don't like it, despise it. After all, it's just some kind of 2nd class game for 2nd class people.
I happen to like it. I liked 1 and 2 but never bought (that includes not playing) an expansion (it's fun but I prefer Gal Civ II and Civ IV style games, or Neverwinter Nights style ones). It's a fun game with elements from which other kind of games could learn a thing or two. Specially the so called (many times wrongly) RPGs*.
Maybe I like it because I'm a woman (because as usual, people thinks that using a female avatar is a female thing... so I suppose that during that period of my life that I used to use a kitten avatar I was, in fact, a kitten), or a weirdo or not a true macho man. As a kid I played with boys the usual games but I also happened to play with girls (family ones) and some of their games. So maybe that makes me more open minded about the things that people, that are different from me, likes.
Bah, whatever, enough off topic. Rant done.
*Give me a game with the functionality of the Sims plus all the quests, story, adventure parties and the like of a traditional RPG (with included editors a la Elemental for extended and personalized fun) and I'll be a happy kitten.
I think it's rather fortunate that this game was leaked - it may even have been leaked on purpose.
Much of the projected demographic for this game aren't "women" but, for lack of a better word, "more demanding gamers." Such gamers are the type who would prefer console games if they liked the fare console games offered (like the Wii) - that is, they want to buy tha game, plug it, and play it.
Such a demographic doesn't pirate games because for them, the cost of piracy is too high - they'll never do it under any circumstance, so leaking the game doesn't affect sales for that demographic.
Furthermore, you test the game for free across a wide number of machines, while maintaining that it's all illegal; so of those people who play the game before release, the number of people who would have bought the game anyway, if it was any good, would be very high - not a lot of lost sales there either.
Finally, if the game is good (and it looks like it is), you get the grass-roots buzz and the good word-of-mouth.
So even if this were unintentional, the leak of Sims3 has so many benefits for EA that I don't find it hard to think that whatever they lose from piracy, they probably stand to gain much more.
I can see that. Lots of companies benefit from pirated games, free advertising. I have a friend that works in a developer company (won't say who), and he says they actually did release a game early over torrents on purpose; the CEO was the one who uploaded it himself. It saves time and money advertising, it generates word of mouth, and the game's gonna get pirated anyway, so if you make an astounding game Like Sins, with no crappy DRM, then I agree more money will come in.
Speaking of which, I like to reiterate that DRM is absolutely pointless, pretty much no matter where you go. There will always be ways around DRM, because there is always a way needed to let the consumer play the original, hence, the hole in the DRM. Instead of spending millions inventing new DRM, and getting past the threshold of "Oh it won't work for the consumers either because we made it too powerful," why don't you spend that money on, I don't know, making a better game?
Ironclad's got the idea, no DRM and still sold over 1 million, yes? This is why companies like EA can shove it with their DRM. I'll come back when their DRM goes away. What will you have, the fickle people who sometimes will buy your game, or the always loyal DRM? Hey, at least DRM will pay the bills instead of a chance people will buy your game, right?
Alpha492:
Now wait just a second there. There have been significant improvements to the matchup and online performances, but the basic fundamental problem is the P2P setup, which is a relatively untested method of arranging online matches. It's relatively new technology and the devs are putting in the effort.
No one is entitled to this work until the devs can make back the investment they put in. This is based on the very realistic reasoning of "if they can't eat, they will stop making games," philosophy.
I've been waiting to purchase Demigod because of all the good things I've heard about it, but I have held back because I was wary of their P2P setup, which did turn out to have the problems I was worried about. The lesson you SHOULD have learned is to do your research before buying product - ANY product, not just games.
Well, I'm a man, picked it up retail on Tues release date with the game guide as well, and I love it. Never played the Sims series before; it reminds me of an RPG / soft RTS of real life (with leveling!).
It is the first game to get me away from Lord of the Rings Online for more than 24 hours since January (Demigod came close). I am a huge RPG and Strategy guy, having played and continue to play Fallout 3, ESIV: Oblivion, Kings Bounty: Legend, S.T.A.L.K.E.R (both), Company of Heroes, etc. Sims 3 is extremely polished and a bunch of fun.
(Soapbox Time) - First game since Crysis I bought out of the EA stables, entirely due to their draconian DRM (limited installs). Sims 3 doesn't have that - I can live with a disk check.
I look at piracy this way: i play "full game demos".
Same as with this game, i downloaded a cracked version in beta stage and liked the game so i bought it.
If i download a cracked game i dont like, im not buying it, and im not playing it either because i didn't like the game and play something else.
The problem with computer games these days is that u usualy dont really know what youre buying.
Now that would not be a big problem if we were talking about 5 euro's or something, but games are way more expensive than that.
And since i dont really have much money and cant afford to buy a new game every month i download cracked games so i know what im spending my money on and if its worth that money to me and i wont end up paying a lot of money for something i play 3 times and never look at again.
by the way here is another older topic on this with some interesting points.
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/301838
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