The Sims 3 Leaks Online

Nidzumi writes: It can't be a good day for EA, maybe someone opened an umbrella inside, as The Sims 3 has leaked over three weeks before it's retail release. This follows on from the news that Rock Band Unplugged for the piracy rampant PSP leaked nearly a month before release.

[dktxx2]

It's bad enough pirating a game gets you it free of charge, but also 3 weeks earlier? thats some serious temptation right there.

[cmacdonald]

3 weeks early might be a killer. A few days might not temp fans but 3 weeks is crazy.

[evrfighter]

Good things are comin my way once I let the wife know...seeya guys tomorrow :)

[-MD-]

"Honey I stole this game for you"

"How thoughtful"

[BRG9000]

This game's broad (read: casual) appeal should help it through this though. Your average Sims player isn't going to hear its leaked or know how to find/use it if they do. They're going to see the commercials, know they enjoyed Sims 2, and head to Walmart or Best Buy to pick it up.

[free2game365]

Most of the audience for The Sims don't even know what Bittorents are.

[Monk3y]

i was thinking about the same thing! ^

[neoxdonut]

Sweet three weeks before it's release, I mean... Pirating games is bad.

[PinkUni]

is good

one more step towards communism

[Kakkoii]

And your 1 more step towards retardation.

[f789790]

It replaced two of my games that refused to reinstall on my new computer.

[Shadow Man]

Thanks N4Pirates

[theox2g7]

and yet this game will go on to sell 10 Gazillion copies, jeez, pointless article, It's the friggin best selling pc franchise of all time, The main market for this game isn't tech savvy enough to pirate this game, It'll still sell bucketloads, heck, look at the NPD charts, You'll still decade old Sims games on there, Those things are like crack for moms and girls

100 million copies of Sims games sold, And that's with only 2 major games and 7 spin-offs that all flopped and lost support, Meaning the lionshare of sales was for Sims 1 and 2, Sims 3 will be a beast

Piracy has been there since the Doom days, I don't see why people make so much sensationalism out of it now, When things haven't really changed, It's still pretty hard to pin down a logical pattern that actually shows a plausible correlation between piracy and sales, Just look at Spore, Crysis that sold millions with significantly higher piracy rates than other games, And other games like Alone in the Dark that had almost zero piracy with its dreaded draconian protection and yet sold poorly, Quality and appeal sells regardless of piracy, until i see some hard evidence that proves otherwise, I'm not saying piracy has 0 effect on sales, but it isn't the earth shattering difference the media makes it out to be and they'll keep singing the same song pc gaming is dead 20 years from now like they've been doing for the past decade and it won't change a damn thing

[LeeZer]

i downloaded this yesterday to see what it's like. my girlfriend loves the sims series. i've bought her both the last ones and i'm damn sure she'll end up with 3 when it comes out. I only downloaded it to see if there was any real improvement in this to the last one, and yest it's a significant as useuall to get the latest version when it comes out. I totally agree with theo with the target audiance not being hardcore tech savvy users and more casual useers who don't care for piracy as they don't buy enough games to warrant the piracy root. i'm also quite suprised that there hasn't been a leak sooner as i was speaking to a couple of conected industry testers and reviewers and they all told me that they played pretty much complete versions way back at the end of last year before december.

also the game industry is only just catching up with the piracy problem, movies and music has suffered for years with this leak problem with many movies and cd's becoming avalable months before release. i remeber a few game for the ps1 that i had early. the best example i can think of was teken 3 japaness version witch i had about 3 months before japaness release and about 9 months before europian release.

[Redempteur]

AFter rock band psp now i'm sure of it

2 huge franchises lekaed in one weeks ...some heads will fly ..

[MasterChief3624]

Remember that whole Spore leak fiasco last year?

Lol...

Now I'm starting to think you're on to something :P

[MasterChief3624]

Let's hope this doesn't hurt the game's commercial success too much. I'm sure it won't, considering the audience the game reaches out to branches further out than the pirates of the internet.

Then again, more and more average people are starting to pirate games, because of how much easier it has become to do.... so I don't know.

I wonder if the game wouldn't have been leaked this early had it come out on its intended release date... :?

[lh_swe]

Despite the fact that this game is going to sell like a million copies on it's first day, I still feel it's a franchise worth funding.

[danielle007]

I'm not actually against piracy.. So I don't care, really. But, I do like EA, for the most part, and I want a mirror's edge 2, so give them yo moneys.

[cpuchess]

I am sure you would be just fine if someone stole your paycheck after you worked all week for it too.

[Th3 Chr0nic]

screw EA. if they want to sim something then lest simulate them getting raped by piracy lol. im sure there is all kinds of DRM on that crap anyway and you need an account to play online so it prob doesnt matter that much really. people just get an early peak at it

[AngryAmoeba]

piracy isn't really stealing the developers' paychecks because they still get paid...

[silvacrest]

that paycheck scenario is weak

if one person steals you paycheck you gain nothing for a months worth of work

if one person steals the game you made it is unlikly to effect sales, times that 1 person by 1000 and the loss is still minimal

very few games have been pirated to the point where it signicantly effected sales, only spore comes to mind and im not even sure about that

[danielle007]

I'm not saying pirate everything, steal their moneys, eat their children, and call it a day. I'm just saying that if people pirate from time to time, i'm not going to judge them or care, we're all short on money these days.

And I want EA to have lots of extra moneys so they don't just use their madden cash cow, and do original IPs like mirror's edge. :D

[Charmers]

WOW people will actually waste their bandwidth on this rubbish !! Seriously I hope it gets pirated to hell and back we don't need this pathetic "play with dolls" crap on the PC.

[Strelnikov]

live and let live, seriously
it's not your bandwidth, is it?

[ambientFLIER]

Wow, I don't like EA, but this pisses me off. If I was the CEO, I'd offer something like a million dollars for the information leading up to arrest of the person who is responsible. Make an example out of him for the rest of the industry.

[Ldubbz]

We all know this will be the top-seller this year.

[dogmeat eater]

Expect massive pirating for this game. What can you really expect with PC games anyways? They always get pirated. Time to go download it right now! Thanks for the heads up!

[Ldubbz]

But I seriously doubt that. The only people that would even be aware of its early release would contain the same group that would actually steal it.

Pirating can take a chunk out of anything's sales, but for a game like this, with the demographic that will buy it in serious numbers, I dont see that happening.