That’s a smash in the face! EA Games still plays the blockhead and will force Sims gamers to activate The Sims 3 online.

Loyal Sims-Fans who legally buy the game and let EA’s stock index rise will be treated like criminals and need to mess around with an unwanted, insecure and super buggy “Copy Protection Software” – however you call such stuff.

The source of this information is the product description on Amazon.de and EA’s latest “Anti-Piracy Policy”. Remember “Spore” OMG!

The worst of all is the ignorant and arrogant posture of EA Games: Clients? Fans? What is that? Oh, you mean those potential criminals!

I understand. Why should EA care about us Sims addicts? Everybody knows that the game will become a super mega seller for the next couple of years, no matter what crap EA burns onto the DVD…

I don’t care about “Piracy”!

EA Games has problems with piracy? Fine, but i don’t care, it isn’t my problem! I buy games at Amazon or my local dealer, i never was captured by pirates and i don’t know what EA is talking about.

I pay 50 bucks (or even 70 for the “Collector’s Edition”) and get additional software that is poison for my PC, sends whatever data through the web and forces me to beg for more authentication codes if i need to install the game more than x-times!

Copy Protection is useless!

Here’s a fact i just read today:

Although a “Copy Protection” software ships with “Spore”, the game has been “illegally” downloaded over the BitTorrent network about 1.7 Million times. How comes? I thought such software would destroy piracy… that’s what they say.

I’ve also heard quite often that people only “share” Spore because there is a protection thing on board! In this case (and i own a legal copy) i think that’s a cool form of protest! All the discussion or this blog post won’t change anything – but those protest-filesharers really hurt…

A good game will find more buyers!

And of course, it quickly became clear to see that the game (Spore) was a huge disappointment! It’s no surprise that people better want to safe money and test a “free” copy first after they heard all the bad stories.

Now i’m sure that you can get a freshly pressed copy of Spore for less than 10 USD on ebay.

Back to EA Games’ strategy. I don’t think they are doing right. They should listen to their clients and find another way to fight software piracy – a way the honest seller doesn’t need to pay for (both, in money and usability).

It’s Schizophrenic!

Well, i need to pay a few bucks more because there is a protection system that makes no sense. I must install a root-kit-like spying software because of EA’s strange Anti-Piracy vision but there will be millions of shared copies anyway.

It’s not the pirate, it’s me who has to tell EA who i am and how often i install my game.

Those guys who always get stuff for free won’t stop sharing because EA is so clever. But more and more people will just start to share copies because it’s all so disappointing – after years and years of devoted fandom.

And me? I’m really angry about myself. Because i know for sure that i will be one of the first in the shop anyway!

Argh ;)

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