EA Pixelates Pirated Copies of The Sims 4

[The Lunatic]

It got fixed pretty much instantly.

It's only affected a very small number of pirates.

So, unfortunately, there's not some mass of illegal downloaders being thwarted by pixelation.

However, as with all things, there will always be issues with a pirated version over a legitimate copy, so, if you're looking to enjoy the game, buy it.


Though, if you're looking to get enjoyment from The Sims 4, good luck.

 

[Callate]

I think they should take a cue from the Simpsons movie and only un-pixelize the naughty bits.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

I think the Sims look a lot more stylish when pixelated.

 

[Aristatide]

How exactly do we know only pirates are being affected? Forgive me my skepticism, but I remember some of the other things that went down (especially with the Sims!) in the past in the name of EA-vs-Pirates, and I remember how often the pirates actually had the least of it.

 

[Bindal]

Okay, props to EA for doing that.

This actually reminds me of the pink scorpion of death that Croteam used on Serious Sam 3. Better to use methods like that rather than intrusive DRM.

Someone will figure it out, eventually, but it took about 6 months for someone to figure it out with Serious Sam.

Took people even longer to ADD the scorpion to the legit copy - but someone did it. No, seriously.

How exactly do we know only pirates are being affected? Forgive me my skepticism, but I remember some of the other things that went down (especially with the Sims!) in the past in the name of EA-vs-Pirates, and I remember how often the pirates actually had the least of it.

We can't but the amount of legitimate customers with that thing affecting their game should be a very tiny fractions - and when they can deliver a proof of purchase (usually via the key or something along those lines), they'll still get their support.

 

[Strazdas]

This reminds me of the GTA4 "drunk driving" that pirates fixed within a day. This seems to be fixed even faster. altrough i almost want to see how it looks now.

I do like when this is the way they do it, unintrusive and fun rather than punishing legitimate costumers. Of course its preferable that it does not cost them half a million like it cost gta4 to implement.

This reminds me of Game Dev Story where pirated copies would have their in in-game business ruined because of pirates. That is how you combat piracy: something game-breaking yet funny that doesn't affect legit customers.

the problem with Game Dev Story was that legitimate costumers would also constantly get ruined by unrealistic piracy making it impossible to distinguish whether a person complaining from pirated version or legitimate one.

Fair play to them, it doesn't affect legitimate customers and only the pirates. I wonder if they have grounds for banning Origin accounts though? If someone contacts them with their Origin ID, say over the live chat customer support and whines about their pirated game if EA could consider banning the Origin account.

Not sure how I would feel about that if they did though, not unless they could be 100% sure and even then I don't know.

yeah... they cant really do that. removal of your games without a good reason (and no complaining about a bug that only pirates recieve is not a good reason) is grounds for suing. even after EAs obtrusive EULA.

Transaction history/key activation.
If the account dose not have a copy of the sims, while complaining about how buggy there copy is.
At that point I would just consider it a stupid tax if they had any games on there account.

It's also the lesser evil seeing they probably have enough information to sue the person aswell

but what if a person bought a game and then pirated it anyway just so he would not have to deal with semi-broken DRM like keeps happening for ubisoft games?

How exactly do we know only pirates are being affected? Forgive me my skepticism, but I remember some of the other things that went down (especially with the Sims!) in the past in the name of EA-vs-Pirates, and I remember how often the pirates actually had the least of it.

One doesnt. One has to trust the word of EA. One has to ignore all the problems with EA DRM we had for decades.

 

[Artaneius]

Hardly any point in it. Apparently there is already to bypass that. The only way to stop piracy is by making everything cloud based. PC and Console piracy will never die otherwise.

 

[Revolutionary]

Doesn't stop your game from being bare-bones shit EA, and it sure as hell won't stop the pirates.

 

[Cal Shackleford]

This is a really cute idea. Not sure about how effective it will be in the long run, especially if there ends up being a workaround, but seems like a fun alternative to more cumbersome methods.

 

[FalloutJack]

I actually looked this up and the pirates allready found a workaround for this "DRM".
It's of course highly complicated and involves a significant amount of high-tech knowledge.
Apparently the pirates have to do a so-called "re-name" of the ".exe".

In all seriousness the above is actually true. I mean kudos to the devs for getting such an entertaining form of "DRM" into their game, but if it is really circumvented THAT easily it's a bit embarrassing as well.

The funny part is that old schoolers might actually enjoy it that way. Even still, EA has to learn to stop giving reasons for these guys to shout "Challenge Accepted!". Seriously, it's all a game to them. And when it's over? All that work for nothing. What a waste. They should've just made the game better.

 

[SweetShark]

This actually reminds me of the pink scorpion of death that Croteam used on Serious Sam 3. Better to use methods like that rather than intrusive DRM.

Someone will figure it out, eventually, but it took about 6 months for someone to figure it out with Serious Sam.

I only came here to say about this as well. Creative ways to make the pirates to buy your game are always welcome [for a good laugh I mean]. SOmething similar happened if I remember with Skullgirls.
If you pirated the game, a very strange message pop-up.

Anyway, good job EA. However how long it will take for the pirates to remove this "trap"?

 

[Bindal]

but what if a person bought a game and then pirated it anyway just so he would not have to deal with semi-broken DRM like keeps happening for ubisoft games?

Sounds legal to me - you own something, so installing it in an unintended way (which the pirate version would be) sounds fine to me. You paid for the product, then using it should only depend on you. Even if that means aquiring a second copy you play instead.

 

[SweetShark]

Doesn't stop your game from being bare-bones shit EA, and it sure as hell won't stop the pirates.

Why the game is bad? Specific details please?

 

[ElMinotoro]

This reminds me of Game Dev Story where pirated copies would have their in in-game business ruined because of pirates. That is how you combat piracy: something game-breaking yet funny that doesn't affect legit customers.

CAPTCHA: beg the question
Here is a question that needs to be begged: Why didn't EA do something like this sooner?

I want to point out that nobody knew about Game Dev Tycoon (not Story) and that the Pirate version was released by the developer itself. The entire idea was just marketing and they shouldn't be applauded for attention grabbing bullshit.

Who d/led GDT because they were so psyched for it? Nobody. They saw a new healthy game torrent and went "I wonder what that is?". One day later there's articles all over game media.

 

[b3nn3tt]

This is the kind of DRM that I consider to be acceptable. It leaves the game playable (to an extent) so that people who've pirated it can't tell straight away that something's wrong, and it doesn't (in theory) affect people who've bought the game legitimately. Yes, sooner or later somebody will work around it and it won't be an issue for pirated copies any more, but it's all about making the legitimate version seem the better option.

To my mind, this is what DRM should be; something that will inconvenience pirates whilst not affecting legitimate customers, in order to make buying the game seem the better option. I'm especially impressed that it's EA doing this, considering some of their previous DRM efforts. Hopefully this will become a regular thing with game companies, so that DRM stops being more of a deterrent to legitimate customers than pirates.

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

Frankly I'm surprised at the good reception of this.

I mean, this won't affect pirates one bit, everyone knows that. And I don't see anywhere how the game determines whether it's pirated or not so it might backfire and affect legitimate users like every attempt to tackle piracy they made so far.

 

[J Tyran]

Fair play to them, it doesn't affect legitimate customers and only the pirates. I wonder if they have grounds for banning Origin accounts though? If someone contacts them with their Origin ID, say over the live chat customer support and whines about their pirated game if EA could consider banning the Origin account.

Not sure how I would feel about that if they did though, not unless they could be 100% sure and even then I don't know.

yeah... they cant really do that. removal of your games without a good reason (and no complaining about a bug that only pirates recieve is not a good reason) is grounds for suing. even after EAs obtrusive EULA.

I agree, I'm not entirely on board with it myself. I think that if someone did contact EA customer service through their Origin ID to complain about a pirated copy of the new Sims game and the rep cannot see a transaction where they bought it EA would be within their rights to refuse services to that person though, completely banning the account would effectively be seizing legitimately bought property which would be wrong but they have the right to decide who uses their services though.

Ban that user from EA owned multiplayer servers/game lobbies/server lists, no more free updates or access to social features and things like that then just leave them able to play the games they already own.

but what if a person bought a game and then pirated it anyway just so he would not have to deal with semi-broken DRM like keeps happening for ubisoft games?

Sounds legal to me - you own something, so installing it in an unintended way (which the pirate version would be) sounds fine to me. You paid for the product, then using it should only depend on you. Even if that means aquiring a second copy you play instead.

Its not as simple as that though, generally you are entitled to make a back up copy of a piece of media you own but in some places around the world its illegal to bypass any technological barriers a right holder puts in place. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US has these anti circumvention provisions for example and the EU has something similar too, whether a publisher can or would enforce it is another matter entirely but technically it is illegal to bypass DRM even when you have bought a legitimate copy of a piece of media.

 

[alj]

This is funny, it does not stop you playing just makes it look strange, i like the game dev tycoon one better however.

That being said you charge people for a game that's inferior to the older game and then expect them to buy everything again what do you expect.

But to be fair you should just play the old one inn that case.

 

[IAmTheToaster]

Except, as noted in the PCGamer article, legit customers have reported the error effecting them, too. That's more concerning, but inevitable, really.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/09/04/sims-4-mosaic-bug-turns-out-to-be-surprise-anti-piracy-measure/

Slightly off-topic: I wish people wouldn't praise the GDT method. GDT, to my knowledge (and please do correct me if i'm wrong), took nearly all of its content from the IOS title Game Dev Story. That'd be fine, but the issue is I've never seen it give any credit to the original game. It's not that I have a problem with games taking heavy inspiration from others, it's that on launch it felt like a carbon copy with a few more sliders..