EA Pixelates Pirated Copies of The Sims 4

[Akisa]

Ah I remember complaining about a bug for game that "only" appeared in pirated copies. Ask for help on the steam forums and people say you pirated the game and yet it's your steam game list.

 

[BX3]

Alright, so EA are a bunch of incompetent money-grubbers and I'm quite disappointed that Sims 4 ended up a stripped down mess. Buuuut, I have to admit, I always get a huge kick out of it when developers do stuff like this. So... good job EA...? Ugh, that didn't sound right.

 

[laggyteabag]

These ideas have always been a lot more interesting than they are effective. Sure, they might seem like they will deter piracy, but give them time and they will get past it, if they havent already.

 

[cookyt]

That screencap: it's like I'm playing runescape again! I'm up for this kind of copy-protection, and had a good laugh about it when Game Dev Tycoon did something similar. That said it's rather important how they're detecting pirated copies. If there's the risk of even one false-positive, then the whole approach is no good.

 

[chadachada123]

While we're on the subject of DRM and piracy, I remember pirated copies of Earthbound being incredibly difficult to progress through, because it added an insane amount of random encounters that wouldn't appear normally. Just constant barrages of enemies.

To top it off, it would freeze during the final boss. Always. It made the game unbeatable.

Well done, Nintendo. Very well done.

 

[geldonyetich]

EA is perfectly aware the PC piracy situation is off the hook, and neither are they expecting this little pixel prank to be good for anything other than the lawls. This is why they foist so much DLC, it offsets the losses from piracy for them.

 

[DestinyCall]

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?

He actually gave a reason. It is a stripped down version of the previous titles which doesn't bring anything significant to the table and leaves out way too much core content available in previous Sims games.

 

[WeepingAngels]

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.

Exactly. It's like people develop amnesia when some "new" form of DRM is introduced. I have had a couple of games that have read false positives and refused to let me play. One of them was named Fate, the securom insisted that my disc was a backup and the same thing happens with a Clue game I have.

Do people really believe that this is immune to false positives?

 

[Denamic]

As far as DRM goes, this is pretty cool. Though I can't imagine it'll take very long for it to be bypassed, if it hasn't already.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

All those things are bypassed really fast nowadays. Looking at the first response in this thread it's also ridiculously easy to do so.
Those users should know better than to complain on the official forums though...

Anyhow, hearing how many features The Sims 4 misses over previous installments, I'm not sure why anyone would want to buy it.

 

[Svarr]

That photo makes the game look better! Keep on the blur. :3

In all seriousness, they won't have to worry about the pirates for long, after they play it for half a week they'll be done with it forever and go back to the sims 2 where things were made right. (And the DLC were paid off)


You see, the reason they have problems with pirates on the sims is that people feel really ripped off on re-buying all the DLC released that they just paid off on the previous installment... and that it's way overpriced as well.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

You know, I love the early SVGA/486 era feel that filter gives, I'd buy the game in a heartbeat if they put it into the legal version. That is -amazing-.

 

[veloper]

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

I'll go as far to say that the ONLY players who will experience such DRM measures will be people who didn't DL a pirated copy (but for example, got an invalid serial key with their purchased game).

When a game gets cracked, the DRM gets cracked. Pirates don't see any DRM.

 

[Cpt. Slow]

Hey guys, I have an idea. Let's just not play the game (pirated or bought) at all. F**k EA up their DLC producing asses and f**k them hard.

My apologies for this rant but after the Battlefield 4 SNAFU I've had it up to here with this company.

 

[GabeZhul]

*claps* Good job, EA. I really mean it. This is how you combat piracy. Yes, pirates will eventually get past it, probably already have. But I'd rather have this then have them hurt paying customers. Ya did good, kid. Ya did good.

To be honest, they don't really "combat" piracy with this as much as they "prank" pirates. I wouldn't even go as far as to say "inconvenience", seeing how these things get broken in hours.

Still better than five layers of always online DRM though, however at this point I say publishers should just stop even trying. With how fast and efficient the pirate community is, implementing any kind of DRM is just wasted money that could have been used to actually develop the game instead.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

This will be solved eventually, it always is, but this is a better idea than a lot of EA's recent DRM. Unfortunately, that's the only better idea they've had in regards to The Sims 4.

Who else thinks that The Sims 8 will just be a blank disc sold for 50 dollars with DLC packs that add in a start screen and buttons followed by textures? Seriously, how do they think they'll get away with removing features that came stock on the last one so they can sell them to you later and then keep the game the same price it always was. It's like if the base model of a car always came with power windows but the new version considers that an optional add on.

 

[Samsont]

As a heads up for everyone, there is already a workaround out there for this, there has been since the third day this game was out.

 

[Kargathia]

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.

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

True, forgot that. When I had trouble with a game I bought from Origin the rep could see the transaction history, what makes me not sure about the ban though is the fact that they would effectively be seizing legitimately owned property. I think EA might have some rights to decide not to offer services to people that pirate their games but seizing property might be going a little far, maybe their could be a middle ground?

Ban them from multi player servers and from receiving updates/patches etc but still allow them to run the games they bought? That way they are just refusing service but they are not seizing legitimately and legally owned property.

According to EA your purchased games aren't your property - they are a service which they can terminate at will.

That said, it'll net them some positive publicity, even if it barely qualifies as a band-aid against piracy. That definitely is a win.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Hey guys, I have an idea. Let's just not play the game (pirated or bought) at all. F**k EA up their DLC producing asses and f**k them hard.

You know you're allowed to say "fuck" on the Internet, right? You're not going to get raided by the FCC.