The Sims 2 And All 18 of Its Expansions Are Free on Origin

[scw55]

So it turns out they snuck SecuROM onto this "free" giveaway. Even more happy I didn't get it now.

What does Securom actually do? I've run the game a few times without Origin and don't notice anything different.

Yeah, I told some people I knew about this offer and they said the same thing about Securom.
They haven't actually told me what it does.

I have so many programmes on my system which snuck on and I cannot easily remove and don't really do anything as far as I know, I'm not going to be bothered about another one. Give me a reason to hate EA because of this.

Besides, if it is evil, can't I extract SecurROM anyway?

At the moment, it feels like people are like "Oh no, EA did something not evil. Lets make a big deal about something grey that's involved with this giveaway".

Please someone explain why EA is evil in this case with reason, rather than just an opinion without any evidence.

 

[Spiritofpower]

For people on Windows Vista/7/8 who are having issues, make sure you set the program's compatibility mode to Windows XP (Service Pack 3). If you still get issues with crashes, you can try this fix [http://www.leefish.nl/mybb/showthread.php?tid=5446], which worked for me.

 

[8bitmaster]

I don't intend to play it, but meh free game is free game. Also, EA has been trying to turn over a new leaf in some respects. Origin really isn't that bad. Hell, steam has a bunch of issues too but people seem to just gloss over that because "Gaben our lord and savior!" and that really bugs me. EA's support for origin has actually been helpful, and got me a new key of mass effect when I couldn't register mine because it was an older format. Plus, they have their money back guarantee now, which steam still hasn't done after how long now? A friend of mine got screwed out of a ton of money because he didn't know about the steam sales and bought a game mere minutes before it started. What did steam support do? Oh noes, your fault too bad. Also, the origin overlay is actually quite nice compared to the steam one. Yes, I like origin. In the end, free is free. Might as well grab it while you can.

 

[Ratty]

So it turns out they snuck SecuROM onto this "free" giveaway. Even more happy I didn't get it now.

What does Securom actually do? I've run the game a few times without Origin and don't notice anything different.

So it turns out they snuck SecuROM onto this "free" giveaway. Even more happy I didn't get it now.

What does Securom actually do? I've run the game a few times without Origin and don't notice anything different.

Yeah, I told some people I knew about this offer and they said the same thing about Securom.
They haven't actually told me what it does.

I have so many programmes on my system which snuck on and I cannot easily remove and don't really do anything as far as I know, I'm not going to be bothered about another one. Give me a reason to hate EA because of this.

Besides, if it is evil, can't I extract SecurROM anyway?

At the moment, it feels like people are like "Oh no, EA did something not evil. Lets make a big deal about something grey that's involved with this giveaway".

Please someone explain why EA is evil in this case with reason, rather than just an opinion without any evidence.

An earlier version of Securom killed the disc drive on my girlfriend's old computer, I've steered clear of it since then. It works to disable legal programs like virtual drives on a computer it's installed on just because those things can be used for piracy, even if that's not what the programs are being used for. This is apparently what leads it to misidentify/conflict with and damage some physical disc drives, as mentioned above.

It was one of the earlier programs used to enable "activation limits" of games, which led to users being unable to play games they bought after uninstalling the game a set number of times, usually 2-5. Or even just changing a piece of hardware too many times, like if they got a new graphics card and this made secruom recognize this as a "fresh install" on a new device. Essentially turning your game purchase into a rental. This punishes legal customers and doesn't hurt pirates a bit. Also the program doesn't uninstall itself when you uninstall the game it's attached to. And some claim it creates security vulnerabilities by giving itself access to Ring 0 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_%28computer_security%29]. Again, all of the above only hurts legitimate consumers. Remember in 2008 when Spore was said to be the most pirated game of all time or somesuch a week before it came out? Yeah the retail version came with Securom, which not only (obviously) didn't stop piracy but led to a class action lawsuit against EA.

 

[theSovietConnection]

Again, their objective is to make me used to using their frontend, so I don't have much hope I can set it up so I can play offline without Origin popping up (That's also my main gripe with all Steam games).

Actually, once the game is downloaded and installed, you can completely forget about your Origin. The game does not require Origin be running once you've installed it.