180,000 copies of The Sims 3 stolen in 4 days

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Just how long can this level of theft go on? And after the immense scale of thieving of Spore you would have to wonder whether Electronic Arts will give up on the PC, as so many other publishers already have.

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7 Comments


  1. This might cheer you up Bruce:

    http://kotaku.com/5270042/tiger-woods-pc-and-mac-will-no-longer-come-on-a-disc?skyline=true&s=x

    Sad to see the PC die as the best multi-genre platform. I think only “dads games” like PGA and MMO’s will be the only thing worth developing on the PC until the broadband infrastructure in Europe gets up to speed (if ever) and firms can guarantee the protection of their content via streaming. Even Valves own products over steam have been ripped off and made available via the usual suspects. Hate streaming though. Even had the net go down for more than half an hour? Or intermittently over the course of a few days? Frustrating enough if its just work lol

    Just curious though, how has it been verified that 180,000 have been stolen. Was it fake torrents? Info from ISP’s etc?


  2. It was according to file share monitor BigChampagne LLC.


  3. Or, just like Spore, Sims 3 will still sell millions of copies. Spore has sold over 2 million copies and that’s with mediocre reviews and onerous DRM (which pirates didn’t have to contend with).


  4. Cheers Bruce, only reason Im asking is because Im doing a paper for my masters on the evolution of IP laws in the West and how video game piracy has evolved along with it. Been a gamer since the age of five and have seen everything from the cassette 8 bit to the Blu-Ray disc getting cracked. Looking for relevant sources of evidence to promote points of view.

    Think streaming is inevitable unfortunately, especially when the set-top box and the e-machines (these really excite me) make their mark. Just hope Virgin don’t start moaning about bandwith usage like all the ISP’s did when BBC iplayer took off lol.


  5. “…you would have to wonder whether Electronic Arts will give up on the PC, as so many other publishers already have.”

    Which publishers? Certainly not Valve, Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, Capcom, Sega, SOE, Bethesda, Codemasters or Popcap.


  6. Mike Sherrin. Are you trying to say that because some people aren’t thieves it excuses the thieves?

    woodins. Use the search function on this blog. There are plenty of articles about game thieves. Including this one: https://www.bruceongames.com/2008/04/23/game-piracy/

    Robin. Anyone who is into gaming will have seen the space given to PC games in game shops go down year after year. Now the number of titles on offer is a small fraction of what it once was.


  7. So you can’t name any publishers then.

    PC game sales have gone online, as you’ve pointed out yourself on many occasions (when it suits your argument).

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