The company chose to release the game without digital rights management, coding that makes software harder to copy. Electronic Arts came under criticism from users last year when “Spore,” a game designed by “Sims” creator Will Wright, included protections that limited the number of copies.
The code was cracked, and “Spore” became the most-pirated title of 2008 with 1.7 million downloads, according to TorrentFreak.com, a German Web site that tracks downloads.
“The Sims 2,” released in September 2004, was second with 1.15 million downloads last year, and Ubisoft Entertainment SA’s “Assassin’s Creed” was third with 1.1 million downloads.
The current number of illegal downloads of “The Sims 3” suggests lost retail sales of $9 million to date, based on the $49.99 starting price.
“The Sims 3” is the biggest computer game release of the year, Pacific Crest’s Wilson said. He projects Electronic Arts will sell 2.5 million copies in June, fewer than the 3 million “Sims 2”
sold in the first two weeks, in part because of piracy.
Actually, while technically at this time it is true EA has lost $9 million in sale – once the game is released that number should drop. Many who downloaded the game will still purchase a retail copy, but it goes to show you that piracy does count for some lost sales, even if it isn’t the same amount.
You can read the whole article here, thanks to Sims 3 Nieuws and SimGalaxy for sending this my way.
I wonder how they count illegal downloads. There are many, many sources, and surely they aren’t all publishing their numbers. If they even keep them.
It’s a pretty dumb estimate that person made. EA does NOT make $50 on every sale or lose $50 for every pirate copy. They’re confusing sales figures with revenue.
chann….it’s still a loss, for everyone involved. even if they only said EA, thats also for the companies who sell the games.
it’s what i said all along – each person that downloads without the intent of buying the game affects the retail business that sells the game, Maxis, EA and every person who works for them.
While I admit this is quite a hit to EA, I’m not going to say I’m upset. With the delay, and the initial plan of calling it ‘marketing’, I was rather angry with EA, and still am. I knew this delay would cost them millions in profits, and frankly, though I didn’t expect the losses to be by pirated copies, I’m a little glad it happened. I mean, I’m not a supporter of criminal activity, but then again, EA brought it upon themselves by saying “We wanted to make a commercial, so we’re gonna put The Sims 3 on hold for 5 months!”
Well, if they’re counting the downloads based on the 49.99$ they are really losing way more than just that.
Anyway, how can they make these silly counts if the game hasn’t come out yet? Why don’t they call it a prediction, because that is what it really is!
I’ve said this elsewhere before, and will say it again: these numbers are absolute nonsense. First of all, as commented in the post, many of those who downloaded the game will purchase it once out. Secondly, not everybody who downloads the game, would buy it if the download didn’t exist – so no sale lost there. I also have my doubts about the 180k downloads the article mentions – there’s no real explanation on how they got to that. It doesn’t say if these are real complete downloads, or if everybody who hooked into the torrent and downloaded 5 bytes was counted as a full download. It doesn’t mention how any possible doubles are counted, etc.
It also makes sense that the game is pirated more than e.g. Spore, because the game is not available in stores yet – people want to play now, but since there’s no legal way yet they’ll resort to downloading. If the game was already available for purchase, I guess these numbers would’ve been lower.
Piracy isn’t ok – I’m not saying that – but these figures seriously make no sense at all whatsoever. Piracy does cost EA (and the entertainment industry in general) some money, but saying 1 download equals 1 lost sale is just plain stupid.
Not to mention that only torrent downloads can remotely be counted. They are also using Usenet, private servers, etc.
Also, they can’t pretend to sell the same amount of copies The Sims 2 did or more and then say it’s piracy’s fault, given that many people that had money back then do not have it nowadays. The circumstances are very different.
That 9 million number is completely ridiculous. First, the game isn’t out so no one can purchase it yet, meaning they can’t lose sales on something their not selling. Second, There is no direct link that 1 pirate copy = 1 lost sale. It just doesn’t happen. Just because you pirate something early doesn’t mean you’re not going to buy it (once it’s available) .
There is NO way to know if the person who has the pirate copy will buy the game or was ever planning to buy the game – therefor, this number is just made up.
This kind of “reporting” is just a way to point the finger at piracy if it doesn’t sell X amount of units.
That entire article is slanted corporate crap.
They’re just playing dumb…
It’s almost an incentive to not buy the game when it comes out. I believe the game is going to sell pretty well, people will buy then show they’re friends and they’re friends will buy it. It will be the usual chain reaction. The Sims 2 already has a very large group of fans that will do anything to get they’re paws on The Sims 3.
(I gotta tell you the game is pretty awesome, the random factor in game is so high, you will get stuck to it for a long time)
It wont be disappointing.
Maybe this will convince EA to release The Sims 3 on next-gen consoles!!!
Bobby, i tihnk they mean they would have made $9 million if it was not pirated, but as it was, they just technically did lose $9 mill, b/c most of the peopel who downloaded it may not even buy it so if there wasn’t a pirated version, they would have made much more. I think thats what they are trying to say! ut i do feel bad for EA and the creators! They spent such a long time and great effort on making this game perfect and now the stupid pirates had to mess it all up, they od deserve respect for their job!!
Thomas, since nobody has any idea what the actual numbers are, they shouldn’t be publishing actual numbers :p I think that’s the point here.
My guess would be that some folks who can get a game for free won’t buy it, even though they lose access to the online features… and that piracy represent SOME loss to the company in the long run… but nobody really knows how much, because we don’t know how well the game sells in that alternate universe where the game wasn’t pirated.
I am also wondering where the souces of this illegal downloading are but I am also wondering why on earth they said they were going to bring this out in february and then delay it 4 months there was nothing wrong with the game it could have come out.It was merely to give it tension but it just irritated me.
^^^ so halll 0
I think that’s totally bogus in numbers and for other reasons… As others have said, some pirates will buy the game, and some people that download wouldn’t have bought the game anyways, but only got it cuz it was free to them. I’m also rather curious as to how they’re able to say how many people illegally downloaded something without being able to find these people and persecute. Sounds like some bogus number crunching to me.
I for one will not be buying Sims 3 because EA decided to give its customers the virtual finger by releasing the furniture that should have come with the game… Not only are they asking everyone to pay for individual furniture sets (the total for all the items comes to $275 USD!!), but they released the sets on the same day the game was released, proving that they had all these pieces ready to go, and are clearly just trying to make more cash off hard working people who want time to relax. EA has done this with other games, and did it with all the Sims 2 expansions, but Sims 3 has really taken the cake on this one.
I will cheer the pirates on ’til EA stops trying to rip their customers off.