Piracy is one of my hot topics that I don’t really care to talk about.  Can’t stand it and wish it would stop, but I know that’ll never happen.  I wish EA would get the hint as well.  I do admit they have gotten better with the fact that they dropped the annoying DRM factor…but now the focus is on Downloadable Content or DLC.  The Sims series is no stranger to DLC, we had it ever since the original game.  But it is fairly new on the fact that EA now charges for it.  Check out this following article from Kotaku of EA CEO John Riccitiello speaking about the subject:

By selling people who grab games digitally — without paying for them — post-release downloadable content.

“They can steal the disc, but they can’t steal the DLC,” he said.

The opportunity to discuss how one of the world’s largest publishers might see software-pirating gamers as a potential revenue source emerged last week when Kotaku sat with Riccitiello for a wide-ranging interview about EA’s games and future.

Riccitiello spoke energetically about the popularity of the company’s downloadable content add-ons. Some of EA’s DLC has been free, such as the launch-day offerings of a new town in The Sims 3 or a nudity option in The Saboteur. Others, such as the paid DLC for November’s Dragon Age Origins, generated a million downloads in its first week, according to an EA spokesperson.

“The consumer seems to really like this idea that there is extra stuff,” Riccitiello said, while expressing surprise that some of this DLC is downloaded so soon after people start playing the games. “The consumer wants more, and when you give them more or sell them more it seems to be extremely well received.”

Some of the people buying this DLC are not people who bought the game in a new shrink-wrapped box. That could be seen as a dark cloud, a mass of gamers who play a game without contributing a penny to EA. But around that cloud Riccitiello identified a silver lining: “There’s a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace,” he said, pointing to DLC as a way to do it.

That’s all nice and dandy John for the fantasy world that you’re living in…but you need to face reality:  DLC is very easy to steal and in most cases, can be found the same day that it is offered to purchase.  You’re not quite helping to solve pirates.  There are many factors that play a role in pirating a game – for one, you could of gave someone a bad experience in a past game where it was nothing but full of bugs and errors, thus thinking that your products are not worth the money you’re asking.  Another fact is that games are expensive and the market is flooded with them.  And don’t forget the fact of people wanting to try before they buy..and in the end turns out they didn’t like it to begin with.  Oh, and of course you do have those that’ll pirate just for the hell of it cause they know they can’t get caught.

However, do NOT lump those who buy second-hand with pirates – that is a bunch of bull crap.  I buy many of my games used from GameStop or sometimes from a thift shop.

And last, I think this sums up my true feelings of DLC – because I really do feel like it is a huge rip-off for those who buy the game legit:

“We’ve found a way to make money from pirates.”

“But we have to fuck genuine consumers over at the same time.”

from NeoGAF