I have heard EA has had some layoffs... Perhaps they realized their old business model isn't working. *sound of the entire world laughing in the background at the idea of EA changing their ways* Ah well, we can always hope.

Shadow, here is another option:

They are making Sims 3 easy to pirate, but the xpacs for it will be chock full of DRM to try to force all the people who have Sims 3 and want the xpacs into buying them in an attempt to make even more money.

Unfortunatly, they added TAGES DRM for X3: Terran Conflict (cool game by the way).

Money can convince people to change their ways, Alway. I really don't think is an experiment, more like common sense, as the millions of Sims fans will be outraged if EA puts SecuROM on the disk. I also doubt that EA will put SecurROM on the expansions, for the reason I just wrote. I'm also getting the feeling that EA will continue to put SecuROM on future PC releases, because I really don't think that EA will all of sudden stop using SecuROM. Only time will tell.

Nothing to do with DRM but the Sims 3 looks killer!

And yes, I'm just going to make virtual versions of everyone I know and make them walk around my dream house in pants.  Is that so wrong?  IS IT?

Pants?

He probably means just pants.

It'd be funny if you could let your Sims do pot or some other drug. Or take or acholism.

Which Egosoft will remove in time.  And to be fair, TAGES is better (slightly) than what Reunion used for its DRM; *STARFORCE*!

As to EA learning its lesson, HA!  Hell will freeze over, Sol will go supernova, Andromeda will crash into the Milky Way, the Universe will rip/crunch itself to death and time itself will end before that happens.

I hope those assholes go bankrupt.

Don't let them see that, or they may put SecuROM back on...

Like the guy said, Egosoft has a history of releasing patches to "free up" their games. X3:TC apparently had some DRM on board that I didn't even care about because, no matter how bad it apparently is, it's going to disappear with a patch a year or so after release.Egosoft rocks. Their games are epic, buggy masterpieces. I love those guys. Stardock is a good fit for Egosoft and I love the Stardock model in many ways too. I just can't stand Brad and his chunky posturing.

Let's assume Sims 3 is going to be the cash cow that the other two have been, then it would probably cost them more to enforce the DRM on it, which is probably a pretty heavily social game in the first place (facebook style), than to let it spread itself "socially" and mop up the committed players who're willing to pay for rug textures and special wallpaper. I reckon Sims 3 at retail will be a demo for the "actual" paying experience.

Um, remember it's publishers that generally insist on DRM, not devs.

Egosoft are good guys. They publish with DRM but remove it as a matter of course later. They're also really mod friendly. Egosoft are probably my favourite devs still going and I HATE DRM. I'm not a robot, I understand that they're people who need to be paid so they have to do what their publisher tells them.

Piranha Bytes are similar, in that with Gothic Three the original game had starforce but it was eventually removed with a patch. (a patch that actually made the original game somewhat playable....)

Yeah, Egosoft is great. But what's annoying is that they insist on keeping DRM out of their forum, and their moderators are extremely zealous on enforcing that rule. They also need to work on squashing bugs before they release their games.

Oops double post

its like this "new cola" deal... first make a horrible new product that everyone hate... then bring back the old product and suddenly you are the good guy.

Most likely it's going to be 2 or 3 DVDs with this game. Two with data and then

a game disk that is needed to play the game. Also, the game will be $59.95

or $69.95 US dollars ...

To be honest its probably more that the Sims series is considered a demographic that don't use pirated software.

I doubt you'd see EA doing this for other titles irrespective of what happens with Sims 3.  They'll see it as chalk and cheese with other titles.