Tag Archives: file sharing

180,000 pirates sail the seas for The Sims 3… in just 3 days!

Electronic Arts aren’t going to be in the best frame of mind at the moment.

The Register today posted that according to P2P download counting firm, BigChampagne (yes, I’m a little confused about the name too), The Sims 3 has been downloaded 180,000 times in just 3 days (May 18th-May 21st) by means of file sharing sites.

Now I’ve just been doing a few little calculations here. Say every single one of those 180,000 people bought a copy of The Sims 3 legally, and each copy cost £39.99. The total cost of those 180,000 copies comes to £7,198,200. That means that EA has lost just over £7 million in just 3 days.

It does make you wonder a little bit about how bad piracy is.

And then you have to think about who uploaded the file in the first place. Somebody has to – it doesn’t just magically appear. It would have had to have been someone related to EA in some way. The general public can’t get copies of The Sims 3 until June 5th, so something has gone wrong there.

As I have mentioned many times on GEEK!, I don’t like to get involved with piracy. I will certainly be getting my copy of The Sims 3 legally – besides I want a physical copy of the disc and box (I’m that kinda sad guy who likes to have the original box and discs – I still have my Sims Deluxe Edition and Sims 2 discs in their original box).

If you are going to wait for the legal copy, then its in stores on June 5th.

The illegal file sharers

France looks like the first country to take final action on the illegal file sharers.

It looks like they are taking plans to cut off illegal internet file sharers after sending warning emails and letters. The law is now in place for final approval. 

The plan means that there will be “community watchdogs” who will monitor users for illegal usage.

The idea is that these “watchdogs” will send two warnings out to the user to warn them that they will loose their connection if the continue. If they fail to react to the warnings, their connection is terminated altogether.

In my opinion, I don’t think it’s fair to have someone watching your internet access.

What do you think?

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7706014.stm