3 days ago a cracker, hacker leaked the Sims 3 for PC. I am not shocked because big franchise games are always leaked to the internet. But what i am confused about is that i remember that before (5 or 4 yeears ago), games were always leaked on the release date or after the release date not days before. So that means back then someone bought those games and then released them cracked or something like that. Remember , films also had this problem they were leaked on the internet on or before their arrival on the big screen, so that means the films were leaked by the people who worked in the cinema. How did the big film companies solve this ? They put cinema specific watermarks or something like that on the films they were sending the cinemas ,so they could identify which cinema leaked the films. Which brings me back to video game leaking. Who could leak the games ?

1. Stores. I think some stores get the games early i.e Best Buy, Gamestop, Walmart to prepare for the release of the game or they are waiting for another shipment or still stocking up on that game. With that i want to say that i think the release dates maybe are meant for the date it is allowed to sell the game.
2. People working at the game developer. I think i don't need to explain this one.

1. How do you think this leak will effect on the sales of the game ?
2. Your opinion about game leaking.
   

It is only 2 weeks until release, so I don't really care.  I certainly don't search for stuff that is leaked.

Me too oldschool i am just very informed about leaking etc.

1. The leak won't affect the sales.
2. Shit happens.
3. You missed the gaming media members as potential leakers.










Jeff did it.

3. actually Al3xand3r i didnt, but still a good reply cause i share your opinion.

Oh, sorry, I just read the numbers there :P

i'd buy it off of steam even if it was leaked, but if it's not on steam. . . .

If you don't want people to steal your music, allow them to stream it all for free.

Steam is starting to catch up with this way of thinking, giving out free 48 hour "trials".

Seriously, I don't have any sympathy for the shareholders.

The thing is so many people are involved with a movie or game that it could be anyone doing it and passing it on.

Sales are not AFFECTED by piracy, seriously if someone is going to pirate something its because they don't want to pay for it or are using it as a demo/trial.

all the people who I know who play the sims dont know how to torrent

but I do... >.> <.< (goes to demonoid)

How do you know the person that pirated Crysis would go out and buy it? You don't know. Sales are not affected in that sense, there are plenty of people that will go out and buy the game or steam it others generally teenagers will go ahead and pirate it because they don't have the money to pay for it.

If there were no piracy at all, of course more people would be forced to pay for a game they wanted to play.  Not every pirate would be able to afford the game or be willing to pay out the money, but sales would absolutely be higher.

Sims 3? To be totally honest this is my first time ever hearing about this game.

The fact is, a game like the Sims 3, (which sells mostly to the uninformed masses who don't even know what a torrent is) will still sell 20 bajillion copies (followed by 100 bajillion expansion packs that add nothing useful) even though it was leaked. A small chunk of pirates who are too lazy or too poor to buy it themselves will not have a large impact because of the sheer mass of the consumer base.

What the hell are you babbling about? Not knowing how piracy works? Jesus christ I am 23 and have my fair share of pirated material. You have no idea how SALES works, when something is SOLD it can be chalked up as a sale. However someone with the intention of potentially buying something but deciding against is a loss of sale. MAJORITY of people that torrent do so because they would NOT pay for such item; music, movie, game, application or even an e-book. That is not a loss of a sale as that target was NEVER going to be a sale in the first place as they most likely would of avoided it all together if it came down to it, heck maybe some would of paid for it but that would just be a  guess at the numbers. What if piracy did not exist in any form, who knows if say those 10,000 people that downloaded that game would of paid for it, do you know? I sure don't. And I am going to re-itterate this point; a download does not automatically equal a loss sale. End of story.

A lot of people torrent games as sort of demo to decide to buy/not buy. Some pirates are smart enough to support a product they love with buying it. On the other hand a lot more don't care. But anyway its not like anyone's whining bitching on the internet forums is going to stop them.

I think it is really strange that both spore and now sims 3 were leaked by team RELOADED.
Ea needs to keep their games on a tighter leash.

• Crysis was a heavy system demanding game which mean't most people needed to either upgrade their current PC or buy an entirely new system. Costly to say the least.
  

• It was released late in the run-up to Christmas which is the most expensive time of year for a vast majority of people. Considering the hype around the game was how demanding it was on systems most people likely did not have cash to spare on a new PC or upgrading their current one just so they could play one game.
• When Crysis was released there was a lot of other A+ titles released around the same time. COD4, The Orange Box, The Witcher to name a few. Why pay all the money to upgrade or buy a new PC just to play one game? When you could spend a third of that cost on just buying multiple games which will run just fine on your current PC.
• Crysis itself was a mess. A technical triumph but otherwise a mess. Riddled with bugs and performance issues. A lot of people who did go and either buy new systems or upgrade current ones to meet recommended requirements still had issues playing the game. And hearing that a lot of people who were on the fence about buying it found themselves less inclined to buy it.
• Crytek and EA themselves had predicted low sales for the game. It did infact sell better than expected and they were still not happy. At the time overall opinion on Cevat's tirade against the PC was that of a butthurt developer who had poor marketing and advertising for a game. Seriously who advertises a PC game with the slogan "no current hardware can play this game at maximum settings!"...?
• The game got pirated sure I won't deny that. But piracy sure as hell was not the main reason Crysis wasn't the big golden child of game sales as everyone expected it might be. Especially when a big reason Crytek mentioned they didn't want to stay PC exclusive is because they wanted, essentially, more money through sales by going multiplatform. Using piracy as the excuse for their multiplatform announcement was maybe the smartest move Crytek ever did.

LOL, MY FRIENDS ALREADY GOTZ IT!

Um. CEOs are trustworthy sources now? Who do you think has an interest in blaming the poor sales on piracy? Hamz can't possibly have any interest in saying piracy wasn't the main cause. Not to mention you don't refute his points in any way but by calling him dumb, and saying you trust the CEO. Lol? You also pull a straw man argument and refute the OPPOSITE of what points he did make, essentially agreeing with some of his statements, yet pretending you shot them down (piracy not being the only cause, requirements playing a part, the works). Did you even READ what he said? He never said it wasn't pirated, so your sources prove shit. Not to mention that ALL OF THEM CREDIT CRYTEK AS THE SOURCE OF THE INFORMATION, LOL GAMING JOURNALISM. Going by this alone, you seem to be far less bright than the one you try to insult here...

Insulting a mod? Nice.
But like you yourself say, it's probably a combination of factors. And the system requirements are probably the biggest factor.

Never once did I say that piracy was the only factor, I just said "WRONG" Hamz was the one that that said "Piracy was not the reason Crysis sold poorly." I think you might have some trouble understanding the argument because, never did I agree with any of his statements silly ;). Who do you think I going to believe, a CEO of a major video game company or a mod on a website, lol? You guys remind me of the conspirators that believed 9/11 was all a crazy plot by the government. The facts are right in front of your face and yet you still choose to deny the truth. Very humors if I most say so myself.

No, you have trouble understanding what people write. From all of my post, all you respond to is that you never said piracy wasn't the only reason? Did I claim you said that? Read properly dude, stop with the stupid straw man arguments. That's all you have to say to all of that? But anyway since you're being so stubborn, no, piracy wasn't the reason, it was a reason among multiple other reasons that may have been far more significant, and all you have to say for piracy being a primary reason is some CEO's explanations for his company's failures. And you trust that. Great for you, but don't call people who disagree dumb, especially when they have examples of the opposite things happening... Like this.

Here's the quote of importance:
Wardell points to not only the success of games like The Sims, but also of Sins of a Solar Empire—a low-budget, real-time strategy game published by Stardock that's reportedly sold 200,000 copies in its first month already. To put things in perspective, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare sold 383000 units within its first couple of months of release. Unlike COD4, Sins of a Solar Empire didn't benefit from huge media coverage, and it doesn't even have copy protection—something Wardell says Stardock chose not to include because "the people who actually buy games don't like to mess with it." He adds, "Our customers make the rules, not the pirates."

Yes, piracy is an issue, not the issue. What matters however is that companies can be successful despite this issue. If Crytek couldn't be, then it's safe to assume they did something else wrong, and having no piracy would not fix that in any but the most extreme and unlikely scenarios. If Crytek was 100% right in their claims, then no game would ever sell, yet there are multiple companies that absolutely thrive in the PC space.

Three paragraphs are a wall of text now? Bolds aren't there to make me look smart (I guess we have a culture chasm here), they're there to emphasise the important bits, which you've been ignoring throughout this thread. Nice assumptions about the reasons behind Crysis' failures, but that's all they are. A guess if you will. No, not a fact. All you've done is present arguments with no reasoning, straw man arguments on top of them to make it seem like you have responded, while never actually debating the points others have brought to the table.

Good luck with your life. There's no rage here, you're just impossible to talk to. I mean, you're not even reading the comments. If you feel like talking, try proper replies to people's statements, without bullshit straw man arguments and random dissing and claiming unfounded facts. Everything Hamz and I have said remains completely unchallenged. There's no point in continuing until you actually attempt to do that in some form, as all I'd be doing is repeating the same arguments. Why? They're right there for you to read and challenge, but you clearly don't want to.

I can tell you right now, as a former Best Buy employee, retailers DO get games weeks before the actual release date.  They sit on shelves in the back.  Same with movies and CDs.  Hell, I had Tool's "Salival" 4 weeks before it was actually "released".  = D

SIMS 3 IS LEAKED!!!??? Here I come torrents! :) But seriously, this won't affect sales too heavily, there are two kinds of Sims 3 customers, hardcore fanboys (or girls as is generally the case) who will buy the game anyway, or casual gamers who usual don't know about torrents, and so won't use them. There are exceptions to the rule of course (me) but otherwise I don't think it'll be too damaged by the leak.

On piracy as a whole, I think it actually has a benefit to the gaming industry when it's low intensity, piracy acts like a second opinion on games, it prevents the market becoming too heavily priced, and keeps the market competitive, as it's mostly big name games which cop the most flak from pirates. The best way to counter it is quite simple, give the gamer something they won't get from a download, online multiplayer, (CoD 4) or another online support or community majjiger, like Spore has, and so has the Sims 3 in its content exchanger thingy.

So putting the piracy/leak discussions aside for a moment, did anyone actually get to play the game, how does it compare to the previous Sims? What's new, what's good, what's not so much?

That's cuz I don't pirate :P

 @Subject2Change  "However someone with the intention of potentially buying something but deciding against is a loss of sale"

Thank you. I have the intention of buying Sims 3 - oh but wait, the torrent is already up? Alright! Since it's a single player game and it's EA anyway I'll just go ahead and download it. <-- You can't tell me that that is not a LOSS of a sale. There are plenty of people that ride that boat.

It seems to me that everyone on here that is saying piracy has no affect on sales just doesn't want to believe it. Well, guess what? It's a reality. Get over it.

Not everyone has those same morals, if this was a year ago or so I would of probably been all over that. Cryostasis was leaked months ago...my copy came in 2 days ago. The Sims users are generally casual gamers who most likely don't know how to torrent or are willing to wait. I agree early leaks will cause sale drops as you stated but if the torrent comes out the same day as the game it is going to be up for those that in no way ever would of went out an purchased it besides maybe as a gift for the holidays or their birthday generally the unemployed teenager. Piracy has been around for years from casettes to vhs to dvds...its gonna be around for a while...

Not all games sell well in the holiday season. Unless you're releasing a hugely popular game that already has lots of buzz, your game is going to tank in sales. It's happened numerous times in the past. Many great games have suffered poor sales because they were released in the same time frame as much bigger, more prominent games. Crysis had a lot of buzz, sure, but it was mostly "Holy shit, look at that! There's no way in hell I'll ever be able to run that on my computer!" type of buzz. Sure it looks nice, but it's not exactly a great selling point.

Realistically I don't think anyone can ever know for sure. It's by its very nature nearly impossible to track.

Games do sell year-round, but the key period where most sales come from are the first few months after release. If you fail to sell much in that period, you're not going to sell much at all... unless you're Nintendo.

However, it seems Crysis actually sold better than they expected it to. So kudos to them.