The Sims 3: DRM-lite?

Update: Rod Humble, executive producer for the Sims division at EA, wrote today on the Sims 3 website disc-based copy protection will be implemented for the game as well as a serial code, with no online authentication required, though according to forum posts by the team, the statement below will apply to digital versions of the game. In either case, removal of online authentication for the retail version at least is good news.

Update 2.

Last week The Sims 3 associate producer MC Chun told us Electronic Arts (EA) has changed its Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme for the upcoming sure-to-be blockbuster, suggesting the new implementation would be minimal:

"So because of [The Sims 2 and Spore high piracy rates] we had a strong DRM thing. And then we got such good and such vocal user feedback, so now we're getting the final pieces together. It's not going to be the crazy, manage-18-accounts or count-the-number-of-times-you've-installed thing. But it is going to have copy-protection."

"I used to know [what DRM we are going to use], and then we changed it. EA subsequently told us there will be a press release about this in the near future. The engineers have been amazing, because to change the DRM strategy this late is something that's asking a lot of an engineering crew who have already put a lot into it. But they were willing to be flexible, because as gamers themselves they were like, "yeah, it's a pain in the ass"."

Apparently, the publisher has different ideas, though, as according to a fan on the Sims 2 forums, pre-purchasing the game on the EA Store greets the user with this message:

ACCEPTANCE OF END USER LICENSE REQUIRED FOR PLAY. TO ACCESS ONLINE SERVICES, YOU NEED AN INTERNET CONNECTION AND MUST REGISTER ONLINE WITH THE ENCLOSED SINGLE USE SERIAL CODE. REGISTRATION IS NOT TRANSFERABLE. EA ONLINE TERMS & CONDITIONS CAN BE FOUND AT www.ea.com. YOU MUST BE 13+ TO REGISTER ONLINE. EA MAY TERMINATE ONLINE SERVICES AFTER 30 DAYS NOTICE POSTED ON www.ea.com. THIS GAME USES SECUROM ANTI-PIRACY TECHNOLOGY BY SONY DADC. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT SECUROM, VISIT www.securom.com.

The fan states that "the in-game advertising disclaimer and data collecting software is gone", with other users claiming SecuROM is responsible for the latter, though we don't know if there's any real validity to that.

A message to EA asking whether or not the scheme would be changed by the release date did not receive a response as of the time of publishing.

Note to EA and Maxis: much (perhaps most) of the "vocal user feedback" concerned SecuROM. Keep it out. Thanks.