My letter to Jeff Green
I found out through Simprograms that Jeff Green, former member of Department Sims over at EA and current EA.com editor, has a Mailbag where you can send in questions. Questions on anything! I thought to myself, there’s no way I’m passing up such an opportunity to rant a little about Sims paysites. The world must know…
Anyway, here’s the contents of my short letter, preserved for online posterity.
(And in case it ever gets a response…but I’m not very optimistic.)
Dear Jeff,
I love The Sims 3, but we fans of The Sims have had to put up with paysites for years. These sites make a tidy profit from selling unlicensed user-made content and mods. As a lifelong PC gamer and modder, it disturbs me that The Sims is virtually the only modern PC franchise where paysites operate so openly and rampantly. I’m not seeing a Dragon Age or Battlefield 2 paysite taking off any time soon, either – it’s just The Sims where you’re ‘allowed’ to stick a price tag on your pixels and get away with it. My question is, why does EA turn a blind eye to Sims paysites? Selling modified game files breaks all sorts of IP laws and the game’s license agreement to boot, so it’s entirely within your rights to be cracking out the legal threats and busting these scumbags. Instead, I see paysites getting endorsed on the official forums and their representatives invited to fan events. What gives?
–Ryan D.
Additional remarks:
- If you search Google for “dragon age paysites” and “battlefield 2 paysites”, guess what? All roads lead to The Sims. That’s how idiosyncratic this problem is.
- If anything the second-to-last sentence is too hot for EA! However, it is factual. Here’s my evidence should I need to back the claims up:
TS3 forum sticky: Custom Content Sites – Share em’ with us! [sic]
- Save parsimonious.org, all the sites listed withhold a portion of their content from non-paying customers. I believe this advertisement is a pretty prominent endorsement of their continuing operation.
- The PMBD definition of paysites: “a paysite is any site that offers user-created content that you must pay for, whether through a donation or a subscription. If it is not freely available to all, it is a pay item.”
Another sticky: SIMPOSIUM Write-ups and Reviews from the attendees
- Both The Sims Resource and Holy Simoly are paysites whose agents attended this recent event. This was just the most recent one: paysites have attended past events, and if nothing changes, future Sims events too. It’s a bit like a cop inviting a gang lord on a skiing trip, isn’t it? (Don’t tell me, I suck at analogies).
- TSR is definitely the worse offender of the two, being an incorporated business and all. That’s just the tip of the murky iceberg that is The Sims Resource.
That’s all I’ve got today. Well, seeing Jeff Green’s name makes me want to go and watch some Curb Your Enthusiasm, so I think I will now. You know, I keep meaning to actually post some screenshots of my TS3 games or something up on this site. I’m sure I’ll eventually get around to it.