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Sims 3 leak was "demo program," says Riccitiello 

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The pirated version of The Sims 3 acted as a demo to some, EA boss John Riccitiello has joked. He's a funny guy.

"You identified our secret marketing campaign!" Riccitiello told IndustryGamers. "That was a very large scale – concentrated on Poland and China – demo program.

"In the game that was pirated there's [only] one city [out of two]... and Sims 3 has a massive amount of content, and a lot of it is downloaded once you register with EA... and join the online community" he elaborates. "So you get that content in addition to the second city [which is downloadable for people who register], and that's a major component... A huge amount of the gameplay is an overlay for the community, where you are sampling assets created by other people".

Sims 3 has beaten Spore as the most pirated game of all time, having been downloaded more than 200,000 times before it came out. There's more through there.

Thanks, Kotaku.

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The Sims 3

iOS, PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, PC, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo DS

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Patrick Garratt

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Patrick Garratt is a games media legend - and not just by reputation. He was named as such in the UK's 'Games Media Awards', the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. After garnering experience on countless gaming magazines, he joined Eurogamer and later split from that brand to create VG247, putting the site on the map with fast, 24-hour a day coverage, and assembling the site's earliest editorial teams. He retired from VG247, and the games industry, in 2017.

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