A Timeline of EAs Actions and Why I Think Legacy Collection is to Protect IP NOT gain "sales".

If you're not a nerd like me, you may not have seen the writing on the wall for "pirated" and "cracked" versions of The Sims 2. In-fact, you might not have realized that this entire playbook is entirely predictable.

A few months ago, I made a blog post (before Legacy was announced) about how the DMCA-ruling would mean that older games that were once "abandoned" could be revived under new rules and trademarked/copyrighted heavily again. I was told I wasn't understanding the situation. I take absolutely no pleasure in being right.

'In a recent decision, U.S. courts upheld the strict copyright protections around video games under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). For older games like The Sims 2, this ruling has significant implications, potentially limiting both access to these games and the ability of fan communities to preserve or modify them."

https://littlemissgamer.com/what-the-latest-u-s-copyright-ruling-on-video-games-means-for-the-future-of-older-games-like-the-sims-2/

Then, move to Legacy Collection coming out. While I think the sales are an added bonus to help cover development costs, whatever EA is planning seems to be more to solidify and cement all Sims games into their trademark.

Come today, OSAB's github installer ( https://www.reddit.com/r/sims2/comments/1immf68/dcma_on_osab_web_installer/ ) was marked with a DMCA take-down, sound familiar? While we are lucky in a sense that EA also re-released the game (they likely could have done this without doing so), I believe this is just one step toward EA cracking down on their IP.

It is my prediction that Voicemxl is next, with other sites to follow. I presume the only ones who are going to stay active are those who always operated under the assumption of piracy, and thus are harder to remove.

So there it is... my conspiracy theory and sad reality.