Most pirated life sim videogame

The Sims 3 (Maxis, 2009) became a top-selling game, shifting 7.97 million copies globally on the PC alone, according to VGChartz. But it also became the most pirated life sim of all time, with 3.2 million illegal downloads. Such a figure ensured it beat Spore (Maxis, 2008), a life sim released in the previous year. Spore had been illegally downloaded a record 1.7 million times. By the time The Sims 4 was released (Maxis, 2014), however, publisher Electronic Arts had a trick up its sleeve: it pixellated almost everything in the game within pirated copies – and when players complained, they inadvertently revealed themselves to be pirates. A expected, though, the pirates soon cottoned on and patched the “problem” away.

Spore's piracy issues came despite the presence of fierce and controversial DRM (digital rights management), which meant that the game could not be installed more than three times without needing to make a phone call to Electronic Arts.