If it's the same SecuROM that was in BV, then yes, yes I do. Is it the same? I don't know. I agree it would make very little sense, but EA is not known for making sense. I guess we'll see!

Okay, I'm going to try to be less hostile about this.

One of the things that is a peeve of mine is when people use fear tactics over things that are really not that risky. An example is the way many people believe artificial sweeteners are poison. I bet a lot of you just read that and thought "but they are!". And I bet some number of THOSE would argue that ANY artificial sweetener is poison. Even if I say "what about the ones made from herbs?". Etc. There's a psychological reason people are inclined to believe scary stuff about artificial sweeteners (more so than all the OTHER food-industry chemicals we ingest), whether or not there's any scientific evidence to back it up. That bugs me, because I lost 75lbs cutting sugar and flour out of my diet. That was partially possible because I made sugar free desserts using naturally-occurring sweeteners like erythritol and stevia. If I'd just believed the blanket assertion "artificial sweeteners are poison", I might not have been able to succeed.

Meanwhile, I love The Sims 2 (I assume if you're reading this post you love SOME version of The Sims), and I'm super excited that the UC has given the opportunity for a lot of new people to come into the player pool. Especially while the quality level of TS4 is uncertain. I see lots of posts on reddit every day about TS2 now. New players = new community members = potential new creators = everybody wins. If a new potential player comes along who doesn't know much about computers, sees some scary stuff about something an old version of securom did in a prior decade and decides not to install it out of fear, then goes off to play some other game franchise instead, everyone loses.

And the kicker is: People want to believe scary stuff about TS2UC for the same reason they want to believe artificial sweeteners are poison: Because getting something for nothing always makes you feel like there will eventually be a price to be paid.

Even over on reclaim your game, that everyone likes to quote so much, they state that the UC version doesn't appear to be causing any problems other than lingering registry keys. If this turns out to be the 'bad' securom and CD-DVD drives start blowing up, I will be the first in line to try to help people get it sorted out. However, with the number of people who have downloaded the UC already, I do think we would have started seeing those explosion reports by now. At least one person in this thread has claimed that more people had problems with SecuROM than didn't, so it seems that statistically we should start seeing those reports of problems really soon now.

I'm not a fan of DRM schemes at all, myself, especially when it is not clearly disclosed .(Which, IMO, was EA's sin. SecuROM itself isn't that heinous in the grand scheme of things; not telling people in big bold letters that it was going on their computer, however, is naughty.) On the other hand, I'm also not a fan of scare tactics and mass hysteria. Do I believe that SecuROM caused problems for some people? Sure. Likely, some of those people had pirated stuff on their machines (I know I do! ), which is what the program is designed to shut down, so this would not be entirely surprising. On the other hand, there's also some risk of false correlations here. Of all the parts of a computer, the CD/DVD drive is always one of the first to go. Why? Lots of moving parts, and the constant in-and-out of the tray takes its toll. Things with moving parts break faster than things that have no moving parts. That's simple physics. So, optical drives and hard drives, all things being equal, are usually the first bits of computers to explode and to need replacing. So, I'd be willing to bet that some people who had trouble with their drives after SecuROM was installed would have had an exploding CD/DVD drive regardless. Not all, I would imagine, but some. I'm pretty sure I have SecuROM (Can't be bothered to check, really) on my machines, given that I installed Bon Voyage from an older disk. I've also got "illegal" stuff on most of my machines, and I've never had any issues. Like I said, I'm not discounting every claim of problems; I'm simply saying that if you have SecuROM, it's not the end of the world and I think the probability is that nothing terrible will happen to your computer. Just like you're not likely to be eaten by a shark if you go swimming in the ocean.

But if you're REALLY worried about SecuROM anyway? There are resources out there to help you remove it. They're just a Google search away. So, I say don't sweat it.

The problem is not TS2 UC per se but the fact that you need Origin to install UC, and SuckaROM is integrated into Origin, and these two can spy effectively on your activities.
What EAtards' supporters refuse to understand is that there are a lot of people who value their privacy and don't take kindly these kind of actions by corporations.

http://www.eteknix.com/investigatio...-origin-client/
http://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrac...snooping_files/

I believe that it's not Securom in its entirely that caused the famous problems, but a particular version of it ... the particular v,7 series that came with BV and Spore at the time. I know that some of my husband's games had previous versions of Securom that didn't affect my CD/DVD burning programs in the slightest.

I thought I read that while Sims 3 did have Securom, it wasn't that awful version. This post seems to imply that I'm at least partially right: http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/209887.page. Can't say if I'm entirely correct, though.

It might very well be that the UC version does not have the program-eating variety. I don't believe anything's been confirmed yet. Right now, people are testing it, and so far, any problems have not been major. I'm keeping my fingers crossed as well, and I don't even have the UC on my computer!

Again, if your CD/DVD programs are working fine and your game seems to behave itself, I would not fret ... and this is someone who got a taste of the nasty version. (And no. I did not have any illegal stuff on my computer, so that was not a factor.) This did not happen to everyone who got Suckyrommed, and I do not believe that anyone has come up with a definite theory as to why some people were affected and not others. I would not yell, "NOOOOOOOOO!" and uninstall every trace of Sims 2 from your computer. Relax. Enjoy the game. But if something odd does happen, know that in many instances, there are solutions. In my case, I was able to use a different CD/DVD burning program. (I thank my techie for finding it, BTW.) It gets moody sometimes, but it does work!

I know a simmer who claims that it destroyed her PC. She said she was one of the participants in one of the lawsuits. She got awarded something like $60 in the suit, and it was just settled in the past year.

She said EA agreed not to use it on disk versions of the Sims' games but it is still used for the digital versions.

I would say that TS2 left a bad taste in this person's mouth as a result of this. But she was fine with installing TS2UC. :-)

I'm the same! I know I've got SecuROM with my Double Deluxe, but I had been playing for months before I found out. I found out mainly because I read the bad stuff about it here. And once I got a SecuROM error message. Yes, I have to admit I did once have a problem with it. When I tried to start my game I got some sort of message about SecuROM not detecting a valid disk. I rebooted the computer and the game loaded ok. And it's been working fine ever since. That was about a year ago. Compared to the many hours of enjoyment the game has given me, my problems to date with SecuROM are a matter of inconsequence. Of course that may change in the future, but, until it does, I'll just continue to enjoy playing The Sims 2. I back up my game to .zip files, which I then burn to DVD.

I do sympathise with people who have had problems with SecuROM in the past, but I agree with gwynne that it's a shame to put newbies off the game by worrying them about things which may never happen to them. It's a great game. Don't let SecuROM worries spoil it for you.

My old computer had SecuRom on it and I never, ever had problems with it. I didn't even know it was on there until I got curious, did a search and found it. If it helps calm fears in any way- not all the programs I had on that computer were legal copies. (I'm talking programs there, not games!) The only problems I ever had with that computer were caused by other people using it and being stupid about sites they visited or things they downloaded. (The things I used to find on the "Others" account when doing scans! *shudders*)

This computer doesn't have it, I looked. The UC isn't installed so that's probably why. Origin IS though! No problems there either because Origin never got a chance to "spy" in any way, and it never will. It was blocked from doing so before I even installed it- thanks a tip from another simmer. If an admin says it's ok, I'll share that tip here. (It should be alright to, I'm just being careful!)

I didn't have any illegal copies of any programs and it still broke my disk drive after installing BV. Only at the time, I had no idea what happened because I didn't frequent the sims forums. I was just so determined to play my game again that I Googled how to fix a DVD drive that stopped working and followed something like 2 pages of instructions to fix it. Luckily enough, it did fix it and I never had any further trouble after that until installing a digital version of TS3 on my new laptop last year. Now sometimes the disk drive doesn't recognize when there is a disk in it until I mess with it about 5 times or so.

Did she know it had Securom?

This makes me wonder, though. I believe the UC has Securom v. 7.4-something. Was that the same as the 2007 version of v.7?

After a quick look ... no. BV apparently had 7.33.0014. The UC has 07.40.0009. This may be significant or not.

Perhaps ... just perhaps ... EA revised its Securom since 2007? I'd like to believe so.

Yes, she knew it had SecureRom but someone somewhere must have been reassuring about it because she did install it and she's been playing it. She told someone else in a thread (on another forum) that she was leery but she researched it and was told it was OK since the digital versions didn't use the DVD drive. Apparently she learned (or read about somewhere) that to be on the safe side to remove any DVD's you might have in the drive then reboot the PC to unload any references to the disk, then install TS2UC.

I've installed it on my PC, but if SC'13 uses it I already had it anyway. No problems so far, but then come to think of it, I haven't tried to use my DVD drive.

I do not have "any" illegal copies of Sims 2 EPs I walk straight into the store "Best Buy" and pay out of my pockets for every EPs I have which was back in 2006.
When I wanted or needed an extra copy for my Sims 2 since they was no longer in the stores, I went on Amazon and order and pay for what I needed there.

I do not have Origin digital download nor am I interest and having it, I like the idea of having hand on hand ( a real ) CD.
My computer when I added BV was a new computer and not cheap, but after adding BV about a week or two later my CD / DVD drive started making strange noise like ( knocking sounds really bad )

I had to get a home Tech person to remove securom completely out of my computer system and then get a brand new player
So I am one member that did have a bad nightmare with Securom, ( with the CD Rom version ) but like I said in an earlier post not everyone had that problem.

The answer to that is ... technically, yes, but it won't do you any good.

Even if you do remove it, the minute you launch the game again, SecuROM will automatically reinstall.

SecuROM doesn't install with Origin and it doesn't install when you install the game. It does however install when you first launch the game. And any time you uninstall SecuROM, it will reinstall again when you launch your game again to play... and so on.
-----------------------------------

As for the rest of the discussion, I personally hate SecuROM as a rule and won't trust EA again, they have proven time and time again that they can't be trusted. We've caught them lying far too many times.

My main concern here isn't the fact that EA left SecuROM in the Sims 2 UC, but that they didn't disclose the fact it was there... even after signing a court agreement that they would.

Here is a copy of the section of the signed document if anyone missed it.

*Sips root beer calmly* You know, that's what so great about Twallan's No CD mods for TS3 and Sims Medieval (which by the way has SecuROM in the final patch and in the lone expansion pack)--by using such mods you can avoid ever using the original execution file-- thus preventing SecuROM from ever infesting your computer. For The Sims 2, unfortunately, there is no mod equivalent. There is a way to do it, of course, but such topics walk upon thin ice here. I encourage you to harness the power of the internet and learn how to do so--however, since all of my Sims2 games are physical disks, I have no idea how this particular method would work with digital download-based games.

With the Sims 2 including the Sims 2 UC, there is an easy way of bypassing SecuROM, but it's deemed illegal, So I didn't put any of that in my post above. Not only is it not a discussion for this forum, but most places and can get you into a lot of hot water.

Until it becomes legal to bypass a DRM, then it's mute point.

I apologize, you are right. I've just read so many posts of people lamenting about having to either uninstall their games or wait for SecuROM to do its thing. I'm just throwing it out that there is another (albeit risky) option. Personally, I wish I had known about the option back in 2007. My old computer lost its ability to read disks thanks to SecuROM. I detest it with a passion and I don't want to see anyone else get hurt by it.
I again apologize for any disturbance I may have caused, and respectfully retire from the conversation.

Mouse, no need to apologise, I fully understand how you feel, because I feel the same way. I've been hit by that nasty DRM a few times. Not to count the very long hours sitting up all night with people via Messenger and Skype helping them clean that crud off their PC's so they work properly again. Some days I didn't even get sleep (for days on end) I was busy. They were lined up waiting for me to have time to help them (which also started my downhill decent into getting really sick because of it).. But I would never have changed anything then and I'm not one to put my needs above others now either. I wouldn't change that if you paid me to.

The version of SecuROM (and what parts are implemented) might not do any harm to peoples PC (as of yet), but it's the principle of the matter that concerns me.

As I said the other day when I was discussing this somewhere else... EA and all the other companies can do what they please and implement whatever the heck they want into their games, but they SHOULD darned well tell us about it so we can make an informed decision... I don't care if the games are free or paid for, to me that makes no difference. We should be the ones to decide what gets installed on OUR PROPERTY, not them.

This, indeed. SecuROM itself doesn't really bother me in particular. I believe the "dangers" of it are exaggerated for most people. For instance, it's been documented that it will on occasion disable an optical drive's ability to read disks properly. This makes a certain amount of sense; it's designed to shut down tools that people use to make "illegal" copies of discs, so it will sometimes mistake legitimate programs for shady ones and shut that shit down. It's a computer program. It isn't perfect. Of course, my personal opinion is that, if I've bought a disk, I'll make as many copies as I damn well please, thank you, so long as I don't hand them out to other people, but that's really beside the point. In any case, I highly doubt SecuROM will physically break such drives; I would chalk a lot of that up to coincidence. Optical drives are rather delicate, and the companies who make pre-built "package" computers that many average computer users buy (like Dell and HP) are known for using low-quality components even in their higher-end machines that they sell for quite a bit of money. That's how they cut costs. Combine low-quality components with your average person who plays PC video games so that they're very often, if not constantly, taking discs in and out of drives, causing a more-than-normal amount of wear-and-tear, and it's a recipe for broken CD/DVD drives. Which are, fortunately, relatively inexpensive to replace and relatively easy to install oneself, at least on a desktop.

So, I admit that I tend to dismiss a lot of the "OMG! It broke my computer!" hysteria. That said, particularly since I'm a Libertarian hippie, I do not like DRM in general, at all, because to me it's "The Man" sticking its nose in where it ought not be. Plus, it generally only affects people who legitimately buy the games, since the "pirates" know how to get rid of that stuff and crack stuff before it's put up for torrenting, so people who torrent games don't have to put up with it at all. So, it basically doesn't do what the companies want it to do, AND it encourages people to torrent, once they learn about SecuROM (and other schemes), read the hysteria, freak out, and then learn that torrented games don't include such BS. And I certainly don't like companies putting stuff on my computer without my knowledge, without proper and glaring warnings that it will do so, not something buried in a EULA that they have to know most people won't read or, even if they do, that most people won't understand the Legalese of. THAT's what I have a problem with. EA, of course, is not the only company that does this and, by comparison, video game DRM is mild compared to other higher-end software packages. Still, it's the principle of the thing, like you said. Especially because, as I said, it really doesn't do what it's supposed to do. It really only impacts people who legitimately bought the game, and those are not the people that that EA and other companies are trying to inhibit. So, they're pissing off their current and potential legitimate customer base AND not affecting the "pirates" at all. Not the best business model, IMO. I agree that companies have a right to protect their investments, but I believe that things like SecuROM are not the way to do it.

FYI, if you look in:

Program Files (x86) > Electronic Arts > The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection > Support > EULA


and open the Rich Text Doc you will find that the End User License Agreement states the following under B. Technical Protection Measures:



So technically I guess they fulfilled their agreement. Even if you have to install it to actually find out that it's included.

@iCad: I respectfully disagree (with your first paragraph). I have heard of waaaayyyy too many incidences of broken computer parts to believe it is just wear and tear. Also, if you look above, EA basically admits that there have been reports of "technical issues".

Disagree all you want, of course. It's just the opinion of a grumpy skeptic, after all. In short, most of the reports I've seen about broken drives post-SecuROM installation are in the form of forum/blog posts in various places, and they are generally not excessively detailed. There's often no indication of how old a reportedly-destroyed disk drive is, how often it had been used prior to breaking, what make/model it is, etc. Ultimately, if it was really a huge, widespread, legitimately-corroborated problem, I would think that Sony (SecuROM's maker) would address and resolve the issue. After all, why would they want to distribute software that does such damage or continue to distribute it once it had confirmed such reports? That would be damaging THEIR customer base (i.e., companies that buy DRM software to "protect" their products, and EA certainly isn't the only one). Most companies will do whatever it takes to avoid that because to do otherwise would be stupid and sort of corporately-suicidal. After all, deliberately damaging your customer base is a good way to make shareholders flee the nest like rats on a sinking ship and since the money that shareholders invest is what keeps publicly-owned corporations afloat, that would be a bad thing. In the end, the only thing I "trust" about companies is that they will protect their bottom line. A computer program that physically damages an end-user's computer would negatively impact that bottom line and would be addressed promptly unless the company is run by utterly stupid people. As a person who interacts often with a certain large branch of Sony, I can say that the people who run Sony are not at all stupid. They are very focused on the bottom line.

So, I remain skeptical. A bunch of people on the internets saying that their drives broke after installing a game that included SecuROM doesn't mean much to me. Not without some independent, non-biased corroboration of such claims, corroboration which directly and unequivocally links such damage to SecuROM and not simply to things like coincidence, user error, the inevitable effects of wear-and-tear, etc. Which, admittedly, I haven't looked extensively for because, ultimately...I don't care. I know how to avoid/remove SecuROM if I decide that I'm peeved enough that I don't want it on my machine. To me, whether or not it does damage isn't the real issue. The real issue to me is the sneakiness of the whole thing. Of course, SecuROM's presence isn't going to be loudly proclaimed; that would damage sales. So, companies (not just EA, but pretty much every company on the planet that sells things that people use) bury things that customers might dislike in the fine print that said customers are likely never to read. So, it's all completely legal and legitimate because everything is there in the EULA or a product's documentation or whatever and all people have to do is read. It's just that most people won't read, and that I, personally, have a problem with corporate sneakiness.

Coincidence or not, after installing BV my Nero suite was magically disabled, I couldn't burn CD to store CC files, and after a while, a week or two, I needed to buy a new CD-ROM. That's all.

Yes, it IS mentioned in the EULA, but unless you have access to that EULA BEFORE a sale (or a game is given away), it's useless... it means nothing.
The agreement was to have it on the website to notify of SecuROM implemented AND on the physical packaging of physical copies of the game.... as well as in the EULAs. See the image above for proof.... and EA agreed with that... it's just too bad they don't follow it.


By putting that in their EULA, they think it protects them from any liability... but if someone really wanted to push the envelope, they could take the companies to court and sue them.... If theses companies know it can cause damage and still put it in the games, they also risk being sued if the need arises.


The biggest problem with this part is that if you aren't warned of this BEFORE you purchase their games, you've wasted your money if you don't agree with it, so don't install it. A long while ago here it was deemed that once you've opened the package, you lose the right to return a product. Thankfully they grew a brain and changed it to if you haven't activated the game keycode you could return it... if it was because you found out it contained SecuROM you could return it.


Anyway, there have been quite a few cases where as soon as SecuROM was put onto a PC/Laptop, the ROM would stop functioning and any burning programs disabled or the owner would be instructed/prompted to disable them manually. Those same people also thought their ROMs were broken so had them replaced with a new one. But had the same results, it wouldn't work. That's when I stepped in for many cases and helped them remove SecuROM from their PC/Laptops and instantly those ROMs started working like normal again. It didn't happen with ALL brands of ROMs, but it did happen with most. And It mostly happened with the physical versions of games... although there were some that had the digital version and would get the prompt to put the disc in to play, being told they didn't have the correct disc in the drive (for a digital copy) .... go figure.

SecuROM would act like Russian roulette... you just didn't know if it was going to effect your PC or laptop until it was installed... but what made it worse was most people didn't even know it was being installed and had no idea why their PC/Laptop stopped functioning correctly. That should NEVER happen just because you buy a game and want to play with it.

It's definitely not a coincidence, it happened to me too. I know some people think it's a myth but it's that thing where you can pretend it doesn't exist until it happens to you.

Well, nothing untoward has happened to me, and I'm pretty sure I've had it on four different machines now and my daughter's had it on 6 different machines, soon to be 7. I'm not saying that there isn't or can't possibly be a correlation at all between SecuROM and physical damage to a drive (which is NOT the same thing as the drive and/or CD-burning software not functioning, which is known and documented). I'm just saying I, personally, don't buy into hysteria until I see some sort of unbiased and independent study of the phenomenon in question, something other than undetailed reports from users on the internet. For me, that goes for just about anything, not just SecuROM issues.

But, like I said, this issue is, to me, beside the point. The issue to me is lack of plain, non-hidden disclosure about the software being installed regardless of whether or not the software is capable of causing physical damage to a disk drive. So, I'm bowing out of any "yes, it does"/"no, it doesn't" arguments now. My advice to people when it comes to TS2, a game that is no longer being sold by EA, is that if they don't want SecuROM, they learn how to remove it and/or use resources where you don't install it in the first place.

As for SecuROM and the UC: I didn't download it, so I don't know about whether or not you see the EULA before you install. But I did install a bunch of EPs for TS3 via Origin, and before I downloaded each one, a screen popped up with the EULA that I had to click "Agree" on before the EP downloaded and subsequently installed, same as it does with installs from physical disks. Did this not happen with the UC?

No it did, you had the terms and conditions and have to click agree to install. Nobody tends to read them though, even though they should.