Article about paysites and EA

[Anouk]

What definately should be emphasised (sp??EINZ can't be pooped) is that pay creators claim that pay content is much higher in quality than most free creators can manage, and most Sims 2 players go for the exclusiveness of the content, believe it must have more quality for people to ask money for it. Also, in this community that has alot of teens, pay means status. You have something someone else doesn't have.

A scammers life used to be damn easy in this community, and talking about sharing files would get you banned from allmost everywhere. That suddenly changed when Pescado started his butthurt adventure.

The pay community is leeching of the efforts of the free community.
- Please contact people like Delphy from http://www.modthesims2.com (I could ask him if he's interrested, however he's retired from his site).

- All Sims 2 modding tools are tools created for free, by people who create fro free. Paysite owners abuse their work and research, and use their efforts in their scams.
Allthough Wes_H does not agree with this site at all, you can contact him for a different view on paysites and a free community. You can reach him on http://www.modthesims2.com (I could ask you for him, but it would make no difference to him, I think he allready may or may not be interrested to say anything more.)

- You could contact the owner of SIMPE, but he's always busy. The ones that currently work on SIMPE (Numenor, Inge and her hubby Peter) arwen't particulary interrested, they're sick of the debate and one of them has a payfile.
SIMPE is a free tool that all paysites abuse, and if they say they don't use it, they are lying. It's the only tool that will offer them acces to the gamefiles they mod.

- Once paysite owners find out something new about how to mod something effectively, you will have to wait untill pigs fly untill they tell you. You are competition, not another community member. Ever tried asking Peggy a tutorial on how to recolor hair, or make a cute shape? Or maybe ask Suna
Dr_Pixel and Windkeeper, Sunair?? not sure, (Dr. Pixel has no (more?) payfiles) are the only exceptions, they have shared their knowledge alot as far as I know.

Conflict starts in 2004, and no, it's not started by free sites OR Pirates!
The recent conflicting has often been blamed on pirates who are 'ruining the community spirit... ' but that's a lie.
Before anyone even dared to say publically what they thought about paysites, The Sims Resource, the biggest one, made a very clear statement on what they thought of the site they thank EVERY CENT THEY EARNED to:
http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=30978
The escuse: No, ofcourse they're not competition... they just have adult content! OMG!


MTS Mission Statement 2007 and the banning of pay items, the community being allowed to publically speaking about paysites, wich lead to revenge.
http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=214586&highlight=mission
and
http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=240944&highlight=pay+content

These ones created even more animosity between MTS2 and paysites, and has resulted in a huge smearing campaign of the owner. Yes, paysites do take revenge to those who have a big mouth.

This includes death threats, DDoS attacks, threating people with black hat hacker attacks, harassing people, inspiring young teens to work out ther smearing campaigns os they stay out of the loop, and even collectively contacting EA Games to get Modthesims2 removed from the official The Sims 2 site.
Some paysite owners can easily make a living from what they do, and some will do anything to keep their nice(often tax free) income.

The Great Paysite Debates!
http://forums.sims2community.com/forumdisplay.php?f=85
Please read these threads on how some people think about paysites, positie and negative, how paysite creators usually act, how one falls on her face by getting her lies exposed, and what people's views are on this issue. Also how I scream at people. lol.

Paysite Owners sharing personal information (thx to redisenchanted!)
Don't forget Rose and others sharing personal information (like physical addresses) they got from paypal.
Link: http://phorum.mustnotbenamed.com/viewtopic.php?t=58&highlight=rose+paypal



I will add to this later, others, please add links to threads containing info about this. Thanks.

[Hecubus]

Shame on you, Nouk - you forgot the one you HOST! Silly girl.

Money Better Spent is a collection of legal and ethical arguments, along with some suggestions on how to combat the paysite problem.

[redisenchanted]

Don't forget Rose and others sharing personal information (like physical addresses) they got from paypal.

Link: http://phorum.mustnotbenamed.com/viewtopic.php?t=58&highlight=rose+paypal

[silver]

Oooh, oooh ...

But before I get started ... welcome! And great article!

Now, for another point ... the utter, complete lack of customer service on most of these pay sites. If you pay for a file, a mod or a service (an example of a service would be the Sims 2 Enhancer, also mentioned on this board), and it doesn't work, even if the site owner KNOWS it wasn't tested thoroughly and there are bugs, you are out of luck. You most likely won't even get an e-mail, or will get one that is of absolutely no use to you. An exchange or a refund? Silly customer!

On the other hand, whenever I've had a problem with a free creator's work, only in one or two cases has the creator never responded to me. They are usually very conscientious in trying to find out if there is a problem on their end and correct it. Occasionally, you might get a snide remark if you had the brain fart on your end and did something stupid (and sometimes, you might just deserve it! ) , but the point is that you usually DO get some sort of help.

Now WHICH type of site has better quality?

What puzzles me is why EAGames invites certain paysite owners to their little shindigs. I can see ignoring them, but inviting them to partake in canapés and beverages while looking at the newest EA creations is a bit much. But we've gone over this here, too, so 'nuff said about that, I guess.

[Anouk]

I've invited her over to talk about it and give her more info for maybe future publications... I hope she's interrested.

So, anyone interrested in contacting some specific online gaming magazines about this? Or are you only here to complain and download?  :wink:

I'm interested. But how do we go about this contacting business? Should we just kind of forward the article onto them, along with other information that has been contacted? And I don't read gaming magazines, so I'm not sure who to contact. But I would like to help!

Thank you
Could you pm me? I think this convo should be done privately. Anyone else interrested, just pm me!

[WedgewoodBlue]

No one has mentioned this..........pay sites are unique to the Sims community. No other game sites have pay files. It is just my humble opinion, but with EA's complete lack of enforcing their own EULA, they are the ones who are ultimately responsible for the thousands of Sim players who have been bilked out of money for content that is far from acceptable in quality.

Ultimately EA must accept the blame and shoulder the responsibility for the numbers of fans who now "ARR" the product instead of purchasing it, with the inclusion of SecuRom on BV, and all future expansions and stuff packs, they have seriously undermined the base of loyal customers they once had.

The problems with the Sims communities are scattered all over the web. And as for the existance of some of the pay sites, well their creative abilities exist only in their imagination, hence the need for their "own site", as none of their shoddy creations would pass many free  site guidelines. So they parade themselves off as independent pay sites, use the "bandwidth costs" to justify their pay files. With so many free sites offering free hosting, there is truly NO need for a paysite to exist.

And EA's responsibility in this matter should not be overlooked. But as I said that's just my opinion.

[missangelica]

Conflict starts in 2004, and no, it's not started by free sites OR Pirates!
The recent conflicting has often been blamed on pirates who are 'ruining the community spirit... ' but that's a lie.
Before anyone even dared to say publically what they thought about paysites, The Sims Resource, the biggest one, made a very clear statement on what they thought of the site they thank EVERY CENT THEY EARNED to:
http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=30978
The escuse: No, ofcourse they're not competition... they just have adult content! OMG!

It didn't start like that.  It started by Thomas using the MtS2 pm system to contact all the top creators on MtS2 to try to recruit them as paid featured artists for tsr and leave MtS2.  The line was drawn in the sand.

There was also a big upset over creators at tsr using the free tutorials, free tools, free beta testing, and free live help to then move the items from MtS2 over to their site after they were done and then acted like they had done it all on their own.  They gave no credit to anyone on their site.  If I remember correctly there was even a site news item on their site basically claiming that they had cracked the code themselves.  The result of the upset made tsr put a credit section on the items uploaded.

The banning of mentioning MtS2 on tsr was after both of these things for sure.

[Witchboy]

Let's not forget to throw in TSR's banning sprees of members suspected of sharing TSR goodies & not giving refunds of those members paid subs after said banning.

I had 300 + days left on my sub when i was banned. No refund. No nothing. All i got was a email threat from atwat. The Biatch!

[aeolson]

MTS Mission Statement 2007 and the banning of pay items, the community being allowed to publically speaking about paysites, wich lead to revenge.
http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=214586&highlight=mission
and
http://modthesims2.com/showthread.php?t=240944&highlight=pay+content

These ones created even more animosity between MTS2 and paysites, and has resulted in a huge smearing campaign of the owner. Yes, paysites do take revenge to those who have a big mouth.

This includes death threats, DDoS attacks, threating people with black hat hacker attacks, harassing people, inspiring young teens to work out ther smearing campaigns os they stay out of the loop, and even collectively contacting EA Games to get Modthesims2 removed from the official The Sims 2 site.
Some paysite owners can easily make a living from what they do, and some will do anything to keep their nice(often tax free) income.

Thanks everyone for the information.  I think it might take me a while to read through all of it, but I'm planning to write about some specific areas, starting with Rose and TSR.

Anouk, is there any online documentation of all the things mentioned above?

[Anouk]

-Liegen Schonheit can tell you about people trying to get her site shut down, also, there's Hecubus, who owned MoneyBetterSpent, whos site got closed after complaints of copyrights infringements. Funny thing is: 1. creators don't wond copyrights over anything usable in the game and 2. There was no custom content on the site.

-Death threats: Contact Sherrie, it was in her guestbook.

-DDoS attacks: Contact Wicked Sims, Insimenator.net, this site.

-Threatening people with black hat hacker attacks: heather changeri or whatever... I Believe this is the thread where she threatened this site. Also read What was posted on her site.

-Inspiring young teens to work out ther smearing campaigns so they stay out of the loop: This was the 'zomg post everywhere that delphy is a pedo and steals money' thing. Anywhere it was posted it was deleted, but someone kept it: read this.
Also this person trying to invlove Pescado, owner of this site, chatlog: Here.
More about it in this thread: Read this.

-and even collectively contacting EA Games to get Modthesims2 removed from the official The Sims 2 site: If you really want to know, I'll send it in a pm.


(Thanks to Jessica for using the search option better than I can )

[AW]

Hi and welcome.  Very good article and I am glad that you are here to see what those of us, creators and players, have experienced.

(I'll admit I didn't read everything in this entire thread, but most of it  :wink: )

My issue with paysites is that if you are going to run a business, you should have quality control, fix the items that do not work properly, such as bad animation.  Also, many of the creations are photoshopped heavily and tend to not look the same in the game.  Additionally, when a paysite updates a creation, if you no longer have a subscription, you cannot get the update of the item.  Not to mention, those who have paid for subs or sets and never received them.

However, I think EA receives kickbacks from sites such as TSR.  They seem to get special treatment.  So, how can you call it a fansite?  

I look forward to seeing your articles in the future.

[Harlock]

If I remember correctly there was even a site news item on their site basically claiming that they had cracked the code themselves.

Oh yes, I remember that ... it was when the objects code was "cracked" and TSR claimed they did it, it was funny because since it was just been cracked early objects had a lot of issues and TSR end up having in the uncomfortable position of having to provide support over something they knew nothing about it.

TSR is funny in so many ways, anyone remembers when someone created a similar program to SimPE and they tried to push it?

[Space Buccaneer]

So, anyone interrested in contacting some specific online gaming magazines about this? Or are you only here to complain and download?  :wink:

I'm interested. But how do we go about this contacting business? Should we just kind of forward the article onto them, along with other information that has been contacted? And I don't read gaming magazines, so I'm not sure who to contact. But I would like to help!

Ah, see this is where I'd like to jump in.  I've been saying to the husband for months now that someone - not necessarily me - but someone needs to write in to Games for Windows (the computer gaming mag we subscribe to - shit I said the "s" word!) because it would be interesting to see if they would have the cajones to write an article about T.G.P.D.  They are so focused on WoW right now (and have been for, oh I don't know, ever) that I'd be surprised if they even knew that an online community existed for The Sims2 (and not made up of only 12 year olds).  "Real gamers" read that magazine and putting it out there for them might just be what this debate needs for EA to take a stand.  

So yeah, I'm all fired up now and about to fall asleep while I type, but I just wrote a long-ass letter that I plan on typing up and mailing in ASAP.  I'd send it via their feedback form, but I don't want to type it all up only to find out it has some sort of bullshit character limit.  

I plan on including links to the FAQ here (as well as recommending the Arr! section of this site as a whole), Nouk's online petition, aeolson's online article (if that is okay with you aeolson), the "TSR is a sucky-ass sucky website" thread, and at least one other thread I found where folks are debating the legalities of not only paysites but file sharing.

Any one got any other links involving The Great Paysite Debate?  Either share 'em (because as Sparkle's signature states: Sharing is Caring) or if you write to any gaming mags (whether it be GfW or something else) include them yourself.  But we should definitely do this thing.

[tIIsuggas]

MTS2 Mission Statement is a good read.

The Great Paysite Debates.  Over at s2c forums.

[Pineapplebrain]

Ah, see this is where I'd like to jump in.  I've been saying to the husband for months now that someone - not necessarily me - but someone needs to write in to Games for Windows (the computer gaming mag we subscribe to - shit I said the "s" word!) because it would be interesting to see if they would have the cajones to write an article about T.G.P.D.  They are so focused on WoW right now (and have been for, oh I don't know, ever) that I'd be surprised if they even knew that an online community existed for The Sims2 (and not made up of only 12 year olds).  "Real gamers" read that magazine and putting it out there for them might just be what this debate needs for EA to take a stand.  

So yeah, I'm all fired up now and about to fall asleep while I type, but I just wrote a long-ass letter that I plan on typing up and mailing in ASAP.  I'd send it via their feedback form, but I don't want to type it all up only to find out it has some sort of bullshit character limit.  

I plan on including links to the FAQ here (as well as recommending the Arr! section of this site as a whole), Nouk's online petition, aeolson's online article (if that is okay with you aeolson), the "TSR is a sucky-ass sucky website" thread, and at least one other thread I found where folks are debating the legalities of not only paysites but file sharing.

Any one got any other links involving The Great Paysite Debate?  Either share 'em (because as Sparkle's signature states: Sharing is Caring) or if you write to any gaming mags (whether it be GfW or something else) include them yourself.  But we should definitely do this thing.

I think you should also include the HChangeri blackhat attacks, and any sort of documents that describe the paysite owners stealing paypal information. This would show that not only are paysites illegal, but their owners do other illegal things...AND EA does nothing to stop them.