Free The Sims: Letter Writing Campaign

[SparklePlenty]

A strike is a good idea, Angelica.

Also, Mr. Pescado, strikes are well known throughout history to be effective. Hunger strikes, not so much, because who cares? But the recent Day Without Immigrants was very effective in drawing attention to the cause of immigrants. Not to mention the Civil Rights Movement.

Also, there is the famous gag about Lysistrata (the name of one of my sims, by the way) convincing the women of ancient Greece to withhold sex from their warlike husbands until said husbands stopped warring on each other.  

That said, a strike is a good idea, Angelica. How would full compliance be accomplished?

[Hekima]

I don't think that's the best idea. Part of what keeps the paysites going is instant gratification. They thrive thanks to impulsive people who can see a photoshopped hair image and thing, "OMG! Awesome!11!!! I can't live without it! I'm gonna throw all my money at this site 'cause I gotta have that now!" The fact that they can probably get better stuff for free doesn't really matter because to this day, you can still see random defenders of Peggy and Rose popping up on some sites like the File Vault and stuff. The idea is even that since it costs money, it has to be good and you're obviously stupid if you can't see that.

They're not interested in how legal or illegal it is to share content. Otherwise, there wouldn't be "legal threats" here or people who sign up just to defend pay crap.

If free sites stop sharing stuff for free for an extended period of time, those people are still going to throw money at paysites because they want stuff now. They're not going to sit around for a lesson that's probably going to fly right over their heads, anyway.

Granted, they could also miss all that annoying small print on such sites about how long they're going to have to wait for downloads. Rose's is pretty stupid and it would be fun for them all to blow up at her...

But, uh, at any rate, showing that there's good stuff to be gotten for free while including a few well placed jabs at the evil of pay sites seems more effective than not sharing anything to teach a lesson.

[Zazazu]

What if all free sites shut off their downloads for a day - just one day (the same day) - and put up notes about free downloads vs. paysite downloads.  I don't know that MTS2 or Insim would be in on it - but on a Saturday - what if that were to happen?

I think it'd be roughly akin to all the black people in the country going on a hunger strike to protest the KKK. In other words, a really stupid idea.

Now if sites were to oh, say, do THIS, and LEAVE it that way, THAT would be cool. Whether it's a protest or not, the pure LULZ would be worth it!

It would be, or even a larger banner below their site headline. It's not so much that the sheepies don't care as it is that they don't know....they don't know that charging for custom content is against EA "law". They don't know of alternatives (booty et al) to get great meshes.

Hell, I didn't, and I'm not exactly a dumbass.

[Hecubus]

I like Pescado's idea a lot...that MATY screen really throws a lot of people off.

Another idea...wouldn't be interesting to do banners for free sites that show good free items next to similar, crap pay items? Like putting a Nouk hair next to a peggy hair...a Piggis recolor next to an Atwa recolor...etc? "Why pay when you can get the same - or better - for free?"

THAT's the campaign.

[missangelica]

Another idea...wouldn't be interesting to do banners for free sites that show good free items next to similar, crap pay items?

Eh, you'd have to use your own screenshots of the crap pay stuff though because of course they try to hide the gaps in the photoshopped pictures they put on their sites. If people knew that's what they were getting, I'm sure the impulse to get would go down pretty quick..  The thought of putting Atwa stuff in my game repulses me.

[Chinchillagrl]

The thought of putting Atwa stuff in my game repulses me.

I was thinking the same thing! Atwa makes my skin crawl. I literally got a chill just thinking about it.

[Pescado]

Also, Mr. Pescado, strikes are well known throughout history to be effective. Hunger strikes, not so much, because who cares? But the recent Day Without Immigrants was very effective in drawing attention to the cause of immigrants. Not to mention the Civil Rights Movement.

Strikes are effective because the people who go on strike directly impact the people causing the problem. If you want to affect paysites, you'd have to orchestrate a mass boycott. Going on strike wouldn't work because YOU DON'T WORK FOR A PAYSITE. So why would they care what you do?

[cheekylilgirl]

I like Pescado's idea a lot...that MATY screen really throws a lot of people off.

Another idea...wouldn't be interesting to do banners for free sites that show good free items next to similar, crap pay items? Like putting a Nouk hair next to a peggy hair...a Piggis recolor next to an Atwa recolor...etc? "Why pay when you can get the same - or better - for free?"

THAT's the campaign.

I think that's an awesome idea, after all it's educating downloaders into thinking is that pay stuff really better or are they just being deceived.

I actually think it's never ever better, but some don't know.

[kagechikara]

I gotta say, Mr. Pescado has a point. I mean, if the free download sites are down, who are people going to turn to to get their hit of downloads? Paysites.

Really, we'd only be driving people into Peggy's arms. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

[EmilyTwitch]

Back to the topic of letter writing:

My classmates and I all enjoy playing TS2. Coincidentally, we all hate paysites. Today each student sent one of these letters, personalized and signed. There's another forty letters headed their way!  

[Apsalar]

I agree with Pescado, surprisingly. Besides, if you wanna be mean, just make every paysite url redirect to PMBD. Mouahahahah! Arr!

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SBOT (Sorry Back On Topic)