Several days ago, I accidentally started The Sims 4 while connected to the Internet. You know how Origin is; as soon as it detects an internet connection and learns it isn't the most recent version anymore, it locks down and refuses to do anything until you spend valuable time updating it. All I wanted to do was work on the Flying J Motel some more (I hadn't finished it at that time—it was just a lobby and a restroom back then), but Origin had other plans. "Please update Origin to run this game." Well, at the end of the update, a window appeared and I clicked "OK" without reading what the text said, and what do I find? Origin gets replaced by a completely new launcher! Yes, that's right—the launcher software/DRM scheme that we've all grown to hate got replaced by a worse launcher programme/DRM scheme! Who'd have thought it possible they'd come up with something that makes me wish I still had Origin?
Fortunately, I still have an ace up my sleeve, so to speak: I bought The Sims 4 on DVD-ROM in 2014, which includes the old Origin launcher. If I can get Origin back onto my computer and convince it to update itself (which shouldn't be hard), I can pretend EA Desktop never happened. There are only two problems with this. The Sims 4... and The Sims 3. In order to get rid of EA Desktop once and for all, I have to uninstall not only The Sims 4, which I was planning on because that's where Origin is, but also The Sims 3 and all of my EPs and SPs. Some people who are new to The Sims and only have 4 as a model don't know about the Before Time, when you had to buy all this software on DVD-ROM and install each one like a completely new piece of software, and Windows treated them all as such in the Programs and Features panel. You want to uninstall The Sims 3? Well, first, you've got to uninstall every expansion pack torturously, one at a time.
The point is, I wouldn't have needed to uninstall either programme if Origin and EA Desktop didn't exist in the first place. EA knew when they bought Origin that it was full of holes and wasn't really secure, but the DRM they needed was too expensive per disc to implement and they decided a mass gaslighting campaign to ensure customer obedience would be more effective. As it stands now, however, I had to uninstall half The Sims series in order to carry out an idea that probably won't work anyway.
Why am I doing this? Because my main home computer is a Windows 7 machine and I really don't need some billionaire app launcher telling me that my operating system is no longer supported. I don't need to boot up my computer someday next year and discover that The Sims 3 and 4 have uninstalled themselves because EA Desktop put a sunset on my operating system. With Origin, I could set it and forget it, as it were. I could still play the game while airgapped; however, EA Desktop seems to need to be launched onto a connected machine at least once a week for reasons I can only assume are piracy-related. As long as I didn't mind putting in my long and complicated password everytime I wanted to play The Sims 4 (and I did a fair amount of complaining about that, mind you), Origin would run it without whinging about internet connectivity. There are other reasons I don't want to be connected to the internet all the time (I think I employed the phrase "certifiable paranoid freak" on my About page), so I need Origin back. That's all there is to it.
Fast forward 3 hours and...
Oh, but wait! That server group got shut down, didn't it?! Yes, that's right—it is no longer possible to install Origin from disc media because the servers that answered new clients don't exist anymore! Say you go to Walmart or someplace (where else do you go in America, I ask you) and you buy a copy of The Sims 3 Starter Pack from the discount shelf. You turn it over and it says "Origin" on the back. You take it home, try to install it, and immediately you hit a wall. Origin keeps asking you to be connected to the internet to complete the install, even though you're connected right now. What do you do? Your first instinct is to say it doesn't work and you take it back to Walmart. Oops! Sorry! No returns on open software! Corporate was very clear about that; sorry, ma'am, there's nothing I can do.
The answer is a little convoluted, and it will only work once. What none of the (now fully chatbot-automated) help forums will tell you is that you need to download EA Desktop first, and then, input the serial code from the insert inside the case into the "Redeem Code" line. You can only do it once, though? Well, you can do it however many times you want, as long as you don't create a new EA account (I threw up a little, typing "EA account"). If you ever decide you don't want this discset anymore, even if you uninstall it from your computer, that's not good enough for EA Desktop. As far as the billionaire corporation is concerned, The Sims 3 Starter Pack is still attached to you, and it will be so forever. You sell the physical discset to someone in a lot on Craigslist, they exchange money for it, then they take it home and EA Desktop tells them, "Sorry, this code has been redeemed". Then, it's worthless. Mere coasters.
DLC-only games and anti-piracy verification launchers like EA Desktop have gutted the secondhand game market. As demonstrated above, you cannot sell a game that is forever attached to you on some server someplace. Even if you shut your account down completely, that code is considered to be expired and will not function for anyone, anywhere, at any time; not even you. It's no wonder that game shop down the road from me shut down. Even if they hadn't been under shady management by a guy who may or may not have had ties to the Sicilian mafia, there was just no way they could stay in business. No user-owned physical media means no secondhand game stores. No secondhand game stores means no secondhand games for older systems. No secondhand games for older systems means HUGE MONEY for Nintendo Switch Online, Valve Steam, and EA Desktop.
I fuckin' hate the future, bro. I'm just so tired.
--1 August 2023--