In an article released by the Associated Press last Friday, EA went on record stating that early copies of their upcoming title The Sims 3 is pre-final, and plagued with bugs. In addition to the unstable build, it apparently lacks an entire second city, which EA claims consists of half the game itself.

The game was leaked about two weeks prior to the release date, and sadly, the title has been passed around via various torrent sites such as the infamous Pirate Bay. Strangely, in a move I could only attribute to a lack of common sense, the upcoming final build of the game will lack any form of DRM–digital rights management to the uninformed–or other forms of anti-piracy countermeasures. While I understand that they feel there might be some form of backlash, a simple authentication key would do wonders. I get that some people will undoubtedly crack the codes used for that, it should at least encourage more people to locate official copies of the game.

Is EA proverbially shooting itself in the foot? I don’t know, I suppose there are arguments on both sides regarding the actual effectiveness of DRM. Let me put it this way though, The Sims itself has–as much as I personally abhor it–become part of our pop culture. We see references to it in shows like The Simpsons, or more recently, an episode of 30 Rock. You’d think EA would do whatever they could to protect their product, much like Apple does with it’s proprietary quicktime formats and itunes. Well regardless, I’m sure plenty of people love the game and will be buying it after it’s released next month.

[via google]