A so called bug in the newly released 'Sims 4' game may actually be a form of copy protection.
Users had reported a bug in which excessive pixelation is present. For those that don't know, when the characters in the game are performing acts that require censorship (such as showering, or alleviating a low bladder rating), pixelation is added to preserve the game's family friendly atmosphere. But with the "bug", the pixelated area increases in size every time sims performs one of these acts, until it covers virtually the entire screen.
Very soon, users started reporting that this bug seems much more prevalent in pirated versions of the game, with one user who had both a paid for copy and a pirated copy confirming that the bug only occurs in his pirated copy.
With the game's publisher EA refusing to acknowledge, or deny the existence of this particular form of anti-piracy control, some users may also be inadvertently outing themselves on forums and even with EA tech support when they report this "bug".
While this may simply be a major glitch with the game, other games have used similar techniques to annoy pirates in the past, including Serious Sam 3's an unkillable pink scorpion or the irony of making players go bankrupt due to piracy within the game publishing simulator Game Dev Tycoon.
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