EA calls pirated The Sims 3 versions a demo program

Although Riccitiello was being facetious, and EA says it did not deliberately leak the code, he noted that the result was basically an inadvertent demo program, encouraging illegal downloaders to make a purchase to play the full game.

"You identified our secret marketing campaign!" joked Riccitiello. "That was a very large scale – concentrated on Poland and China – demo program."