EA contacting users of G4TW for downloading Sims related torrents? hm...[SOLVED]

I am skeptical as hell since this has NEVER happened to me in my YEARS of downloading both direct download AND torrent files on here.

Even using different internet providers (where I had one that contacted my brother for downloading too many pirated movie but never was I contacted for downloading The Sims torrents), was I ever contacted by EA about anything other than to receive offers via email.


I was scrolling around this well-known site when I saw this post:


(Someone asked for a good site to download TS4 and all the DLC and whatnot and someone recommended G4TW)

Now, this is just me trying to figure out if this was ever a thing or if this person just got scammed. Honestly? I think this person either got scammed by someone posing as EA for their personal information OR they have a very strict internet provider. I highly doubt EA has people lurking about G4TW...they have money; they won't waste their time like that.


Sorry if this isn't the right place to post this but I don't think it fits anywhere else??? Also, I was trying to send this message privately to one of the admins to not cause a panic but I can't find a way to contact any of them directly.

I would say its a scam as EA is not going to mention the site the torrent was posted on and, as far as I know, nobody here "works" for EA. If one of the staff worked for EA we wouldn't need to "fix" the games to be played offline.

That being said, it is always a good idea to use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) when downloading "pirated" games, movies, software, etc., or any other internet activity for that matter just to protect your privacy and identity.

rev22x20 wrote:(...)

I was scrolling around this well-known site when I saw this post:

Someone there works for EA. Yes, yes. But wasn't John F. Kennedy assassinated by [insert name of any American intel agency]? And wasn't that same intel agency also responsible for the September 11th 2001 attacks in New York City? "Jokes" aside, like Dracos hinted, we would not be putting such an effort into these platforms if everything was a false-flag operation anyway.

When things go sideways and trustworthy information about something is not readily available, the first thing that comes to mind to many people is some sinister & government-supported power, that is involved in some (mis)deed. Example: after The Piratebay went back online after the last raid, the adverts used there were "family-friendly" (= non-pornographic & non-violent). Alongside the fact that a "mysterious new admin" was posting blog updates and TPB started using Cloudflare (an American-based "forward proxy", google it)...this has led some people to suspect that TPB was run by the FBI or something. TPB is still running 4 years or so after the last raid. And I can't think of any reason what government-agencies are doing for so long, running such a platform like TPB. Catching IP-addresses from visitors/uploaders, and then doing...what exactly with that? Geo-profiling IP-addresses to match approximate living areas of said TPB users/visitors? And what next...? Getting court warrants for being able to search random people's houses? I don't live in America, but I highly doubt this kind of thing is actually done there.

I was thinking that the comment in the picture was in fact from an EA employee, but if that was the case they would not recommend using the Direct Download, and instead just post a short and fear-inducing message along the lines of "I made an account here just to say EA are watching this site good luck bye". The screenshot'ed comment was probably made simply from someone who isn't familiar with the finer aspects of modern internet usage. Like I've said time and time again: people do not need to have any specialized training or education ("computer science professor") to be able to safely navigate around these sites and play DRM-free games. In this case, one can easily see IP-addresses of fellow downloaders, in most torrent clients. Just click on the tab "peers" or "peerlist". People are caught because anti-piracy organizations also test-download these items, and then look at the tab peers/peerlist. With these IP-addresses, anti-piracy organizations then contact ISPs, who in turn message the internet-subscriber. In that process, anti-piracy organizations and copyright holders do NOT know what person is behind an IP-address. Only the actual Internet Provider knows this information. In most if not all "Western" countries, this information cannot be handed over unless there is a court warrant.

The fact that the above person was messaged by e-mail, is probably also explained easily. Scammers send out mass-emails, and surely at least one of the 100,000-or-so mail-recipients must be someone who coincidentallly downloaded such a DRM-free game. Cost vs. benefit analysis: sending out these mass e-mails doesn't usually cost anything. And scammers are banking on the chance that at least one recipient is actually gullible enough to hand over their personal info. I'm afraid though that from any 100,000 sample of people, there will be more than 1 among them who will eventually do so.

@rev22x20, isn't Puerto Rico within the jurisdiction of the United States though? If yes, then simply switching ISPs isn't going to help. I think a lot of US-based ISPs are now sending out these warning letters. See this comment and subsequent messages for a discussion about VPN services.

You can directly message me, by clicking the red e-mail button on my Forum signature.   I don't know if you can directly message ~Ann~; I believe you can send a private message through the Forum however. You can also message one of the SuperMods (SeoY or Dracos), as well though.

To wrap up, and like I've said many times. I don't think I care enough what other blogs, forums, subreddits, FB-pages, Twitter-accounts, etc. write about us. It's either going to be positive, which is good. Or negative, which more often than not also translates into good advertising for us. Negative messages create stronger emotional feelings, and tend to make people curious. They will check out G4TW themselves and maybe they will form an opinion of their own, whatever that will be in the end.

I just received on today from Comcast, and it was for the Sims 2 Complete Collection, listed it by name and said EA filed the complaint. This was from the torrent file. I am not trying to scare people, just wanted to make you aware it did in fact happen and it named the specific torrent.

Lady Tali Zorah wrote:II am not trying to scare people, (...)

Yes, this is nothing new. Check out this here:
https://www.games4theworld.club/t32958p25-best-vpn-services#191914

Or use ZLOrigin for your Sims-fix, which is comparable to a direct download-format.

The_gh0stm4n wrote:

rev22x20 wrote:(...)

I was scrolling around this well-known site when I saw this post:

Someone there works for EA. Yes, yes. But wasn't John F. Kennedy assassinated by [insert name of any American intel agency]? And wasn't that same intel agency also responsible for the September 11th 2001 attacks in New York City? "Jokes" aside, like Dracos hinted, we would not be putting such an effort into these platforms if everything was a false-flag operation anyway.

When things go sideways and trustworthy information about something is not readily available, the first thing that comes to mind to many people is some sinister & government-supported power, that is involved in some (mis)deed. Example: after The Piratebay went back online after the last raid, the adverts used there were "family-friendly" (= non-pornographic & non-violent). Alongside the fact that a "mysterious new admin" was posting blog updates and TPB started using Cloudflare (an American-based "forward proxy", google it)...this has led some people to suspect that TPB was run by the FBI or something. TPB is still running 4 years or so after the last raid. And I can't think of any reason what government-agencies are doing for so long, running such a platform like TPB. Catching IP-addresses from visitors/uploaders, and then doing...what exactly with that? Geo-profiling IP-addresses to match approximate living areas of said TPB users/visitors? And what next...? Getting court warrants for being able to search random people's houses? I don't live in America, but I highly doubt this kind of thing is actually done there.

I was thinking that the comment in the picture was in fact from an EA employee, but if that was the case they would not recommend using the Direct Download, and instead just post a short and fear-inducing message along the lines of "I made an account here just to say EA are watching this site good luck bye". The screenshot'ed comment was probably made simply from someone who isn't familiar with the finer aspects of modern internet usage. Like I've said time and time again: people do not need to have any specialized training or education ("computer science professor") to be able to safely navigate around these sites and play DRM-free games. In this case, one can easily see IP-addresses of fellow downloaders, in most torrent clients. Just click on the tab "peers" or "peerlist". People are caught because anti-piracy organizations also test-download these items, and then look at the tab peers/peerlist. With these IP-addresses, anti-piracy organizations then contact ISPs, who in turn message the internet-subscriber. In that process, anti-piracy organizations and copyright holders do NOT know what person is behind an IP-address. Only the actual Internet Provider knows this information. In most if not all "Western" countries, this information cannot be handed over unless there is a court warrant.

The fact that the above person was messaged by e-mail, is probably also explained easily. Scammers send out mass-emails, and surely at least one of the 100,000-or-so mail-recipients must be someone who coincidentallly downloaded such a DRM-free game. Cost vs. benefit analysis: sending out these mass e-mails doesn't usually cost anything. And scammers are banking on the chance that at least one recipient is actually gullible enough to hand over their personal info. I'm afraid though that from any 100,000 sample of people, there will be more than 1 among them who will eventually do so.

@rev22x20, isn't Puerto Rico within the jurisdiction of the United States though? If yes, then simply switching ISPs isn't going to help. I think a lot of US-based ISPs are now sending out these warning letters. See this comment and subsequent messages for a discussion about VPN services.

You can directly message me, by clicking the red e-mail button on my Forum signature.   I don't know if you can directly message ~Ann~; I believe you can send a private message through the Forum however. You can also message one of the SuperMods (SeoY or Dracos), as well though.

To wrap up, and like I've said many times. I don't think I care enough what other blogs, forums, subreddits, FB-pages, Twitter-accounts, etc. write about us. It's either going to be positive, which is good. Or negative, which more often than not also translates into good advertising for us. Negative messages create stronger emotional feelings, and tend to make people curious. They will check out G4TW themselves and maybe they will form an opinion of their own, whatever that will be in the end.

I dint saw the little message button thingy. I just went directly to the admins profiles and since I dint saw a contact me or email me button, I assumed you guys dint accept private messages from other members. Good to know!

Yes, Puerto Rico is under the jurisdiction of the USA; pirating games/movies/music falls under Federal law here as well. Maybe changing ISP's it's not going to help but I swear, ever since I changed, I haven't had any problems and neither has my brother?. If anything, the amount of torrents that I have downloaded has increased this EA can't stop pumping out DLC left and right. Never been contacted once. I shall not invite bad luck though and I will check out this VPN business to see what is all about.

I haven't had a problem with you guys but then again, maybe I've just been lucky so far. Which is why I brought this into attention. I was too curious (& a little bit scared, not gonna lie. Who wants to get fined or do jail time for pirating any Sims game anyways? "Why are you here?" "I downloaded the sims 4 game illegally" ) not to know what the hell was going on.

rev22x20 wrote:& a little bit scared, not gonna lie. Who wants to get fined or do jail time for pirating any Sims game anyways? 

To my knowledge, this thing with "going to jail [for pirating Sims games]" is also a fairy tale brought forward by anti-piracy organizations and their stooges on mainstream internet platforms such as Facebook/TWitter/Reddit.

What is true, is that you can get yourself in trouble if you upload (seed) lots of stuff, especially "hot items" such as movies or mainstream music. You can also get yourself in trouble of course if you maintain a platform for DRM-free items...especially if you want to do it super-fancy-style and host the items directly on your own servers (using torrents and external filehosts is better). But these things mostly concern uploaders of pirated items.

It's not possible to prosecute every individual who downloads a DRM-free game, so ISPs rely on these warning letters. Someone once told me that in France they actually turned off the internet from one unfortunate person, who appears to have pirated lots of stuff. I would be surprised if internet subscriptions are terminated, if more people "tested the system".

I'm not suggesting you should challenge the system and keep trying to download DRM-free stuff from your regular internet, by no means. You should really look into VPN options. On the other hand, I do believe that these warning letters rely mostly on psychology. Personally, I have not heard from all too many cases where they really cancelled someone's internet. At least in Europe that seems to be a rare occurrence.

I understand that this site focus on torrents, but is it possible that it can feature direct links also for people who don't use torrents, just to give people an option?

ShawnyK wrote:I understand that this site focus on torrents, but is it possible that it can feature direct links also for people who don't use torrents, just to give people an option?

The more recent sims 4 DLC's are already available for direct downloads.
When you use the alternatives offered by @anadius1 you can get all DLC's for the Sims 4 via direct links.

ShawnyK wrote:I understand that this site focus on torrents, but is it possible that it can feature direct links also for people who don't use torrents, just to give people an option?

That has nothing to do with the question being discussed by the OP. Can we try staying on-topic please? And if you would like to suggest something, you should open a new thread.

As for the question, no. We will not "feature" links (from unrelated third-parties). We focus mainly on Support for our own stuff, and for everything else people are welcome to do research on their own.

It's tempting to delegate responsibility for real or perceived problems on that end ("EA caught me downloading something111!!"), on the site operators. The truth is that we cannot solve everything. Buy yourself a decent VPN, or if that is not possible, use ZLOrigin...or yes, the downloads from anadius.

Tarac wrote:

ShawnyK wrote:I understand that this site focus on torrents, but is it possible that it can feature direct links also for people who don't use torrents, just to give people an option?

The more recent sims 4 DLC's are already available for direct downloads.
When you use the alternatives offered by @anadius1 you can get all DLC's for the Sims 4 via direct links.

 
Thank you for answering my question. I'm finding that Zlorigin is good so far.

Re-surrecting an old thread, which is something I don't often do, but since I was informed of similar "concerns" as the one that OP posted about in her opening message here,...and in light of recent trends regarding internet usage (a.k.a. ISP warning letters), I shall reveal the following. This is also part of our Forum FAQ. under "V: Miscellaneous / Other issues". In case you haven't done so yet, I warmly recommend checking it out.

As for the issue at hand, click on the orange text to fold/unfold the Q&A. Hope this clears things up.

I received a warning letter from my ISP threatening to shut down my internet because I torrented something from G4TW. I'm positive this site is in fact a storefront for the NSA/CIA/MI5/MI6/FSB/GRU/Mossad/Shin Bet/BND/DGSE/DGSI/(or insert any other intel agency here). Who else could possibly see what I am torrenting???:

#mfga
#maketheforumgreatagain