It turns out that casual gamers aren't as easily accepting of abuse and have forced EA to backtrack on their increasingly intrusive DRM-schemes. For the Sims 3, EA plans to go back to disc based copy protection schemes involving serial numbers. Rod Humble noted that "the game will have disc-based copy protection — there is a Serial Code just like The Sims 2. To play the game there will not be any online authentication needed. We feel like this is a good, time-proven solution that makes it easy for you to play the game without DRM methods that feel overly invasive or leave you concerned about authorization server access in the distant future."

By the sounds of it, EA has given SecuROM the complete boot for it's largest franchise after the fiasco involved with Will Wright's other recent venture Spore. This doesn't mean that they're going to give up DRM for good though but it's certainly a step in the right direction. All SecuROM has done is give the company a bad name and harrass legitimate users, while doing little to reign in actual piracy. Hopefully this means a move to more sensible IP protection in the gaming industry.

Source: The Register