Rod Humble, Executive Vice President of EA's The Sims Label, today announced his company's copy protection plans for The Sims 3. Saying that "we have heard your requests over the past months," he revealed that The Sims 3 will have disc-based copy protection using a serial code, similar to what was used for The Sims 2. This means the game will not have online authentication.

"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," said Humble on the official The Sims 3 website. "We're really excited to bring you the game for the PC and Mac starting June 2, 2009. The extra time we've taken to polish the game has resulted in an even better game experience for you to enjoy and we can't wait for you to see for yourself!"

Last year, EA's Spore was heavily criticized for its DRM, which required online registration and granted limited installs. The measures seemed to have little effect in curbing piracy, with estimates saying that the title was downloaded over 1.7 million times in 2008.