What's up with these prices?

The best place to buy TS3 and it's packs is on Steam. You can get EP's for the price of a SP with easy just wait on a sale. As far as Origin goes, TS3 has never been on sale, at least not since TS4 came out.

And yes, you can gift on steam.

But if you buy an EA product through Steam you can use that steam's game code on Origin and it'll work, so you get the pack on both platforms. I'm currently waiting on a steam sale myself so I can finally get Outdoor Living Stuff and Master Suite for TS3, after all these years still haven't gotten them.

Steam has had Sims 3 titles on sale several times a year for a while, usually all of the packs at once, but this last time, they only put the base game on sale (very cheap though for around $3 I think). For the recent big summer sale, things were slightly more expensive than for past sales but still a good deal (more in the range of ~ $7 per pack instead of $5). The point here being that I'm not sure if they're changing how they offer it, but there have been some really good deals on Steam. Even the higher prices this summer were still good compared to anything I see on Origin. I'd keep an eye on it.

"Sigzy05;c-16667341" wrote:

"megaluci00;c-16667338" wrote:
Sorry I change a little bit the subject... But I'm thinking about switching to Steam so that I can share games with my brother because with Origin that is not possible; but I'm looking for The Sims 4 and it seems it isn't available in Steam... Do you know something about this?

TS4 is not available on steam period. Most recent EA games are Origin exclusive especially recent ones.

And could also be a reason why TS4 isn't likely selling as well on Origin compared to retail places like Steam. TS3 has trended on the top 100 list (was around rank #89 or so?) as of yesterday because of Steam promotional sales.

Especially now that Steam has again made the "core" EPs & base game all available i.e. with Pets, Gen & Seasons for one tidy price of $49.50:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/47890/The_Sims_3/

These 3 EPs were the key, fundamental EPs that should've came with the base game in 2009. But the technolgy to release them and/or production constraints made this unfeasible possibility I guess.

Until EA decides to synch with market reality, I don't see how they're competitively selling any TS4 DLC the way Steam has with TS3. Especially if the technical issues with the Origin Launcher still persist.

That $49,50 bundle of theirs is priced at €92,96 here. That's €50 more than I should be paying and €70 more than I'll ever pay for a bunch of games I already personally own. I mean I'm sorry, it's well-known that I love TS3 to bits, it's a great game and it's been worth every penny for me, but this is just plumming ridiculous.

You missed this year's summer sale but there will be more sales. Just keep an eye out. Follow Steam on social media as they probably announce sales. Last sale they changed things up but in the past we've seen 75% for base game and packs.

Instead of taking advantage of the past Steam sales, I went the physical route and collected disk copies to replace my digital Origin collection. I owned some of them already but it wasn't cheap. (You can do this with pre-2012 base game + disk collection + super patch 1.67) I don't regret it one bit. Nothing against steam, I just prefer to be free of all digital distribution platforms when possible.

"SimplyJen;c-16669911" wrote:
You missed this year's summer sale but there will be more sales. Just keep an eye out. Follow Steam on social media as they probably announce sales. Last sale they changed things up but in the past we've seen 75% for base game and packs.

Instead of taking advantage of the past Steam sales, I went the physical route and collected disk copies to replace my digital Origin collection. I owned some of them already but it wasn't cheap. (You can do this with pre-2012 base game + disk collection + super patch 1.67) I don't regret it one bit. Nothing against steam, I just prefer to be free of all digital distribution platforms when possible.

I couldn't agree more with you, I think the same. I only owned Sims 3 EP, and not all of them, and now I'm thinking about completing my collection with the rest of them... But it's such a hard challenge as it is very rare to find them in stores, so I'm looking through the second-hand market. How did you managed to find them all?

"SimplyJen;c-16669911" wrote:
You missed this year's summer sale but there will be more sales. Just keep an eye out. Follow Steam on social media as they probably announce sales. Last sale they changed things up but in the past we've seen 75% for base game and packs.

Instead of taking advantage of the past Steam sales, I went the physical route and collected disk copies to replace my digital Origin collection. I owned some of them already but it wasn't cheap. (You can do this with pre-2012 base game + disk collection + super patch 1.67) I don't regret it one bit. Nothing against steam, I just prefer to be free of all digital distribution platforms when possible.

QFT.

Thank you for reminding simmers about this reality check SimplyJen. For making simmers aware of the industry push towards 100% online games. Lots of simmers (especially younger ones) don't realize EA made a fundamental change in how they would release their single player Sims (and other) franchise titles in the future. And yes, this was when they changed their policy to pressure simmers to exclusively download TS3 & other DLC from Origin in 2012. Force a mandatory online requirement. Which not only removed player choice but compromised simmer's ability to use 3rd party mods in their game as well. :s

Too many simmers (and gamers in general) are blinded by the convenience of digital DLC. Until they lose their internet or IP access. Or the software dev/publisher retires the servers that were dedicated to their game for whatever reason (franchise obsolete, dev bankruptcy etc, a hardware retirement like Micrsoft GFWL etc etc.). At which point, the digital owning gamer suddenly realizes they're permanently cut off from ever playing their favorite title again....

But with hard DVD retail copies, it doesn't matter if you're vacationing on the moon, the top of the Himalayas, the bottom of the Marianas Trench, or the center of the earth. Unlike digital/cloud server games, hard copies of games will NEVER have this problem. Especially where your official DLC modded content is concerned (if stored on your HD). You'll ALWAYS have access to your sims game :D

edit: and your post explains the trending phenomenon of why our 9 year old Sims 3 franchise making Steam's top 100 all of last week! LMAO
But then again, Steam did have an excellent bundle were they offered the base game + all the fundamental DLCs which should've been in the base game i.e. Seasons, Gen & Pets

"yoshi_dragur2012;c-16671545" wrote:
And yes, this was when they changed their policy to pressure simmers to exclusively download TS3 & other DLC from Origin in 2012. Force a mandatory online requirement. Which not only removed player choice but compromised simmer's ability to use 3rd party mods in their game as well.

Potentially maybe, but mods are not sensitive to the type of installation. Core Mods (there are only 6 in popular usage for TS3) are sensitive to build and patch numbers, but if a mod works on a CD install, it will work the same on any of the others -- Origin, Steam, Mac.

Game utilities like EasyCASP, SaveCleaner, and 3booter might be a different story, but technically these are standalone programs and not mods.

@megaluci00 I didn't mean used codes can be registered because they can't but they can be used to install the disk copy. I meant it doesn't matter if it's tied to an account/registered for patch level 1.67 and below. If you're on patch 1.69, it may require all packs to be registered to the same account. If you buy a used copy but that code is already tied to a different account, this may conflict with patch 1.69 because you can't register it to your account. Hope this makes sense. :D

Here's what I told someone else wanting to super patch 1.67 with all disk install to avoid Origin:

All you need is the code and the CD. It does not matter what account it's registered to or if it's registered at all since patch 1.67 will not be connected to Origin. You don't even need to have Origin installed on patch .167 if this is the only EA game you play.

The code isn't just for registering to an account (that's optional), it's also used to install the game.

Here is that thread: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/16635013

As for buying in Spain... I wouldn't have a clue. :D Sorry!

I was under the impression megaluci was questioning about physical copies so that's why I mentioned used copies or buying from Amazon or eBay. I can only confirm patch 1.67 & below can use a registered or unregistered code to install by disk because being tied to an account is unrelated for patch 1.67 & below (a.k.a not apart of Origin). A sealed physical copy can be sold anywhere without risk. The only risk for a used physical copy is if the seller doesn't include the original code to install it with and/or the disk is not in readable condition. As for buying used copies on patch 1.69, the user may run into issues since I think Origin requires all packs registered to the same account. Unauthorised sellers for digital copies is a different story.