When is enough actually enough?

The disc of Monte Vista was a disc to download it.

Tbh you should just buy a lot on ebay. I dont mean a lot as in many but look up "sims 3 lot" on ebay, u can get like 4-5 discs for about $20 bucks, just make sure they have the key, most will show it in the sellers pic. Some places like monte vista and hidden springs has an actual disc you can get off ebay for like $6. Not so sure about store content, I just try to find cc for clothes I like thats similar enough. For clothes and furniture cc is better anyway lowkey

Thank goodness I have the discs and play the game that way! 

DivinylsFan​  I did mean a digital copy, as in, the EA App knows someone owns Sims 3 by itself but is letting the expired EA Play sub override that.  As for physical copies, I doubt they're ever coming back in a meaningful way, at least not for top-tier publishers and outside of more expensive collector's editions.

Still, there are some companies that handle things better.  Epic leaves DRM up to the publisher and thus doesn't require a login after installing certain games.  I played Control all the way through without opening the Epic launcher even once.  That would be different with a game that has DRM built in, of course, but I don't use Epic for those.  GOG doesn't support DRM at all, and you don't even need the app to install games—you can login to your account on the website and download from there.  The downside is that GOG doesn't get as many new releases as Steam or even Epic.

We're far off-topic here, so I'll bring it back by saying that using a Steam install of Sims 3 is a great experience, and I've made my own version of a pack selector that actually works by deleting and restoring the relevant registry entries when I want to disable or reenable any given EP or SP.  There's no requirement to launch the game through Steam after the first time.  It's too bad that doesn't happen anymore.

DivinylsFan​  They probably mean EA Play, which is of course not required for Sims 3.  But the game (and Late Night and HELS) are free with an EA Play subscription.  Further, some people who claim Sims 3 through the sub find they can't play it after the sub ends, even if they own a standalone copy.  This is an EA-side issue and can usually only be fixed by an EA customer support rep.