This is the exact problem I am having. Customer service has given me two different takes on this based on the three times I called them. The first two were stumped and said exchange it with the retailer and try again. That being all I could get, that's what I tried. Same problem. The third call to customer service yeilded the answer that this was a "new convenient feature" requiring online activation. I really hope she is mistaken about that.
The product I purchased was "The Sims 3 plus Season" wihch comes with a disc for the base game as well as a Seasons expansion disc. This being the most recent EP to The Sims 3, it wouldn't be surprising if this is in fact a new implementation to the base game disc. Though it does not say on the game case that online activation is required.
Well... Yeah. I'm upset about that.
It's the directions EA seems to be going so it would not really be a surprise to me but yeah, completely agree. SimCity 5 seems to be requireing a constant connection to the Internet to be even able to play which will me make to so not buy that game. I play SimCity when it originally came out so I would have loved to try it but it they go down that road, sorry EA, not so much.
It people that pirate the game are not going to be stopped by this and again it's the loyal, paying customer that has the problem.
