In a remarkable game-based social experiment, Robin Burkinshaw is using The Sims 3 to model a two-person homeless family.

The U.K.-based game design student tracks the virtual lives of the father-daughter pair via his Alice and Kev blog:

I created two Sims, moved them in to a place made to look like an abandoned park, removed all of their remaining money, and then attempted to help them survive without taking any job promotions or easy cash routes. It’s based on the old ‘poverty challenge’ idea from The Sims 2, but it turned out to be a lot more interesting with The Sims 3’s living neighborhood features.

New American Media has more:

Kev is an insane, middle-aged man with a bad temper, who hates children. He often behaves inappropriately around others... His daughter, Alice, is a teenager who is constantly exhausted from school, the part-time job she holds, and the cold hard bench she sleeps on at night. And because she gets most of her meals at school, she becomes worried every time the weekend rolls around. You will usually find Alice desperately trying to find a bed to sleep in...

GP: It's fantastic to see someone addressing a real issue in a meaningful way via off-the-shelf game tech...

Does game downloading on P2P networks have a negative impact on sales?

If so, you'd never prove it by looking at the case of The Sims 3. A late May report by Bloomberg indicated that The Sims 3 had been leaked and downloaded 180,000 times between May 18 to May 21. At that rate the not-yet-released PC game was on pace to eclipse Spore's record as most downloaded.

Despite the piracy, the DRM-less Sims 3 is experiencing the best-selling PC launch in EA's long history of publishing games. Says who? EA. The publisher issued a press release yesterday trumpeting 1.4 million legit units sold during the game's first week of availability.

At $50 a pop, that's $70 million in sales. In a week. And yet industry types like EA's own Peter Moore still maintain that piracy is killing the PC games market and use that mantra to justify saddling consumers with unwanted DRM or worse, not releasing PC versions of popular games.

There are some unconfirmed reports floating about this morning claiming that The Sims 3 has been leaked. The long-awaited PC game's official launch date is June 2nd.

Romanian site SoftSailor is among those reporting the supposed leak:

For the moment we can’t tell for sure if the game is real as the packed/unpacked leaks are sized somewhere near 5GB. The small size of the game makes us think that this is not the actual game, but maybe it’s an unfinished version of The Sims 3 life simulation game...

[updated] P.S. From what I’ve read, the game is real and many are playing it right now.

Well-known torrent site The Pirate Bay, whose operators are appealing their recent conviction by a Swedish court on piracy charges, currently has a 4.94GB file named The.Sims.3-Reloaded posted.

GP: Pending confirmation from more reliable sources, we'll call this one a rumor for now...

Having apparently taken a lesson from the Spore DRM fiasco, publisher Electronic Arts announced this week that The Sims 3 will be DRM-free when the game launches in June.

The Los Angeles Times reports that The Sims 3 will feature only serial number-based copy protection. EA exec Rod Humble said:

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.

GamePolitics has learned that a pair of new class-action lawsuits were lodged against Electronic Arts in October. Both suits were filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and both target EA's use of the controversial SecuROM digital rights management (DRM) software on the company's PC games.

In the first case, a Pennsylvania man, Richard Eldridge, alleges that the Spore Creature Creator Free Trial Edition secretly installed SecuROM on his PC, a violation that Eldridge terms "deceptive and unlawful." From the suit:

The inclusion of undisclosed, secretly installed DRM protection measures with a program that was freely distributed constitutes a major violation of computer owners' absolute right to control what does and what does not get loaded onto their computers, and how their computers shall be used...

 

[SecuROM] cannot be completely uninstalled. Once installed it becomes a permanent part of the consumer's software portfolio...

 

EA's EULA for Spore Creature Creator Free Trial Edition makes utterly no mention of any Technical Protection Measures, DRM technology, or SecuROM whatsoever...

In the second case, Dianna Cortez of Missouri, described as "an avid Sims player," makes similar claims against EA over the publisher's alleged inclusion of SecuROM on The Sims 2: Bon Voyage, which she purchased in September, 2007. Cotrez claims that she immediately experienced problems with her PC :

After installing Bon Voyage, Ms. Cortez began having problems with her computer. She had previously made backup Sims 2 game content on CDs, but her computer's disc drive would no longer recognize that content, reporting the CDs as empty. She could not access files that were saved on her USB flash drive or iPod, either...

Cortez alleges that she was only able to get rid of SecuROM by reformatting her PC. She accuses EA of engaging in "unfair business practices" as well as conduct that is "immoral, unethical, oppressive [and] unscrupulous..."

The new suits are the second and third filed recently by consumers in regard to EA's use of SecuROM. A woman named Melissa Thomas filed a similar suit in relation to Spore in September. Thomas and new plaintiff Richard Eldridge are represented by the same law firm.

Docu-grab: Eldridge vs. Electronic Arts

Docu-grab: Cortez vs. Electronic Arts

Maxis is serving up a preview of The Sims 3 engine with a pair of videos featuring a Sim Sarah Palin.

In the trailer embedded here on GP, the Republican VP candidate dances (in camouflage lingerie) at a rally. In a second video Palin tussles with her opposite number, Democrat Joe Biden.

John McCain and Barack Obama also appear. We enjoyed this little notation at the end of the trailers:

No candidates were injured during the making of this video.