I've been trying to access the Sims 3 Store with no luck. I keep getting blank pages, and once a website down page. Does anyone know if its just maintenance? Or is the website down for good?

I just checked and I get the blank page also. You might want to try again a bit later, I'm sure they didn't kill off one of their cash cows by closing the Sims 3 Store.

Ok thanks, I sure hope they don't shut it down.

The "Is it down right now" (iidrn.com) site shows that the Store has been down for a little over 4 hours, the server is not responding. I'm sure that there will be notices when they do decide to close the store, but I haven't even heard any rumors about that happening anytime soon.

Closing of the sims2 site happened really abrupt and without warning as I remember.

They did that? I really shouldn't be surprised. I was just assuming that they would have better business practices, my bad.

I remember that, too. They better not do it now, though. I still have some points left to use.

TS3 Store site is back up again.

I noticed that they haven't changed the items in the discount page for a lot of time now. I pass by to check because i have some simpoint sitting there for awhile.

Deja vu...

I'm a little concerned because of the way they do digital rights management and the $100s of dollars of their content I foolishly bought. If they shut it down, then I'll never be able to move my stuff to a new computer.

If you save your DCBackup folder, you should be able to transfer that to a new computer, along with everything else. And/or convert sims3packs to package files.

Their sale page has had the same items since at least late October.

They don't care enough about sims 3 as they do sims 4.

If the sims 3 website went down, they'd at least change the site to day "Hey guys we don't care about ts3 anymore, play sims 4, thx"

It's funny because it's true.

You know, this thread really should be popping up all over the Sims 4 forums every time the Sims 3 store goes down. Maybe that will inspire them to at least give a warning before it closed for good.

Bah. We were told repeatedly by SimGuru after SimGuru on the official forums that we would be given plenty of advance warning, months upon months, should they ever decide to close the TS3 store. When have they ever misrepresented the truth or led us wrong before?

Okay okay, but seriously, stop all that laughing now. There is one thing that TS3/4 has taught many of us, or I suppose reinforced repeatedly, over the years. Never mistake evil or malice for what is really just sheer lack of competence even if the two seem to come from the same places.

If they close it, they should make on last package or program that removes the DRM locks. They're not going to profit from the DLC, so why deny people their lawful right to use the content they bough?

I could not agree with you more but it's EA we are talking about. They have not yet reached their level of incompetence and can not be trusted to play fair. It took some time but I loaded up a clean game and redownloaded every thing and put the 3Packs somewhere safe. I don't like surprises unless they work in my favor :D

Are you tried such argument with success with any company?

The whole point of Digital Avaible (Only) Content is: "we do not care". Why do you think the Holy Steam is the "service" not a "shop"? We've passed the "pretending to be fair" point a long time ago. Now it's just Wild Wild Origin >.>

I actually did the same thing. And now - whenever I get something from the store - I transfer that sims3pack file into that safekeeping folder. I do hope they keep their word and do give us a very early warning before closing down the store. There's still some things I want to get from there. Of course, it's EA, so they'll probably keep milking every bit of money they can. But hey, I keep milking them for simpoints in return because the adds seems to be unlimited once again.

I bet a lot of simmers did that and hope that those who have not will start protecting their investment in the game. I made out very good with those points and between my actual purchases and those points own just about everything. Some not installed yet

I'm curious though. I've always deleted the DCBackup files but I saw a post advising only the DCBackup files were needed to be saved and they could be used for reinstall. I thought those files were only for use for those who export files. Does anyone know for sure saving only the back up files will save their downloads?

Since the Store will close at some point in time, it would be wise to save everything one can in case installing/reinstalling is needed. I saved everything to another drive, sims3packs, all files and folders, including DCBackup and DCCache (content read by the game). In general, save everything you can.

Out of curiosity... how does the launcher handle that much store content? I do have a quite a lot of stuff from the store but probably not even half of what they offer. Many say they own everything but I've always wondered wheather the laucher still runs fine or call it quits.

I've always deleted the DCBackup files and I've always thought that you can't use them to keep your stuff safe. At least at Nraas site (user folders explained page) doesn't say anything about them being useful, except for the ccmerge.package file. I could be wrong, though, since I've never actually tested them. And I haven't seen any point of saving them because you get them again when reintalling the sims3packs, anyway.