Developers have to guard against the prating of their games and they are always looking for new ways to combat the problem. Sometimes this involves game codes that are matched against an authentication server to see if it is on the list as well as other tricks.
EA’s The Sims 4 has an interesting way of dealing with piracy. If you have played any of the Sims games, you know that whenever your Sim takes a bath or goes to the bathroom, they get pixelated, keeping things family-friendly. Well, according to some reports, it looks like if you downloaded a pirated copy of the game, all your Sims will be pixelated, all the time.
The funny thing is that some gamers have taken to the forums to ask the developers about this issue, without realizing that this identifies those gamers with pirated copies. A Reddit FAQ about the issue says, “Quit the game and restart. Please note that this seems to be an issue largely (if not only) associated with the cracked version of the game.” EA has released a statement saying that it “has no plans to aid those players unable to enjoy their pirated copies of The Sims 4.” The publisher says that those players should actually purchase their own copy of the game. Problem solved.
Source Ubergizmo