I feel better about getting stuff the legit way if I can reasonably afford it. And I can, so I do.
If you don't feel the same way, that's fine too. It's not like I've never not paid for something.

However, no matter how you feel about it the discussion of warez, etc. is against site rules. This site is too big and too well known to be able to permit that, as it is very likely to be noticed by someone who works for EA and could provoke a lawsuit that would shut the site down. If you can still get it from the Store, then you can't even try arguing that it is abandonware. They may not be supporting it, but it's not abandoned yet.

Because they stopped adding new content to the Sims 3 Store does not make it forgotten or abandoned. And technically, getting Store content from anywhere but the Store is theft.

Let's say that you have a gaming system in your house, but you haven't played it for a couple of years. Someone comes into your house and takes your system (hell, you haven't played it for a while, you just forgot about it/abandoned it). Do you call the police and report a theft?

Pirated content is someone going into EA's house and stealing their stuff.

Didn't this thread die 2 years ago?????

If anything, wouldn't Katy Perry Sweet Treats be abandonware? IIRC they stopped making and selling it looong before TS3 was even over, and now you can only get it as a used copy from someone else.

Yes, but something being abandonware doesn't mean that you should get it.

I thought the site rules forbade so much as discussion about this topic?

As far as I know you're not supposed to link anything or name any names. But so much as acknowledging that it's a thing that exists isn't particularly problematic. Still, it's not relevant to the discussion and I think it'd be appreciated if we don't go on about it any further.

Still, I can't help but comment on this. This is not how it works. You could steal that gaming console a hundred times over and the original owner would still have it. If this were the real world, it'd be gone after the first time. That's the difference between piracy and theft.
So there's the details of it on the one hand and the site rules on the other that clearly state that they don't want discussion about it. I think that's fair enough.

Everyone is free to disagree with the state of copyright law (I certainly do), but under the laws as they stand, getting Store stuff from anywhere but the store is piracy, and the people who have pointed out that discussion of piracy is not allowed here are quite right - we make exceptions for abstract "Is piracy really immoral?"/"What would we like copyright law to actually say?"-type discussions, but this thread isn't really the place for them . So please stick to discussion of actual store sets, otherwise this thread may wind up locked.

Well on the topic of store items and for the sake of the direction of this thread, I highly recommend items from the store where "applicable" (?). As much as I like player made content it's player made so there are varying levels of quality, style differences, general technical issues etc. At least with store content stuff generally looks the same and like it actually belongs in this game and most of the stuff has been fixed or theres at least an answer somewhere.

Also the store has pretty neat stuff as well as things that I can't find as player made.

The Store is the best way to go if you want Maxis Match content. Expensive as it may be, most of it is pretty well-made.