The 20-year-old was among other eager beavers who were queuing at the Bugis mall, to redeem their pre-ordered copies of the collector's edition of The Sims 3, way in advance of the actual launch time of 2pm.

She said: 'I'm not the earliest! I found out that some started queuing from 11pm on Monday, so I decided to come early to be the first 600 to get the free T-shirt.'

The local outlet for Electronic Arts - the game's award-winning creators and distributors - brought in 5,000 copies of the collector's edition and 10,000 copies of the standard version.

More than 3,000 copies of the collector's edition were sold by last Friday. The standard version goes on store shelves from Wednesday.

EA Singapore sold more than 105,000 copies of 2005's The Sims 2 and its accompanying expansion packs.

Despite a bootleg version of the game being leaked online a week ago, EA Singapore's CEO, Mr Christopher Ng, remains optimistic about sales for the latest version.

'We expect to move the 15,000 copies we have here by the end of the month,' he said.

He added: 'The Sims 3 consumers are different from other game players. They buy the game because they are true fans and they know the utility and creativity the game allows them.'