Most Pirated Games of 2009

[Mike Nomad]

http://www.shacknews.com/images/generated/4b3a8e86088fd_featured_without_text_pirates.jpg (http://www.shacknews.com/)

Torrent Freak Reports Most Pirated Games (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/61765)
of 2009 (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/61765)



by Garnett Lee - Dec 29, 2009 5:30pm CST

Among the many year-end stories file sharing site Torrent Freak tabulated the most pirated games of 2009 (http://torrentfreak.com/the-most-pirated-games-of-2009-091227/). Using data from public BitTorrent tracker reports they calculated the total number of times each game had been downloaded. It comes as little surprise to see Modern Warfare 2 take the ignominious top spot with a whopping 4.1 million PC copies downloaded and another 970,000 for the Xbox 360.

That figure indicates potentially staggering growth in PC piracy during 2009. Last year (http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2008-081204/) Spore, a game that had been much maligned for its security features, claimed the top at only 1.7 million downloads. Besides Modern Warfare 2 more than doubling up on that figure, all five of the most downloaded games of 2009 (the other four being the Sims 3, Prototype, Need for Speed Shift, and Street Figher 4) eclipsed that mark. Video games do show significantly less traffic than the movie industry, though. Star Trek clocked in as the most pirated film of 2009 (http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-of-2009-091220/) at almost 11 million downloads, barely edging out Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen at 10.6 million.

The full figures from Torrent Freak follow:

PC Games Downloaded on BitTorrent in 2009


Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 -- 4,100,000
The Sims 3 -- 3,200,000
Prototype -- 2,350,000
Need for Speed Shift -- 2,100,000
Street Fighter 4 -- 1,850,000

Xbox 360 Games Downloaded on BitTorrent in 2009


Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 -- 970,000
Street Figther 4 -- 840,000
Prototype -- 810,000
Dirt 2 -- 790,000
UFC 2009 Undisputed -- 720,000

Wii Games Downloaded on BitTorrent in 2009


New Super Mario Bros. -- 1,150,000
Punch-Out! -- 950,000
Wii Sports Resort -- 920,000
The House of the Dead: Overkill -- 860,000
Mario Power Tennis -- 830,000

SOURCE (http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/61765)

[Woogie]

The only thing that surprises me is the Wii games. I would never have thought that much piracy was going down with Wii.

MW2 was a given.

[Daevius]

Meh, most of these developers are money greedy bastards, so I don't really mind.
It also shows that people rather see bits being free, not as expensive as it is now.

Adobe Photoshop, that program is pirated a lot: for a beginner to succeed he needs the program but can't effort it, he can't effort because he doesn't make much money since he's a beginner...it's a circle. The program is ridiculously expensive though.

As for games, some ppl try it out just once, so the numbers are useless. You want to see the number of ACTIVE illegally playing people.

Films, people are just too lazy to get it from the store ^^

[Woogie]

Meh, most of these developers are money greedy bastards, so I don't really mind.
It also shows that people rather see bits being free, not as expensive as it is now.

Adobe Photoshop, that program is pirated a lot: for a beginner to succeed he needs the program but can't effort it, he can't effort because he doesn't make much money since he's a beginner...it's a circle. The program is ridiculously expensive though.

As for games, some ppl try it out just once, so the numbers are useless. You want to see the number of ACTIVE illegally playing people.

Films, people are just too lazy to get it from the store ^^

Piracy is Piracy..no matter why you do it. I always pay for the games I play... I take the 5th on the rest :d

[Daevius]

Piracy is Piracy..no matter why you do it. I always pay for the games I play... I take the 5th on the rest :d

Yes, I too pay for the games I play. But sometimes software is extremely expensive, or sometimes something small has to be paid 5 euro for (just make it free gawd dammit), in these rare cases I download software.

Films, what else should I do, wait a month so I can rent it? I want to view it on my PC, not my TV, so it's hard to pay for films just for your moral lol.

[AlexDaBrit]

In a world where entertainment is easily accessed, the industries for music, movies and gaming all need to modernize.

If music, films and games could be easily access, it wouldn't end piracy, but I believe would significantly lower it.

To give you an example, I just tried to buy 1 song for .50 cent from Amazon. Now usually being in the UK, I have an account with amazon.co.uk. When I try and login and purchase and download it says

"Error, cannot distribute to your geographical location" Since my connection was coming from Florida.

So I went to Amazon.com and logged in and tried to purchase.

" Error, you are a UK customer, you cannot buy this song..blah blah"

It's their loss, and I can't be bothered.

You make a product that is easily accessed on the internet, then you're in business.

As for CODMW2, I can only hope these statistics reach the desk of someone at IW. They would have to contemplate how much potential money they lost!

[[3rdArmy]CW-4]

I would think that a lot of the MajorWanker2 downloads were from people that just wanted to play the SP and not caring about the lagged, hack filled MP crap.

Lets say that about 70% of those downloads were completed. In all total there was just over 5 million PC and Xbox together, rough guess ... 3.5 million * $60 is $210 million. I think Bobby is crapping in his pants over his business plan. If MajorWanker2 ran the same MP as WaW or COD-MW those numbers wouldn't be nearly as high.

[wakka]

This so called piracy is a pile of crap as it does not take into account console piracy properly

Most console pirated games are bought in markets and other 'outlets'

Console games are the most widely availably pirated games in the world!