Top 10 Most Pirated Games of 2008
Written by Ernesto on December 04, 2008As 2008 is slowly moving toward its end, we start taking a look at the most pirated titles in various categories. First up are games. As expected, Spore is by far the most downloaded game on BitTorrent, in part thanks to the DRM that came with the game.
Traditionally, games can’t compete with the most pirated movies and TV-shows in actual download numbers, but Spore came very close this year.
Only 10 days after the game’s launch date, already half a million people had downloaded the game. During the months after that, another million people obtained a copy of the game via BitTorrent. According to our estimates, Spore was downloaded 1.7 million times since early September, a record breaking figure for a game.
When we posted about the impressive download rate on Spore – inflated due to the DRM that was put into the game – EA doubted our statistics. EA’s Mariam Sughayer said that every BitTorrent download was not a successful copy, and that several downloads didn’t work, were buggy, or contained viruses. We wont deny that on badly moderated torrent sites, malicious torrents probably can be found. However, this constitutes less than 1% of the available torrents, and they are not added to our statistics.
Below is the list of the 10 most downloaded (PC) games on BitTorrent in 2008, with an estimated download count for each. In second place we see The Sims 2, also from the hands of Spore creator Will Wright. Assassins Creed completes the top 3 with just over a million downloads.
PC Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2008
| # | game | downloads | released |
|---|---|---|---|
| torrentfreak.com | |||
| 1 | Spore | (1,700,000) | (Sept. 2008) |
| 2 | The Sims 2 | (1,150,000) | (Sept. 2004) |
| 3 | Assassins Creed | (1,070,000) | (Nov. 2007) |
| 4 | Crysis | (940,000) | (Nov. 2007) |
| 5 | Command & Conquer 3 | (860,000) | (Mar. 2007) |
| 6 | Call of Duty 4 | (830,000) | (Nov. 2007) |
| 7 | GTA San Andreas | (740,000) | (Jun. 2005) |
| 8 | Fallout 3 | (645,000) | (Oct. 2008) |
| 9 | Far Cry 2 | (585,000) | (Oct. 2008) |
| 10 | Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 | (470,000) | (Oct. 2008) |
Previously: MovieX BitTorrent Tracker Busted By Australian Police
Next: Despite Arrests MovieX BitTorrent Tracker Back Online
126 Responses
“Thanks to the DRM that came with the game.”
Oh the delicious irony. XD
GTA IV is next ;)
Sad part is i was gonna buy the game tell i heard about the retarded DRM. Ill stick with pc games made by blizzard a company that understands what the hell the purpose of games are. Which sucks cause i really wanted to play the game if only cause will wright helped to make it.
Perhaps when the makers of spore pulled their heads out of the asses n release a drm free game that you can install as many damn times as you want over course of ones lifetime people might wanna buy it…
blech i heard GTA4 is dreadful for the PC
Most of the games above are released in the fall (October, November, September).
I still love Spore though, great game. DRM never bugged me.
http://Torrentino.2500mhz.info/
Give it a few months and the likes of Spore and GTA4 will prob be in £9.99 bargin bin at your local gameshop.
@4
GTA IV is way prettier on the PC than Xbox360 or PS3, but it has some sick system requirements.
Recommended are Intel Quad 2,4 Ghz and a 8800 card or better.
Although I’ve only played the demo,Spore is my favorite game.
http://TorrentMoon.com
Don’t blame Spore’s creators… Blame EA. Seriously, those guys screwed the pooch on what could have been a money-printing machine.
What is DRM? I never came across anything like that…
Usually DRM is what requires you to have the disc in the drive while playing. In Spore it only lets you install the game 3 times before it becomes a brick because it can no longer be used for anything other than a doorstop or maybe a coaster.
gta4 is going crazy right now.
I’m happy spore and sims is on top. Spore cause it deserved it cause of DRM. Sims cause you know half of those were moms jk :)
Nice to see Fallout 3 on the list after Bethesda lied through its teeth that it wouldn’t include draconian DRM. Which of course it did.
To no avail, as usual.
Also nice to see it on the list just because it’s an utter piece of shit in general, even though I know 645,000 downloads doesn’t equal 645,000 lost sales… But I can pretend it does. :D
I fucking love fallout3. Just cause it had drm doesn’t make it a shitty game. IMHO
Spore was actually the only pc game I actually purchased this year, just to support my main man Will, didn’t know about the DRM at the time.
Btw, you CAN install more than 3 copies, but you have to call up EA and have them unlock it for you. Still bogus though. But not Will’s fault.
“Not every downloaded copy counts as a downloaded copy!”
Good job EA. You believe that, but not “Not every downloaded copy counts as a lost sale”? Seriously?
way to stick it to EA. 4 out of the top 5 games were theirs. I can’t stand EA.
@12. pirated
I know what DRM is, I just wanted to emphesize how nice and easy it is for people who pirate stuff to get their share, and on the other hand, people who legally buy staff get to deal with DRM’s, DVD-checks and other crap. That paints a pretty clear picture how corporations treat customers…
I purchased Spore, not realising anything about the DRM.
I needed to reformat my computer after that, losing all photos on my HDD, including some of my late grandfather.
I will never ever buy a game from EA or stop when I see anyone associated with them crossing the street.
Fuck you EA
@19
Ah. It is always funny when the people who pay for something get a substandard copy compared to the people who don’t.
I also always enjoy when I get to see a picture of a burned disc of a game on top of a bought copy that’s still shrink-wrapped to show that they wanted to support it, but there was no way they were gonna deal with the crap the real copy would give ‘em.
“I also always enjoy when I get to see a picture of a burned disc of a game on top of a bought copy that’s still shrink-wrapped to show that they wanted to support it, but there was no way they were gonna deal with the crap the real copy would give ‘em.”
I’ve done exactly that about a dozen times now.
Do we need a way to donate money to people we like? Sometimes I pirate a game, and end up liking it sooo much I’d actually donate a few bucks if they had a link of their website or something. Anonymously of course… anyone else? Am I crazy?
“I’ve done exactly that about a dozen times now.”
Suuuuure…
lets all pirate as much games as we can, screw the games industry.. drm gives us the perfect excuse :)))
GO GO GO
Cash demand over ‘porn downloads’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_7766000/7766448.stm
Funny shit :-)
Wow, I thought Call of Duty 4 would be higher up the list. I am shocked!
jess
http://www.privacy.de.tc
Just buy the game 23 (C-Rex)…
haha you know GTA IV would be on top of the list before the years out just because of the dumb shit rockstar is doing. I mean, if you look at the rating on amazon, its like 1.5/5 with 52 out of 64 reviewers giving it a 1 star just cause of suckurom.
EA is wrong, not every download only counts as a single pirated copy. I share what I download.
“Only 10 days after the game’s launch date, already half a million people had downloaded the game. ”
Really? And then you show a number at year end of 1.7 million? So, between the 10th day and now, downloads fell off to practically nothing. I am starting to sense some industry fluff in these numbers now. Perhaps we have some EA folks out there performing the bulk of these ‘illegal’ downloads just so they can get shrill about having to have such nasty DRM schemes. Numbers just don’t add up to reality for me.
@ SINAJ so you needed to format but didn’t know how to create a backup? Seriously? Even though I dislike EA, it’s not their fault you are a moron.
I refuse to buy anything with DRM. With games, if i’m not sure about it, I “try before I buy” courtesy of bit torrent. if it’s crap it gets deleted. If I like it (and it’s not a DRM butchered game) I go out and buy it. There’s lots of things I’ve bought BECAUSE it was on Bit torrent and I liked it – but i wouldn’t have blindly gone out and paid for it before so bittorrent INCREASES sales with me..
“Do we need a way to donate money to people we like? Sometimes I pirate a game, and end up liking it sooo much I’d actually donate a few bucks if they had a link of their website or something.”
Yeah.. they are called stores.
I think Assassins creed is so high on the list because it was out on BitTorrent months before it was out on shelves.
haha fuck you EA. Justice has been done. hahahahahahaha
1 Spore – Blows
2 The Sims 2 -never played but already know it sux
3 Assassins Creed -fun at first then you realize it blows
4 Crysis - awesome
5 Command & Conquer 3 -never played
6 Call of Duty 4 - good
7 GTA San Andreas – good
8 Fallout 3 – AWESOME
9 Far Cry 2 – you think its awesome and then realize that it BLOWS
10 Pro Evolution Soccer – never played
I download first, buy later.
I havnt been scammed by a game in so long.
You know what will reduce piracy by a significant amount on pc’s? releasing damn demos like they did back in the day, who wants to buy a game just for a “chance” it will work on our system. Release a demo of the game before hand so we can see if it will actually run on our computer or not, and then we can decide to buy the game and upgrade our comps, or not. Majority of downloaded games are unplayable cause of our shitty systems, incorporate that factor onto ur shitty statistics. That’s the main reason i download pirated games, to see if it will fukn work or not. n then after all that effort n the DRM shit, I usually cant be fucked buying it even if it does work cause they treat us like shit.
Maybe I’m getting old but complaining about how annoying EA’s DRM is then stealing the game in record numbers sort of proves EA is right to be a bit of an asshole about things.
Trying to blame the theft of the game on the DRM itself is just rationalization.
“you made me steal it” is just a punk ass kid’s excuse. Look at the piles and piles of CD’s and DVD’s of things you haven’t paid for and think “I [state name], stole all that shit”
And don’t try to think that copying data isn’t theft because you haven’t taken the original.
Theft is theft. I’m not judging you. I do it.
Theft is only theft if you know inside you committed it. I know when I took something I would have paid for, and I also know (especially when I hit the DELETE button) that I just avoided a major scam.
Its up to you to support game makers that make a good game. I downloaded the new Call of Duty 5 and I liked it, so I BOUGHT IT. And dont start in about DEMOS because there crap and dont even come out for every game.
I also downloaded fallout 3 and I liked that too, so thats next on my list to pay for. BUT THEN theres games like DEAD SPACE, although decent.. i wouldnt pay for it. So you could say that I dont deserve to play it (Which i rarely do) but I dont see it that way, I just dont care.
I know inside when im a theif, and when im making the industry even more money.. because I share everything that I find..
Expecialy when I tell all my console friends that game X was good for PC, they are all on budgets aswell and dont have time to waste on crap games, they all rush off to buy it and the world keeps on spinning.
You have to remember that there are people that are just plain theives, and there are people like me.. who refuse to go along with the scams. Im not the industrys standard ‘consumer’.. and thats how it will ALWAYS be. You will not bend me and force me to either buy or die.. f*ck you.
It doesnt matter how large these numbers are, games are not doing bad because of piracy.. the amount of CONSUMERS that buy this crap is outstanding.. they love to act like victims. THE REAL REASON is because they make CRAP GAMES… you can make up as many excuses as you like, but game creators spend HALF the time they should and shove peices of shit titles out with no polish.. people hate that, they dont want to waste there hard earned money in this hard economy..
Piracy holds all the answers.
Well I have purchased every single C&C game since the first one, and actually own multiple copies of several due to multi game boxes, but C&C is the first one I have downloaded. The DRM sucks, and only really hurts the legitimate customers, of which I am no longer one.
@20
There’s plenty to complain about with DRM, but to suggest it forced you to wipe your HDD and lose all of your photos (important sentimental ones it sounds like) is just silly.
That’s like saying “In order to avoid a pothole, I had to drive off a cliff and destroyed my car. So f&*# you to the city for not fixing the pothole!”
Basicly you’ve just made a list of the best PC games of 2008. Hooray.
@41
That’s a whole lot of rationalization for someone who “believes” they’re doing nothing wrong.
I never would have paid for this car, so it’s ok that I stole it? If I like it, maybe I’ll go pay for it.
Regardless of whether you would have bought it or not, you’re still taking something that is not free, that’s theft. Like 40. I’m not judging, I’ve done it too, but to suggest it’s not stealing because you don’t feel bad about it is just ignorant.
proudly download a copy myself . ea can go an ***** themselves . They shoulb be tied up and sent to a slipknot concert
#17 some people that pirate have no intention of buying it in the first place. so some pirated copies are not lost sales, and it is very hard to quantify it.
I don’t see any game that have no DRM on the list. Sins of the solar empire was a well received game with no DRM and it’s not on the list.
Honestly, you all know this had nothing to do with the DRM. It simple became a convenient excuse to justify pirating the game.
I don’t usually pirate games but I had, just HAD, to steal Spore. Just as an FU to DRM and EA. And then it sucked.
Anyone who compares the automobile (Or any other industry for that matter) to the media industry is truly ignorant.
Stop trying to relate downloading to physical taking of an object.
Take these steps:
Select a file and
Hold CTRL + C. Now hold CTRL + V.
Try that on a car.
Now hit yourself, moron.
I think that it is funny that Spore and The Sims 2 are in the top two. EA obviously doesn’t realize that the DRM that they use (same one in both games)is losing them money and customers.
Heh, I actually tried to buy Spore, but got backordered so I downloaded it instead..
Sorry just had to correct the person about fallout 3. It does use drm however if you just go in the folder and launch fallout3.exe instead of fallout3launcher.exe it works perfectly. I was happy to see this because i forgot my gamedisk at home and im out of town. plus there are no cd keys. So i deffinetly wouldnt say their drm is bad. i mean they set it up in such a way that their drm would only weed out the complete retards
you really can’t track pircay there is now ay they can prove numbers of copies of pirate games.
Also i would say that console games get more pirated than pc because not everyone can afford hig end pc to play some of the games out.
has EA learned there lesson?
we will see. probably not….
Game Industry is partly affected by the music industry with their fat prices to support stupid videos, MTV and all sort of highly produced crap.
Today if you have the budget you can make anything look good. People is tired of that and some people feels it.
I agree that companies must get paid to develop but the prices and consumption they promote are not going anywhere.
if games were 25 to 35 dollars they would get alot more customers… 60 dollars for a game is rediculous, watch next generation theyll decide to make it 70 dollars a game. And because of these prices i’d say more than half of these downloads arent lost sales because most people dont have the money to drop on hyped games that dont live up to expectations. a game like COD is a buy, because it deserves it. Other games like asassins creed are not buys, so they will be downloaded
Screw EA and their fascist DRM crap
I bought, yes bought Farcry and was only able to play it until I updated it to 1.21 the next day. At which point it has issues with my sata dvd drives and says i am running emulation software. I don’t have any, no alchohol, nero, game drive, nothing.
They would do nothing for me, even when i offered to ship them my reciept, box and game!
EA is Epic Fail to me and I, nor anyone I know will never, ever purchase another game from them, amazing or not.
It would be an interesting article to read about how arcades helped shape the video game business, supporting the idea of “trying before buying”. That’s how I see Bittorrent, as an arcade, you pay practically nothing to try the game out and buy it for your “console” if its something you enjoyed.
Valve are the only developer that seem to have pretty much beaten the piracy, just through the sheer usefulness of steam
DRM if a lame excuse, in the end people just want free games, just look at world of goo.
And no not every downloaded copy means a lost sale but every copy means a illegally acquired copy.
If you’re pirating games, don’t try to sugar code it.
Oh no, an illegally acquired copy!
So what?
[quote] “Do we need a way to donate money to people we like? Sometimes I pirate a game, and end up liking it sooo much I’d actually donate a few bucks if they had a link of their website or something.”
Yeah.. they are called stores.
[/quote]
No, see, the first guy is looking for a way to:
- donate an amount of money of his choice
- eliminate the middlemen (distribution, retail, accountants, LAWYERS)
- ensure all money goes to the creastors
- do so with the total convenience of sitting at home/work/starbucks, browsing the web.
What you have just suggested (stores) is that he:
- donate an amount of money he can NOT chose
- he pay the middlemen (distribution, retain, accountants, LAWYERS)
- he do so by a) stopping what he’s doing, and b) transporting himself to a store.
Yes. There are online stores too, but that didn’t come across and you didn’t specify it. And it does nothing to address being forced to give more money than you want to, to people you don’t want to.
Epic Fail!
Let’s see lists for all platforms–individually and then Top 10 across all platforms. Please.
C-Rex your crazy the whole point of downloading a game is not paying for it if you like it so much y don’t you buy the real game or maybe the expansion this would put money towards the develops and you would also have a real legal game!!
Dont forget the pirates who sell actual physical dvd’s in poorer countries.
anyone else notice how MOST of these are EA games?
I dont feel bad for downloading games… If I like it I buy it… If its rubbish, the company that made said rubbish doesnt get my money to make more rubbish… Although i do wish i had have downloaded Dead Space first… *sigh*
I downloaded CnC3
but…
then i ended up buying both CnC3 and its expansion – Kanes Wrath
so…
i’m surprised that nfs undercover didn’t make it in that list !!!
Unbelievable. Spore tops the list? hahaha. lol
http://gamer.ph/
I was going to buy Spore but didn’t solely because of SecuROM. I have stopped buying The Sims 2 add-ons for the same reason, and will not buy The Sims 3 if it comes with SecuROM or any similarly invasive DRM. Neither am I a pirate — I want the legal version of games, with the box and everything. What part of this does EA just not get???
I wish game companies stop releasing games for the obsolete and incompatible Microsoft Windows system.
So annoying how people confuse piracy with downloading of cracked games. Piracy is when you crack software to *sell* it. Putting something for free on bittorrent just so others can download for free and have fun is rather called sharing. Love it how companies try to make everything look miserable just to have people stuffing their pockets with more money and making sure no one has fun otherwise. Anyway happy to see the free sharing of games is still strong and running, keep it up people.
w00t someone still piretes GTA SA?
What a cheap skates they could have bought everything r* has made (excluding gta IV) with ~35€/$ from steam that one weekend.
I jused to download quite a bit games, but most of them where games i played less than 1 hour and i have now bought everygame i used to play more than 3 hours exluding one that i could´t find.
When i first bought tf2 from steam i have stopped buying cd/dvd versions because they are just pain to store with their serial numbers which i ofcourse always lost and had to search them for hours. Thanks to steam i just logon to my account and start playing. like mr T would say i pitty the fool who bought physical copy =). After disasterious network logining with c&c (you only get one account and you cant rename the account) i really dont want to buy anymore c&c stuff from ea.
Thx alot EA for ruining another perfect game serie called c&c, with drm and half assed games that where called c&c only because you wanted to get them sold. These include generals series and Ra3.
Thanks a million, EA, great job! I’m sure you’re pleased with yourselves! I didn’t pirate the game, but I didn’t buy it either. I would’ve had you not used SecuROM.
Guess I’ll just have to download a copy of spore as well to give EA the ass raping they deserve ….
Fuck, no wonder PC gets half-assed buggy console ports, look at all you shit stains fucking stealing and using DRM to justify it.
*sigh* PC gaming is shit these days, thanks to pirates.
Well, I started buying games in the past 2 years, but EA’s games are declining quality. I was a big fan of NFS series (played since the 1st). I bought Carbon (PC&PS2), Prostret (PC&PS3), Undercover (PS3). But I had the following complaints: Carbon on PS2 is crap load of shit because it’s choppy (estimate 15FPS avg); Pro-street does not have quick-race (and I mean quick-race); Undercover was the big (or only recent) dissapointment: I avoided the PC version (which I played a pirated copy) and bought the PS3 version. But it had low performance (like Carbon on PS2). How can they release a game on a (new) console that goes under 30FPS 50% of the time? And unlike PC version, you cannot tune the graphics. So what it the reason of “single platform” if they don’t tune it? This is when I realized EA is screwing it’s gamers. While Undercover seems a good game (excluding performance), I really doubt I will continue buing the franchise.
Come on Polyphony, give us the full Gran Turismo 5. After all, it’s 1/2 of why I bought the PS3.
Ha! Sims 3 is goona be on top of at list if hay don’tget rida DRetardM and dumrom but have they ever lisened to us?
DRM is the most disgusting thing I seen in software since recent. I’m so very happy the game got “pirated” especially because of it. This should send out a very clear message to those companies who try so hard to defeat community sharing that the community is stronger.
Games are made for people to have fun with, not for a corporation to stuff their pockets with more and more money off. So stop trying to block sharing and make it illegal in the hope you’ll win more money just to upgrade your villas to palaces, we have the right to share our games and play together. Cracking and sharing of software has never left a company starving nor brought it down so stop complaining EA and all other software companies. That’s all I had to say.
“EA doubted our statistics. EA’s Mariam Sughayer said that every BitTorrent download was not a successful copy, and that several downloads didn’t work, were buggy, or contained viruses.”
funny how the point of view changes depending on what outcome you want. usually, when they are complaining about high download counts, just the THOUGHT of downloading a game counts as a successful act of infamous piracy.
I’d say one of the main reasons for spore’s initial high downloads is because it was leaked/released early in Australia several days before its release date
In response to 82,
Tell that to IronLore.
“Cracking and sharing of software has never left a company starving nor brought it down so stop”
Is that C&C 3? Shouldn’t it be Red Alert 3? Or is Tiberium Wars really that popular?
almost all of my games were downloaded from Torrent, last week I was installing the few originals that I had and one of them did not work because of some misterious problems,
then I’ve downloaded a crack for that game, and it worked!
the only installation that went wrong was the original one,
why is that?
Uh. Maybe Spore has the most pirated copies but I don’t think any game can beat World of Goo’s 90% piracy rate. http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/13/world-of-goo-has-90-piracy-rate/
How do they measure these?? There is no way in hell how they can measure every torrent and every place where these games are shared. I´d say “fake” =)
Eu amo The Sims , GTA San Andreas , e Call of Duty ! Parabenizo Will Wright , por suas criações ! GENIAL !
i dowdnloadd all ^^
C-Rex – No you’re not crazy!!!
I think being able to donate to a game developer is a great idea; if the little guys do it, why not the big guys?
Reasoning besides, isn’t something better than nothing?
(the answer is yes)
@17
Not true, actually, in my case at least. I live in China, which means that software I purchase in stores is already pirated and direct downloads usually don’t work (“Sorry, this game is available only for customers in the USA, Canada, and Mexico.”)
So I download games that look good and order them on Amazon (to be sent to my US address). When I get back to the States, I pick them up. More than once, I’ve bought games just because the downloaded version was so cool.
WARNING WARNING WARNING
ATTN: GAMERS AND PATRIOTS.
I ask you all!
Is DRM against Liberty ?
Is the New world Order behind all DRM world wide ?
Will you fight against the North American Union ?
Long live the Constitutional Republic for which it stands.
and
Death to the New World Order.
google bilderberg
google CFR
google Continuity of government
google new world order
pdd51
military commisions act.
JOIN THE INFOWAR
AGANST THE GLOBAL ELITE.
http://WWW.INFOWARS.COM
its all over youtube.
They can not stop us all. Theres more of us than there is of them.
and you have to know….
If you give into the Elite through cowardess, they end up winning, and you will be fed upon.
BUSH IS GUILTY OF TREASON .
I always tend to read reviews and do a bit of studying before I purchase a game. Yes I bought Spore, & Fallout 3. No it didnt eat my computer. I only have one computer, I do not have 3+ computers like some of you rich folk. Rationalize it all you want. Your stealing. Just dont bitch when all you see is pay-to- play games like MMO’s that seem to be taking over the PC sections of games stores.
PLEASE, SUPPORT PC GAMING, BUY ORIGINAL GAMES.
SHOW THE INDUSTRY THAT PC GAMING IS NOT DYING.
PC GAMES SHOULD OUTSELL CONSOLE GAMES.
PLEASE, SUPPORT PC GAMING, BUY ORIGINAL GAMES.
SHOW THE INDUSTRY THAT PC GAMING IS NOT DYING.
PC GAMES SHOULD OUTSELL CONSOLE GAMES.
PC GAMES ARE CHEAPER THAN CONSOLE GAMES.
DON’T PIRATE PC GAMES.
THERE’S ALTERNATIVE:
STEAM HAS WEEKLY OFFERS. GOG.COM IS A GOOD PLACE TO BUY OLD GAMES. GAMETAP HAS FREE GAMES.
PLEASE SUPPORT PC GAMING.
Oh Spore :))
“inflated due to the DRM that was put into the game” – how come you don’t explain what you mean by this implication; also do you have anything specific to back that statement up, whatever it is supposed to mean?
I hate DRM as much as anyone, but I don’t see the link between DRM and increased piracy. The more logical link would be between the popularity of the game and the amount of pirated copies, in spite of DRM not because of it (but even that would be speculation).
Please enlighten me with facts as you seem to be all knowing about the motivation of the millions of people who are pirating software.
And just HOW did you come up with these numbers?
Seriously – you simply can’t know.
At all.
PS. C-Rex: I totally agree, I’ve wanted a service like that since I first became a pirate..
Romanos
SPORE SPORE SPORE SPORE SPORE SPORE
I downloaded Fallout 3 over the Azureus network and buyed the license, so how many of those downloads of the Fallout 3 were for cracking and how many obtained a license??
This list isnt acurate. I have it on good authority Crysis was pirated 20million times. This equals 20mill copies that would of been sold and it would of become the highest selling game in existance cause its that super awesome. The company has gone into backruptcy thanks to pirates. Made no money from its low sales of 2millionish. Whats 2 million really. Thats like…4 copies. Or 3. Sold nothing.
@ 14:
“Nice to see Fallout 3 on the list after Bethesda lied through its teeth that it wouldn’t include draconian DRM. Which of course it did.”
Don’t make me laugh. Draconian DRM that can be COMPLETELY bypassed by clicking on a different exe.
It was pretty much a gesture of copy protection.
I own the game, I don’t play with the disc in my drive.
Stop spreading FUD.
Note: I don’t like the concept of DRM because it’s a failure of an idea. Still had to respond to 14 tho.
Consoles cost more than PC games. Fact. Sad to go into any computer store and see the tiny section of PC games. Sure corporations are greedy. People that are involved in pirating are surely no Robin Hoods. Just do us a favor and skulk back in your dark little corners and please stop acting like your our for ‘revenge’.
When the only thing you do find is Subscription games, you have two option… Just buy consules, or go buy a MMO and steal the credit card out of your mommie’s purse.
notice that there is no Valve games in this list, i wonder why!
God bless Steam!
wow another attacking pc gaming lets talk about console pircay that it’s so big it’s in the billions! You the psp right i hear it was so bad that sony had to make a new psp.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7772962.stm
The BBC are only a week late.
ok where is the consoles pirated numbers? I mean console pircay in in the billions
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Almost-1-Billion-Dollars-Lost-by-Nintendo-in-2007-78918.shtml
gears of war pirated, fallout pirated
http://kotaku.com/5060952/fallout-3-360-compromised-by-pre+apocalyptic-pirates
http://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/3GwK3lZIp7jrUUeZdcp7se3MlENRIULs
A lot of you making comments know nothing about piracy/downloading.
For clarity:
There is no way to track total downloads. Maybe from public torrents, but that is about it. The Scene hates P2P anyway.
Steam games are pirated and played. Many of you idiots think they cannot be for some reason. Even MMOs are cracked and have private servers.
The motto of the scene is buy a game and support the game developer if you like it.
Also, piracy is not killing PC gaming. Consoles kill PC gaming. They are much more affordable and every one from broke ass ghetto folk to upper class rich kids have THE SAME SYSTEM. This is why consoles sell more copies. Not piracy.
Here is a hint: YOU CAN STILL PIRATE CONSOLE GAMES.
I prefer PC gaming though. MMOs, simulations, Total War series, etc just don’t work on consoles – and those are my favorite games to play.
It’s pretty funny that this “top list” features some of the most shitty games of 2008. What a joke.
have you taken a good look and sony or micro soft they are dying. every company that has made consoles games are slowly going bankurpt!
sony is no longer the same company it use to be all because of consoles.
the ps3 is a marketing failure! miro soft there so much hate from pc industry it’s not even funny!
GTA IV for most pirated ‘09!
GTA IV for most pirated ‘09! Rockstar, you should thank SecuROM.
I want kabus 22
Fuck all game companies
I just started downloading Spore only after reading about the horrible DRM.
EA are Idiots.
pense que iva a estar el Unreal Tournament 3
fallout 3 was a bitch of a game to torrent with the crack bugs pluse the in game bugs, still a awsome game though
here I have lost of links for you
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Weekend-Reading-Fi...
http://www.edge-online.com/news/activision-sues-a...
http://kotaku.com/5044010/capcom-explain-r4-lawsu...
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/17901/Pirated-Copy-...
here I have lost of links for you
lets see whogoes bankuprt pc vs console!
DRM fails because it punishes the people who buy the game and rewards people who pirate it. Same goes for movie censorship. Just drop it. It's like stripping everyone who touches your product to make sure they didn't steal it. You'll get more customers without it.
The following could also stop piracy:
1. Not overinflating reviews and releasing good games (Spore, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry 2)
2. Giving affordable prices to poor countries (Every game on that list)
3. Not ripping off your customers (PES 2009, The Sims 2)
Fallout 3 is surprisingly low on that list because for that reason. Go Fallout!
8
u are right sinaj is a moron. now we know why his grandfather died.
I hate DRM, i bought all my games from sims 1-2 + exp's and c&c, that damn drm gave me nothing but trouble, i will no longer buy a drm game.
And also from what i hear a german hacker has already figured out how to bypass DRM locking and validation proccesses. and may release it [free] to torrents some time this year.
The thing is, obviously we can steal it, so the DRM is useless. There was a _pirated_ non-DRM copy online for all these games probably before the game came out, or at least the day that it came out. Obviously DRM doesn't stop piracy, is the bottom line. It simply hurts us honest consumers who buy a game, and then find it worthless or inconvenient.
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