Most Pirated Games of 2009

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Source

As 2009 is slowly moving toward its end, we follow up our most pirated movies chart by taking a look at the most pirated games of the year. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the absolute winner on the PC and Xbox 360, while New Super Mario Bros. scoops the title of most pirated Wii game of 2009.

With 4.1 million unauthorized downloads of the PC version alone, the game more than doubles the achievement of last year?s ?winner? Spore. Modern Warfare 2 leads both the PC and Xbox 360 lists, by a landslide. The overall trend across all platforms is that, unlike last year, all of the games are 2009 releases. What makes Modern Warfare 2?s chart-topping even more impressive is that this has been achieved after just two months of availability. We further see that the figures for the most downloaded titles have more than doubled compared to last year, equaling the growth in uTorrent users.

PC games are by far the most downloaded titles, with on average more than three times the number of downloads compared to Xbox 360 and Wii releases. As expected, Mario titles are in high demand on the Wii.

The data for these lists is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers. All the data is carefully checked and possible inaccuracies are systematically corrected.

[Digital Tonic]

It's a shame to see such high figures for the PC, I'm not surprised developers cut corners when adapting games for PC.

It used to be; develop for PC and shrink for consoles, now it's the other way around.

Steam FTW.

[Xenomorph]

The figures don't mean much.

Someone downloading a game doesn't equal a lost sale if they were NEVER GOING TO BUY IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

[+Mystic MVC]

Yep as connections get faster each year, pirating will continue to increase sadly enough. I wonder how many people used the excuse "IW isn't using dedicated servers so I'm going to pirate the game", just so they wouldn't feel bad about it.

[Udedenkz]

If you didn't buy it, you shouldn't play it.

[Subject Delta]

The reason that the CoD games are pirated so much is because the pricing is rediculously high, even on Steam CoD 4 is still ?29.99

IMO, if Activision get more realistic about pricing, piracy would drop.

[Digital Tonic]

Someone downloading a game doesn't equal a lost sale if they were NEVER GOING TO BUY IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Imagine a guy wanted MW2 and was thinking of saving up money for it, then he finds out that he can torrent it for free and decides there's no real point in purchasing it. One potential customer lost.

I'm pretty sure developers/publishers don't see it your way either.

Don't get me wrong though, your point is perfectly valid if the people are already heavy 'torrent-ers'.

[watchthisspace]

The reason that the CoD games are pirated so much is because the pricing is rediculously high, even on Steam CoD 4 is still ?29.99

IMO, if Activision get more realistic about pricing, piracy would drop.

Exactly! It's still $120NZD for the PC, which is a damn right rip-off!

[SyntaxError]

The figures don't mean much.

Someone downloading a game doesn't equal a lost sale if they were NEVER GOING TO BUY IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Exactly.

If you didn't buy it, you shouldn't play it.

Since there's no way to "try before you buy" with most pc games these days, meaning there's no demo released, no rentals (unlike console games), and a "no return policy" standard everywhere, then piracy is the only option.

Most games are total trash anyway, and I would be very ****ed if I had dropped $40-60 on a crap title and couldn't get my money back. Used to be it was no problem returning an opened title for a full cash refund, but piracy killed that for all of us.

The whole issue is really a catch-22 the way I see it. Crap games, high prices, and no return policies cause piracy, yet piracy causes crap games, high prices, and no return policies.

Not to mention these damn game studios either not supporting their titles, or using their paying customers as beta testers. Sometimes both.

Sometimes they even screw their customers outright. Horse Armor anyone?

[lalalawawawa]

This is getting really old.

[Anooxy]

Imagine a guy wanted MW2 and was thinking of saving up money for it, then he finds out that he can torrent it for free and decides there's no real point in purchasing it. One potential customer lost.

I doubt that since most would want online play, or have the legal copy on their hands. I know many of people who wouldn't act as you said.

[Digital Tonic]

I doubt that since most would want online play, or have the legal copy on their hands. I know many of people who wouldn't act as you said.

The point is that those people do exist and as long as they do developers will do everything in their power to make-up for lost sales, e.g. Increasing the price.

[iamwhoiam]

Imagine a guy wanted MW2 and was thinking of saving up money for it, then he finds out that he can torrent it for free and decides there's no real point in purchasing it. One potential customer lost.

If he was thinking about saving up for the game and didn't, then it's not a potential sale lost either. The majority of people who pirate would never have purchased the software/game to begin with. Game publishers in that regard can't complain about losing something they were never going to get to begin with.

If I decide not to purchase a game from a brick and mortar store because I think it's too expensive, and I don't download it either, is that lost sale counted in all those statistics as well? No it's not and everything will be lumped under the guise of "piracy" to justify why they aren't making the money they think they should be making.

Edited December 30, 2009 by iamwhoiam

[protocol7]

I think the way MW2 was crippled was a major factor in the PC figures. I'd bet a large number of those who downloaded it just got it to play the single player campaign and then move on to something else.

[LingeringSoul]

And now Activision has the justification they need in order to neglect PC development even further. Perhaps I'm just paranoid, but I can't shake the feeling that Activision and IW neutered the PC version of MW2 on purpose, in order to stir the people into a frenzy and get them to pirate the game out of anger. Now for all future Activision titles, whenever they're asked why there's no PC version, they can just point to MW2 and and the fact that it was pirated to hell.

The Wii piracy surprised me though. I didn't realize there was any significant amount of piracy on that platform.

[SkyDX]

The figures don't mean much.

Someone downloading a game doesn't equal a lost sale if they were NEVER GOING TO BUY IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

My words... exactly my words.

[Digital Tonic]

If he was thinking about saving up for the game and didn't, then it's not a potential sale lost either. The majority of people who pirate would never have purchased the software/game to begin with. Game publishers in that regard can't complain about losing something they were never going to get to begin with.

So that gives people the right to download/steal the game that the developer/publisher have pumped money into creating?

[Blackhearted]

It's a shame to see such high figures for the PC, I'm not surprised developers cut corners when adapting games for PC.

And cutting corners is only a way to increase piracy, not deter it. As a half-assed pos port isn't worth paying full, or even half price for. So that train of thought would only 'hurt' devs more.

MW2 is a great example. It's on top cause they pretty much cut out the ability to have decent multiplayer(console kiddies may enjoy home servers run on shared 128kbps dsl since they have no choice, but i don't). Basically removing half the game. They cut corners and it cost them.

[Smigit]

Someone downloading a game doesn't equal a lost sale if they were NEVER GOING TO BUY IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

not 1:1 maybe, but there is absolutely lost sales still so yes, the figures do mean a lot.

[crispkreme]

MW2 is $60. That's 1/5 of a 80GB PS3. I think the pricing is a little outrageous. Even so, I don't think its a reason to pirate the game. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. End of story.

[Rohdekill]

Imagine a guy wanted MW2 and was thinking of saving up money for it, then he finds out that he can torrent it for free and decides there's no real point in purchasing it. One potential customer lost.

You just pointed out an excellent reason for pirating....if someone has to "save up for" a measly game, then there's a serious problem. When a game sells for $9.99 that was $49.99 just two years earlier, that tells me they are still making a profit on the $9.99 price and that greed accounted for the $40.00 hike two years earlier.

Then you also need to look at how they price vs. quality. More and more companies are basing their cost on the multi-player experience. For example, MW2 is very expensive. The single player main game can be completed in under 2 hours. If you don't like multi-player, you paid nearly $30 an hour for the game. Meanwhile, another game around the same cost (e.g., Dragon Age) provides hundreds of hours of single player gaming, making it cost about $0.50 an hour.

[SyntaxError]

Now for all future Activision titles, whenever they're asked why there's no PC version, they can just point to MW2 and and the fact that it was pirated to hell.

Cutting out an entire market is a surefire way to make a business fail, especially in a terrible economy. If Activision is that stupid, so be it.

Another company will simply buy up what they can and the industry will move on as it always has. Just like Eidos and Looking Glass Studios and so many others before them.

[Xilo]

Too bad all the top 5 pirated games for PC sucked.

[iamwhoiam]

So that gives people the right to download/steal the game that the developer/publisher have pumped money into creating?

I never said it gives anyone any rights and I think you read way too much into what I posted.

[Harlem39s Finest]

i'm not surprised by the result, if activision wants more "lost sales" another price increase will help with their next game :rolleyes:

and if somehow possible make MP even worse and SP even shorter. :rolleyes:

then i'm sure all pc gamers will run to the shop to get it.