Most Pirated Games of 2011

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A list of the most pirated games of 2011 has been posted today at TorrentFreak. It is rather interesting to see which games people pirated and on what platforms.

As can be seen from the three lists below, 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. Overall, the number of downloads of the top titles in each category is slightly lower than last year. The platforms that are not mentioned, such as the PS3, get considerably less downloads and are excluded for that reason.
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Couple of surprises among the PC games.

- MW3 is on there, but not Skyrim? We know that Skyrim was the best selling PC game since it came out, so why the discrepancy in pirating rates, especially since MW3 is more MP centric

- 3.5 mil people pirated BF3 so that they could play the SP campaign :rolleyes:
 
maybe i'm naive...but how is portal 2 pirated? Doesn't it need to be played through Steam?
 
conscript said:
maybe i'm naive...but how is portal 2 pirated? Doesn't it need to be played through Steam?
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Yes you are naive ;)

Steam connectivity has been circumvented in the past, and I'm sure will in the future as well, just like every other form of DRM out there.

....

So I'm guessing they grab these numbered based upon torrents, and not direct downloads through various "free" download sites?
 
My favorite semi-unrelated comment on the article, regarding why companies support SOPA:
(These companies are) lead by ignorant technophobes who fear the digital revolution.

they're like an alliance of early caveman opposed to the use of fire.
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SOPA: So retarded, only cavemen will do it.
 
It would be more interesting to see the numbers of used games sold. Dollars spent on used games are real existing dollars that do not go to the game publishers; dollars not spent on pirated games is imaginary money that never would have been spent. DRM is not fighting piracy; it's fighting Gamestop.
 
i would be used and rented games have a lot to do with it too for consoles
note the latest trend to sell the online parts of games to people that rent or buy used but get 'free' with a new copy
 
AmberClad said:
Couple of surprises among the PC games.

- MW3 is on there, but not Skyrim? We know that Skyrim was the best selling PC game since it came out, so why the discrepancy in pirating rates, especially since MW3 is more MP centric

- 3.5 mil people pirated BF3 so that they could play the SP campaign :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yea it doesn't make sense to me.

BF3 is purely for multi-player. Skyrim is nothing but a single player game.
 
make a good game the bads will ignore it and every one else will pay for it
make a crap game only the bads will pirate it
 
because they dont know its bad lots of people being trendy or some thing its late i cant think you know what i mean
 
AmberClad said:
Couple of surprises among the PC games.

- MW3 is on there, but not Skyrim? We know that Skyrim was the best selling PC game since it came out, :
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Skyrim used to be pirated but then it took an arrow in the knee...
 
AmberClad said:
Couple of surprises among the PC games.

- MW3 is on there, but not Skyrim? We know that Skyrim was the best selling PC game since it came out, so why the discrepancy in pirating rates, especially since MW3 is more MP centric

- 3.5 mil people pirated BF3 so that they could play the SP campaign :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

It's official: pirates hate RPGs.
 
lol at Crysis 2 numbers. I bet many people did it for the hell of it after Yerli bad mouthed PC gamers.
 
WorldExclusive said:
lol at Crysis 2 numbers. I bet many people did it for the hell of it after Yerli bad mouthed PC gamers.
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I just saw the whole article as..

Look at all your potential customers if you sold a more convenient and decent product at a realistic price.
 
hmm no ps3 stats because of low pirating rate? why? i don't play consoles so pls enlighten me.
 
AmberClad said:
- 3.5 mil people pirated BF3 so that they could play the SP campaign :rolleyes:
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I don't play multiplayer anymore so yeah...I can see the point of pirating it. There's no point in dropping $60 on a game that you're going to beat in 2 hours.
 
Sigh...

Something these companies cannot understand is that pirated copies were already lost sales, before the piracy happened. People (myself included) pirate games when they know the game is going to be complete shit, but they want to say they tried it out anyway because of hype.

Complete shit games of 2011 that were hyped enough to make people want to try them anyway: Crysis 2 and MW3. Oh hey, look what the top two games on that list are.

Excellent games of 2011 that were so good they sold themselves: Skyrim and Deus Ex. Oh hey, look what games are not on that list.

The simple fact of the matter is that if games were better, people would buy them. But as it is, the yearly CoD:MW map pack is simply not worth the $60 annual fee.
 
Xyvotha said:
hmm no ps3 stats because of low pirating rate? why? i don't play consoles so pls enlighten me.
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No one wants to download a 40GB PS3 game when most of them are multi platform anyway. There's only 2-3 PS3 games worth playing a year, most rather just buy them.
 
I've only owned Portal 2. The one game that sticks out (to me) is Xenoblade Chronicles. This was one of the most anticipated games to come to the Wii other than Skyward Sword and several Japan-exclusive games. When it was released in Japan and Europe, it was almost like a total insult to the US gamers because Nintendo made no announcement whether this game would come here or not.

We're finally going to get a North American port of the game long after it's already been out in Japan and Europe.

And, they the game companies like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo blame consumers for pirating games? Well, their fault in the first place! They restrict or censor or edit games for North American players yet give Japan full access to all games released on their consoles over there. It's either pay $300 to $1000+ for a Japanese console or mod a US console and buy the Japanese game or European game, or mod one NA console and pirate it. (Or, teach yourself Japanese.)

It honestly limits freedom of choice to gamers who want to play games they want to play, but can't because game companies don't want to or unwilling to bring it here.

A lot of console gamers would really like to see many of the console JRPGs and other games released there ported here, unedited, uncensored for us. If there are players willing to buy them, then there will be customers willing to pay for it. And, that's better than having no customers at all.

I know my friend and I have been wanting the Playstation 3 version of Tales of Vesperia. Heck, we've both been wanting all the "Tales of" series games to be released stateside but we know it'll never happen. And, there are a lot of other games we'd like to play but only Japanese gamers get them.

If companies-- both game developers, music studios, and film and TV studios-- want to decrease piracy, they have to do the following:
  • Universally available to all countries without restriction or censoring.
  • Affordably attainable and available to all countries.
  • Removal of copyright restrictions per country that prevents exporting of digital items and media. (I'm looking at you iTunes Store.)
  • Universal copyright that applies to all media regardless of content.
 
What's sad about this though are the Crysis 2 PC numbers. As much as many in the PC community bitched and bitched about that game sucking and being consolized well, it just make PC gamers look like hypocrites.
 
This list is a bunch of bullshit. I don't even know why hardocp even posts this shit. With SOPA and PIPA, sites like hardocp posting this shit makes it all the more mainstream.
 
That's a 'you' issue. Would you never purchase an Intel CPU because AMD Bulldozer isn't what they it was made out to be?
 
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heatlesssun said:
What's sad about this though are the Crysis 2 PC numbers. As much as many in the PC community bitched and bitched about that game sucking and being consolized well, it just make PC gamers look like hypocrites.
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Yep. Similar to the outcry of MW:2 from 'the community', and what was the most pirated AND purchased game? Nope, could not possibly have been MW:2.

I haven't gotten around to Crysis 2 (and may never will), but hearing the praise from certain people about it (whom opinions I respect), I kind of laugh and wonder what kind of vacuum or vortex certain PC people are stuck in.
 
BigMyke said:
This list is a bunch of bullshit. I don't even know why hardocp even posts this shit. With SOPA and PIPA, sites like hardocp posting this shit makes it all the more mainstream.
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What exactly is incorrect about the information?
 
InorganicMatter said:
But as it is, the yearly CoD:MW map pack is simply not worth the $60 annual fee.
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I paid $45 for MW3 and I'm not even sure that was worth it, with all the aimbotters playing in multiplayer.

Cod4:MW was better, because at least I could play on well moderated clan servers where cheaters would get kicked and banned.
 
I was surprised that Skyrim wasn't on there too, especially considering it's a small download (by today's standards) at 6GB. The game does have 100+ hours of gameplay and rave reviews though, so maybe gamers felt it was worth buying?

A lot of people pirate games as a "demo" basically (since devs rarely make them anymore), but anyone who played Oblivion and read the reviews pretty much knew what to expect.
 
Just because the torrent was downloaded doesnt make it a successful pirate. LOL So much fake stuff out there that doesnt work and has virus's.
 
I guess we know where some of the BF3 hate is coming from now, they aren't even playing multiplayer :p I bought (pre-ordered) BF3 and still haven't played single-player for more than 15mins, but I've played MP for 150+ hours. SP is just really boring.
 
Wow. I know I certainly find the numbers depressing, and it's just torrents. With the exception of CoD games, you can usually catch a sale.

Yeah they might not all be lost sales dollars, but I'm sure there are plenty of people that just buy their MP games, they think they're recouping some of their GPU money and stuff like this. I wouldn't just assume it's just no big deal no one would have bought it anyway. It's not good. Certainly makes me feel a bit different about how people just get all pissed off and moan when developers mention PC piracy.
 
Tak Ne said:
I just saw the whole article as..

Look at all your potential customers if you sold a more convenient and decent product at a realistic price.
Click to expand...

I'm beginning to come around to this point of view, after dropping $130 on Steam last night. >.>

Haven't bought or downloaded Crysis 2, but I'll end up trying it through that $1 OnLive deal.
 
heatlesssun said:
What's sad about this though are the Crysis 2 PC numbers. As much as many in the PC community bitched and bitched about that game sucking and being consolized well, it just make PC gamers look like hypocrites.
Click to expand...

I don't know about that, Those are "values" of how many people pirated the game in the entire year of 2011. Being as it came out early in the year, yeah there's going to be quite a few more downloads (mostly because I'm sure they're using some retarded algorithm to calculated total downloads). MW3 was released with a little more than a month in the new year and it almost got the same numbers. Which to me says MW3 was more desirable than Crysis 2, hell Battlefield 3 and Fifa 12 also had similarly high numbers with end of year releases, Portal 2 is also high on that list.

Overall I would like to see the top 20 list, I have a feeling lots of downloads are there for just about everything, so these numbers aren't too surprising.

Also you need to really not equate those who complain with those who pirated Crysis2, as those who complain, those in the know, those who are smart enough to read reviews before buying/downloading something probably make up the vast minority of users out there. Crysis 2 was heavily advertised, even on TV, which means droves of people saw it in all its pre-rendered teaser glory, which made them want it, and as a result download it.

I don't see PC people as hypocrites here, but just as a larger portion of the population who pirates games... probably because more people have PCs than Xbox360/PS3 and there's no anti-piracy chip/software in your PC
 
travbrad said:
I was surprised that Skyrim wasn't on there too, especially considering it's a small download (by today's standards) at 6GB. The game does have 100+ hours of gameplay and rave reviews though, so maybe gamers felt it was worth buying?

A lot of people pirate games as a "demo" basically (since devs rarely make them anymore), but anyone who played Oblivion and read the reviews pretty much knew what to expect.
Click to expand...

Skyrim is proof that a good singleplayer game can sell. You don't need to tack on a shitty MP or annoying DRM just to get sales. Skyrim had none of that on release and after putting over 20 hours into it on a "friends" copy I knew I just had to buy it.
 
octoberasian said:
I've only owned Portal 2. The one game that sticks out (to me) is Xenoblade Chronicles. This was one of the most anticipated games to come to the Wii other than Skyward Sword and several Japan-exclusive games. When it was released in Japan and Europe, it was almost like a total insult to the US gamers because Nintendo made no announcement whether this game would come here or not.

We're finally going to get a North American port of the game long after it's already been out in Japan and Europe.

And, they the game companies like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo blame consumers for pirating games? Well, their fault in the first place! They restrict or censor or edit games for North American players yet give Japan full access to all games released on their consoles over there. It's either pay $300 to $1000+ for a Japanese console or mod a US console and buy the Japanese game or European game, or mod one NA console and pirate it. (Or, teach yourself Japanese.)

It honestly limits freedom of choice to gamers who want to play games they want to play, but can't because game companies don't want to or unwilling to bring it here.

A lot of console gamers would really like to see many of the console JRPGs and other games released there ported here, unedited, uncensored for us. If there are players willing to buy them, then there will be customers willing to pay for it. And, that's better than having no customers at all.

I know my friend and I have been wanting the Playstation 3 version of Tales of Vesperia. Heck, we've both been wanting all the "Tales of" series games to be released stateside but we know it'll never happen. And, there are a lot of other games we'd like to play but only Japanese gamers get them.

If companies-- both game developers, music studios, and film and TV studios-- want to decrease piracy, they have to do the following:
  • Universally available to all countries without restriction or censoring.
  • Affordably attainable and available to all countries.
  • Removal of copyright restrictions per country that prevents exporting of digital items and media. (I'm looking at you iTunes Store.)
  • Universal copyright that applies to all media regardless of content.
Click to expand...


You do realize the PS3 is region free right? I import games from Japan all the time.

Now in general I agree with your arguments, but there are strides being made.
 
Plague_Injected said:
It's official: pirates hate RPGs.
Click to expand...

I actually think there might be an interesting psychology study to be done on this topic. RPG's tend to focus on moral choices and consequences...while FPS tend to focus less on morals and more on mass murder. I don't suggest a causal relationship, but there could certainly be a correlative one.
 
octoberasian said:
When it was released in Japan and Europe, it was almost like a total insult to the US gamers because Nintendo made no announcement whether this game would come here or not.

We're finally going to get a North American port of the game long after it's already been out in Japan and Europe.

And, they the game companies like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo blame consumers for pirating games? ]
Click to expand...

Its the same with the movie/TV industry. They blame us for pirating when often its nearly impossible to find their content at the quality you want without pirating it.

I live in the US and know how frustrating it is there are no legitimate means to get the few foreign shows I like without waiting months/years.

People all over the world pirate not because they are thieves, but because the content isn't made available to them.
 
evilsofa said:
It would be more interesting to see the numbers of used games sold. Dollars spent on used games are real existing dollars that do not go to the game publishers; dollars not spent on pirated games is imaginary money that never would have been spent. DRM is not fighting piracy; it's fighting Gamestop.
Click to expand...

This made me lol.
 
Sometimes i feel worse about a game developer when their game is on Steam for $5, when it was just released 6 months prior at $50 (Brink and Duke Nukem Forever come to mind).

It's just pity money at that point.
 
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