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The Most Pirated Games in 2008
EA’s Spore has been illegally downloaded more times in 2008 than Crysis and Fallout 3 combined, according to estimates provided by TorrentFreak.
By sourcing download data via the popular peer-to-peer file sharing protocol, BitTorrent, the site has compiled a top-ten list of the most-pirated PC games of 2008. Will Wright’s ambitious evolve ‘em up rests at the summit of that list, having been illegally downloaded over 1,700,000 times.
By comparison, the most recently published calculation of legitimate Spore sales (made in late October during EA’s second-quarter financial posting) shows the game had sold around 2 million copies. Worse still for Spore developer Maxis is that the studio’s other distinguished piece, The Sims 2, comes second in the list with 1,150,000 copies downloaded.
Adding salt into EA’s manifestly spacious wound, the editors at TorentFreak claim that the vast number of illegit Spore downloads were “inflated due to the DRM that was put into the game.”
Meanwhile, following the announcement from Crytek president Cevat Yerli that the studio will no longer make PC-exclusive games due to “huge” levels of piracy, it comes as no surprise that the company’s flagship FPS Crysis makes it fourth onto the list, having been subjected to 940,000 illegal downloads.
Though perhaps more telling about such a list is what continues to be absent from it. Blizzard’s recent announcement that WoW had hit over 11 million subscribers, along with much theory that the MMO’s latest expansion Wrath of the Lich King will draw in another one million users, may just be enough evidence that a secure future for PC gaming will be an Orwellian one, with consistently-monitored online worlds and ongoing security verification.
Full list of estimates follow:
Spore (1,700,000)
The Sims 2 (1,150,000)
Assassins Creed (1,070,000)
Crysis (940,000)
Command & Conquer 3 (860,000)
Call of Duty 4 (830,000)
GTA San Andreas (740,000)
Fallout 3 (645,000)
Far Cry 2 (585,000)
Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 (470,000)
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
I don't think the DRM had much to do with the number. Unless we assume that people who bought the game got annoyed and then went and downloaded it. If this is the case, lots of those illegal downloads were actually a sale for EA.
The Sims, if anything, is evidence against "piracy as bad," since the Sims has, in various forms, sold more copies than anything ever.
I would imagine the nature of Spore just appealed to demographics that use BitTorrent, and they were more willing to give it a run than other games.
I will just point out that none of the games in the list had a playable demo AND none of them are made by valve, spore did have a demo but it was the best part of the game that they released for free.
I also agree the only way that they are going to control the piracy for PC games is if they use account system like Valve are using with Steam, the game is built around steam being there and thus can not be played without steam being spoofed also games like WOW where you need an Account to login to play. If valve are flurishing from it why cant anyone else, eventually there could be just 1 login system where it controls all games and has 1 massive community (steam maybe?)
And no EA battlefield login to play system sucked (launch in offline and connect pirate servers is not login required to play EA use your heads!)
Companys should be banding together to fight it not looking the other way.
Sure I probably downloaded nearly every game in that list, why? Because its so easy to and I didnt pay a penny to complete any of them. If I was forced to pay like a console for example I would of bought most of them in the list, i am a proud owner of Call of Duty 4 for example, I completed that and then bought it for the PC.
And yet my steam account has 26 bought and paid for games on it, I think valve is doing it the right way.
Even though PC games are cheaper than their console equivelent, they are still far too expensive and as such, due to the ease of it, piracy will continue to be rampant on PC until it kills it.
I also think that games prices are now disguised by DLC and expansions. Srsly, how many Sims expansions are they? The whole lot must cost in excess of £200.
I really don't believe that price is a problem. Crysis for example goes for around the equivalent of €13 here in Sweden. That's a very low price for such a game and I don't think any game consumer can find that expensive (especially not in comparison to other games.) Despite having a relatively low price for most of this year, it's 4th in place on most pirated for the entire year.
We can't expect games to be acquired for free or anywhere below €20 when new. It would simply not fuel the companies the producing them and the market would stagnate. The reason why piracy is such a problem for the gaming industry but nowhere near as serious for the music or film business is that a vast majority of PC gamers know exactly where and how to find pirated games. They are more knowing and at ease with piracy compared to consumers of other mediums.
My theory is that we're in the middle of two eras. People are yet to rely upon online billing or such when purchasing. Getting a physical disc in exchange for cash is something concrete, as opposed to trading virtual currencies for a download.
Whenever future generations move away from this fear, narrow-mindness or whatever it might be, the market for selling games online will flourish. All the lazy pirates who rather download a game simply because it's smoother might just start paying for their games. No middle-hands in the form of game stores reduce prices, and all the pirates who believe that finely crafted games still are too expensive, they will be prepared to pay for their games. Security, when there are no discs, no simple formulas for CD keys and when online verification is constantly there, will increase. You may call it Orwellian, but I'd rather call it necessary. Broadband or DSL connection might just be necessary to even play single-player games in the future.
The only company I see moving in the right direction on this is Valve. Steam-like utilities is the future of gaming. Better security, lower prices, easier access.
Nice picture by the way. Just played an LBP level (called 'Kraken') the other day, it looked exactly like this pic.
I think Dead 4 left maybe a way how PC games can avoid being pirated.
Assassins Creed and Pro Evo? Really? I'm surprised...