Torrent freak.com survey of most pirated games of 2010

[Rangers]

Thought this was, interesting. Especially in light of recent PS3 events.

http://torrentfreak.com/call-of-duty-black-ops-most-pirated-game-of-2010-101228/

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.

Anyway, I've never seen a list like this. Some things that jump out:

PC piracy is ridiculous.

I'm not sure how much I trust this data. Some odd games, as Neogaf commenters mentioned, Wii party seems like an odd one, and on 360, Dante's Inferno #!?


I have a theory about that though, My theory is the most likely pirated titles are probably "B+" titles that one wouldn't otherwise buy. Reach would probably be an A title by most of it's audience, so a much larger percent bought it. However personally if I was a pirate, I see myself pirating B games like Enslaved. Stuff I'm interested in, but not enough to fork out 60 for. I'm guessing if these are accurate that explains Dante's. It also may have been the case that Dante's was ripped to the web very early in relation to it's release date I would guess.

Oh yeah, and sucks for Alan Wake. If these are true the ratio of pirated to buyers very high, Remedy must look at these figures with interest and wonder what might have been.

Also isn't it more difficult to pirate 360 since the Kinect dash? Perhaps that will help out.

 

[corduroygt]

I knew from the start that Alan Wake would do better on the PS3. They missed that boat now though 360 piracy in general is not a huge issue since the strength of its library is online games, which are pointless to pirate since your console will get banned. BTW, Kinect Dash has already been bypassed. However PS3 has far more SP focused games that will suffer due to the inevitable piracy in the upcoming months.

It's also a shame when even the free, pirated copies of COD can't surpass the sales of console versions, shows you how small the PC gaming market is.

 

[Rangers]

Has the Kinect dash been "bypassed", or just a new round of cat and mouse initiated similar to how it seemed to be on PS3 prior to those keys being found? I dont follow this stuff.

It seems Kinect Dash/old PS3 jailbreak piracy=cat and mouse system that is too complex to gain widespread use. At least that's how I read it.

 

[corduroygt]

Has the Kinect dash been "bypassed", or just a new round of cat and mouse initiated similar to how it seemed to be on PS3 prior to those keys being found? I dont follow this stuff.

PS3 before the key fiasco was more secure because there was no way to play the newer games, which is where most of the sales happen.
360 can play any game, even before release, even with the Kinect Dash.

 

[dragonelite]

wow the 360 list looks like its should be in reverse.

 

[Arwin]

In the case of some of these 360 games, a whole bunch of downloads were likely actually followed by a purchase later. Some of these games people simply want to try as soon as they can, and the pirated versions for some of these games were available weeks before the actual release. It could be informative to match up these figures with sales ratios of the game on PS3 and 360 for some of the multi-platform titles.

 

[djdev]

PC piracy is ridiculaous. But the thing is that people who pirate games (specifically on the PC) open themselves up to trojans/rootkits that they don't even realize that they have installed, and they become part of a botnet and have personal information stolen from them. People really don't get that piracy really isn't free. It actually can cost you a lot more in the long run than you realize.

Don't expect your antivirus/anti-malware to pick up all of the trojans/rootkits. Hackers use crypters to change the hash on them so that they won't be detected. Rootkits are especially nasty and it's very hard to detect kernel-mode ones. Also, hackers can run infected files against multiple antivirus programs to make sure it isn't detected. I'm currently studying to be a Certified Ethical Hacker so I know what I'm talking about because I have visited hacking sites and know what they are capable of.

Also, people downloading off of bittorent aren't the wisest people at all because you IP is available to everyone to see. I wonder what the numbers would be if they counted file-hosting sites like rapidshare, which ironically you have to pay for to get good download speeds and access forums to get links (which may or may not still be available).

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's also a shame when even the free, pirated copies of COD can't surpass the sales of console versions, shows you how small the PC gaming market is.

Well, that's just a fraction of what was pirated for each of those titles on PC. Other than private trackers, there are also other ways to pirate just as popular as torrenting now. I'd say that's probably about 1/3 of pirated PC numbers.

Regards,
SB

 

[zed]

open themselves up to trojans/rootkits that they don't even realize that they have installed, and they become part of a botnet and have personal information stolen from them.

OT - Im sure a huge percentage of ppl dont really care (unless its bank account details)
judging by what they post on facebook et al, in fact I'ld say they want more personal info known about them (the age of celebrity tv)
the thing is noone cares

 

[Ghostz]

At this point, I think it's pretty obvious, nobody can claim piracy has no effect on sales.

 

[Florin]

At this point, I think it's pretty obvious, nobody can claim piracy has no effect on sales.

Why is that obvious?

This just says there were X number of downloads. It doesn't say anything about whether this translates to X number of lost sales. It's reasonable to assume there were some last sales, but there is no proof.

Not surprisingly, the games that were pirated the most were also some of the biggest sellers, despite piracy.

 

[eastmen]

Most of the people i know use hosting sites to pirate games now. Its faster and your less prone to get caught

 

[djdev]

Most of the people i know use hosting sites to pirate games now. Its faster and your less prone to get caught

The ironic thing is that you have to pay to get faster downloads unless you use hacked accounts. "Paying to pirate"

 

[BRiT]

These numbers only tell a partial story. It would be more complete picture if they added in numbers from those hosting sites and Usenet. Of course that's ignoring the technical infeasiblity of usenet servers and the hosting sites of knowing what the content is. I know most if not all large usenet service providers do not keep any download logs. Even then, I'm making an educated guess and saying the typical pirate knows next to nothing about the oldest and least riskiest means of obtaining pirated goods, Usenet. So those numbers would still pale in comparison to the torrents and hosting sites.

I am surprised by the XB360 titles and numbers.

The ironic thing is that you have to pay to get faster downloads unless you use hacked accounts. "Paying to pirate"

Most pirates don't view it as paying to pirate, they view it as paying for security and removing risk or easing usability. Only the self-honest ones view it as paying to pirate, and then it's a matter of payoff. They'd easily pay $10-$20 a month to be able to get software easily worth 10 to 50 times that. It's a form of discounts and savings to them.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

These numbers only tell a partial story. It would be more complete picture if they added in numbers from those hosting sites and Usenet. Of course that's ignoring the technical infeasiblity of usenet servers and the hosting sites of knowing what the content is. I know most if not all large usenet service providers do not keep any download logs. Even then, I'm making an educated guess and saying the typical pirate knows next to nothing about the oldest and least riskiest means of obtaining pirated goods, Usenet. So those numbers would still pale in comparison to the torrents and hosting sites.

Well, if people torrent and use public trackers they likely know about Usenet as some of the shadier Usenet hosts advertise heavily on public trackers for torrents. When you consider a few facts, you may be surprised at how extensively it's used.

1. Many public trackers AND hosting site file aggregators get a large portion of their advertising revenue from shady Usenet providers. Those same trackers and hosting site file aggregators often have the first 3-5 "hits" be direct links to those shady Usenet hosts. In some cases the public trackers and file host aggregators are run by those shady Usenet providers.
2. The largest purveyors of Usenet are now porn, movie, music, and software pirates which leads to...
3. There are multiple Usenet hosts which are hosting up to 700 days of retention of all Usenet posts. And considering how many files are hosted on Usenet without the ability for a publisher or copyright owner to successfully initiate a cease and desist for removal of thos files...that's easily as much material as most hosting sites store. In other words operating costs are at least on par with the hosting services, yet they still remain quite profitable.

I'd agree, they probably come in 3rd behind torrents and hosting sites, however. But probably ahead of private torrent tracking sites. In other words, I'm not so sure they are all that far behind. Oh and older style P2P is still alive, albeit not nearly as popular in days of yore. The Kazaa and Edonkey networks are still in heavy use despite the fact that Kazaa and Edonkey no longer exist as they once did. There's various sharing programs that still use those networks. As well there's a few Japanese centric sharing P2P style networks.

Regards,
SB

 

[NRP]

I wonder how many of those Reach and BO pirates got banned? I believe there was a mandatory Live download at launch for each game. I suppose they could have only played SP, but that would be missing out on the best parts of both games.

And LOL at those PC numbers! I guess all those publishers aren't so full of crap after all.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

OTOH you could wonder why 4million people download COD. Maybe people just don't want to pay 50 euro's for a game full of bugs.

Btw those pc numbers are still relative low if you ask me. The pc market is much bigger and playing pirated games on the pc is by far the easiest as all you have to do is copy a few files while on all other consoles you need to do hardware hacks or a bunch of software hacks that also require updating.

 

[NRP]

I just hope Bobby Kotex looks at those numbers, gets really pissed, and tries to strong-arm the torrent sites for a cut because BO represents the bulk of their customer traffic.

 

[BRiT]

Btw those pc numbers are still relative low if you ask me. The pc market is much bigger

I agree and disagree.

Yes, the PC market is much larger.

No, the PC Enthusiast Gaming market is not much larger.

You need to remove all the basic business PCs and basic web browsing, email, facebooking, you-tubing, twittering style PCs. You also need to remove all the basic farmville and flash-based and sims-style casual gaming PCs too. For the same reason, you can't just take the raw number of Steam users. You can't just take the raw non-integrated sales numbers from AMD and Nvidia. Even if you only take their non-low end range raw sales numbers, how many of those are upgrades on previous sales in the same system?

Of course I could be completely wrong...

 

[Neb]

I agree and disagree.

Yes, the PC market is much larger.

No, the PC Enthusiast Gaming market is not much larger.

You need to remove all the basic business PCs and basic web browsing, email, facebooking, you-tubing, twittering style PCs. You also need to remove all the basic farmville and flash-based and sims-style casual gaming PCs too. For the same reason, you can't just take the raw number of Steam users. You can't just take the raw non-integrated sales numbers from AMD and Nvidia. Even if you only take their non-low end range raw sales numbers, how many of those are upgrades on previous sales in the same system?

Of course I could be completely wrong...

Kids/people with shitty computers still try their luck downloading modern games. I've fixed lots of computers and seen many times how kids tried to download modern games (and often same game multiple times in an attempt to get a working game) for the outdated PC. Some people try their luck even if they know they got a shitty PC they want to test it out. I am sure BFBC2 and COD numbers also leave rather small part as lost sales considering both games are multiplayer driven. Maybe COD has higher lost sales if substitute for online component registration and hosting is used but BFBC2 dont.

As said downloading torrent for PC is just a mather of clicks on any system. However for Wii and 360 it is pretty much purely enthusiasts as it requires hardware modification and more fiddling.

I can also wonder for all numbers if they counted downloads or unique IPs downloading and if full downloads. A torrent for a game can register downloader on 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 trackers or more at the same time to collect peers.