Torrentfreak has published its list of the most pirated games of 2011, a favorite end-of-year controversy for gamers around the world. The pirated software is broken up by system, with quite different results for each. No PS3 figures were released.
On PC, Crysis 2 walked away the "winner" with an estimate download total of 3,920,000. On the Wii, 2010's Super Mario Galaxy 2 topped the chart with 1,280,000, while Gears of War 3 beat the competition on Xbox 360 to the tune of 890,000.
Those are some big figures, and likely plenty of ammo for the next developer that doesn't want to make PC games. On the bright side, however, all the chart toppers did make plenty of money, so it's not like we'll see Crytek out on the street.
Ah, the intricate web of piracy. Who's right? Who's wrong? Probably nobody and everybody, respectively.
Top PC Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
- Crysis 2 (3,920,000)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (3,650,000)
- Battlefield 3 (3,510,000)
- FIFA 12 (3,390,000)
- Portal 2 (3,240,000)
Top Wii Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
- Super Mario Galaxy 2 (1,280,000)
- Mario Sports Mix (1,090,000)
- Xenoblade Chronicles (950,000)
- Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (870,000)
- FIFA 12 (860,000)
Top Xbox 360 Game Downloads on BitTorrent in 2011
- Gears of War 3 (890,000)
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (830,000)
- Battlefield 3 (760,000)
- Forza Motorsport 4 (720,000)
- Kinect Sports: Season Two (690,000)
Contest:
8:00 PM on 12.30.2011 | 
I think piracy would go down if prices were decreased. I'm sure most pirates do it because they can't afford the games.
People pirate Xenoblade, lowering demand.
Logic!
I hate myself
That and I feel more empathy for game developers than I did back then, I understand the industry more and want to see a developer properly compensated for their hard work. Which includes fucking used game sales in the ass. Fuck GameStop and long live Online Passes.
Also, a lot of those games are major&new releases. I'm surprised The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was not anywhere near the top 3 of that list. It seems like the other lists that include MW3 and BF3 might have been hardcore fans of one game, 'trying' the other to see how it holds up.
Also, also:
4. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (870,000)
*trollface*
this is me to a fucking tee. or is it "t"?
So it goes from $60 or free to $30 of free?!
Imo it looks like that ain't gonna have to much of a noticeable impact if any at all....
half of those 950,000 were whining in operation rainfall, I'm sure of that.
Internal numbers are no doubt exaggerated but also keep in mind that this list is for one particular site for one particular medium of piracy, of which there are many different kinds of both.
Also I'm interested in the reason for the lack of ps3 numbers. Are they harder to obtain or track? Is there not a "significant" number of downloads? What?
right? didnt they say like 3 billion copies of their game got pirated or something like that?
I would wager that a good portion of the people pirating that game were mainly doing it to check if it would run on their system and save potentially wasting their money.
People asked for Xenoblade, and Nintendo of America kept refusing to release it. Nintendo of Europe decided to release it, and Nintendo of America still refused to release it. People demanded Xenoblade see US release, and Nintendo of America continued to deny any plans to release it.
Nintendo of Europe released Xenoblade, and people wanting to play it either imported it or pirated it. (Piracy was honestly the easier route, and softmodding to play imports is no easier than softmodding to play copies.)
Then Nintendo of America said they'd release Xenoblade. With a release date half a year after the European date, and almost two full years after the original Japanese release date. After people had already given up on NOA. After some swore off supporting NOA in the future. After people had already decided to pirate the game. (And it supposedly took Gamestop stepping in to get even than grudging response from NOA.)
I don't know a lot, but since PS3 uses blu-ray, I guess it would be significantly more expansive to pirate.
People decided Nintendo said "never" as the rationale to pirate it. Nintendo of America - not as a whole - had no reason not to publish it, true, but piracy is never justified.
I mean, just look at Portal 2 up there. Made by one of the most amazing and generous developers out there and it still got pirated over 3 million times. There's no winning with the people that just steal by nature.
Of course, they don't consider it stealing, now do they? They object to it being called that.
"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."
Translation: A) Piracy has gone down overall from last year and B) LOL who has a PS3? ALMOST NO ONE. LOL
about 50 million people have a ps3
Da hell?
They won't. Not even 10 percent.
Rethink your name if you are going to post such comments.
How about READING the specs needed to play and comparing it to what you've got before stealing the game.