If there was any question that piracy is serious problem for game publishers and developers, then this list is the answer. According to these numbers, people pirated a crap-load of PC, Xbox 360, and Wii games this year, and these are just the numbers from Bit Torrent. We can only guess how many more games were pirated from other sources.
These numbers really bum me out. It’s one thing when games like Super Mario Galaxy, Halo: Reach, and Wii Party get pirated, as they all have a huge amount of mainstream fans that don’t pirate videogames (assuming that they even know how to). It’s seeing “hardcore”, under-selling games like Red Steel 2, Alan Wake, Dante’s Inferno, and even Call of Duty: Black Ops on PC get pirated to this degree that bothers me. According to these numbers, those games have been stolen more than they’ve legally sold. If even a fraction of the nearly 1 million confirmed illegal downloads of Red Steel 2 had been sales, then maybe that once promising series wouldn’t be dead in the water.
See the full break down of the numbers below.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Most Pirated Game of 2010 [TorrentFreak, via GoNintendo and Kotaku]
Top Pirated PC games on Bit Torrent for 2010
1) Call of Duty: Black Ops (4,270,000)
2) Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (3,960,000)
3) Mafia 2 (3,240,000)
4) Mass Effect 2 (3,240,000)
5) Starcraft II (3,120,000)
Top Pirated Wii games on Bit Torrent for 2010
1) Super Mario Galaxy 2 (1,470,000)
2) Wii Party (1,220,000)
3) Donkey Kong Country Returns (920,000)
4) Kirby’s Epic Yarn (880,000)
5) Red Steel 2 (850,000)
Top Pirated Xbox 360 games on Bit Torrent for 2010
1) Dante’s Inferno (1,280,000)
2) Alan Wake (1,141,000)
3) Red Dead Redemption (1,060,000)
4) Halo Reach (990,000)
5) Call of Duty: Black Ops (930,000)
