Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 was the most pirated videogame of 2009.
The PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game were illegally downloaded over five million times last year, according to TorrentFreak, which tracks BitTorrent download data.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Gameplay footage
1:55Multiplayer footage
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Gameplay footage
1:55Multiplayer footage
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The Sims 3 was the second worst hit title, suffering 3.2 million unauthorised downloads, followed by Prototype with 3.16 million and Street Fighter IV with 2.69 million.
New Super Mario Bros. was the most pirated Wii game with 1.15 million illegal downloads.
The figures suggest that game piracy is on the increase - the previous year's most pirated title, Spore, was illegally downloaded 1.7 million times during 2008.
TorrentFreak didn't provide any data for PS3, PSP or DS piracy rates.
It's not that short, spec ops mode is great fun and adds another 5-10 hours to the single player side of the game. People pirate because they're scummy little thieves, no other reason.
Aparrently average pings are between 150-230 on multiplayer. I just did a quick check on the net to see what people were getting... Apart from the host of course... Welcome to 1997! O-U-C-H!
Aparrently average pings are between 150-230 on multiplayer. I just did a quick check on the net to see what people were getting... Apart from the host of course... Welcome to 1997! O-U-C-H!
Do you reckon they knew, and that's why they removed the ping from menu?
Not a real surprise; alienating the demographic with the largest amount of piracy probably wasn't the best way to go about their business.
I don't condone it (I refuse to buy it, therefore I don't get to play it) but I find it hard to feel any sympathy.
Spore had DRM issues and I'm sure people are probably sick of paying for yet another Sim game when theyre all quite a lot alike. PC MW2 didn't have dedicated servers and there was a lot of banned 360s out there when it was released. Oh and I can't imagine there being a fair amount of people who'd want to pay £30-40 for a DS game on Wii.
So yeah I can kinda understand why a lot of those games are so highly pirated
Good. While it may end up with Activision stubbornly digging ever deeper in to its outdated and greedy trench warfare tactics, I for one am glad they are suffering heavy piracy. They screw gamers over, now the table has turned. Suck it up b!tches! Zero sympathy on my end. Drop the price of the PC game to 10-15 Euros and I will consider buying it. It is not worth more than that considering its length and the fact that a legal copy will be tied to a Steam account.
Once again reality crashes the publishers, developers and stock holders little head-in-the-clouds-dream party regarding the so called "effectiveness" of strict DRM measures. And there are people who get paid to come up with this kind of crap. It boggles the mind.
Jeeeesuurs! That is a kick in the teeth! I'm not surprised it's the most pirated game, as it also sold the most. But 5 million!!
at 40 quid a pop, that's 200 million. With a 15 percent tax rate, that's 30 million governments are missing out on. No wonder they're so against piracy! Especially in the current 'economic climate'.
@The_KFD_Case, it's people(I use the term loosely)like you who are ruining the PC as a games platform.
Acutally it's people like IW who are ruining the PC as a games platform, as a result they suffered a serious backlash from the community. screw IW, i'd personally rather see them crash and burn on the pc platform then drag the standards of all future developers down. PC will live on without them.
@The_KFD_Case, it's people(I use the term loosely)like you who are ruining the PC as a games platform.
Actually it's people like me who are the continuing lifeblood of the PC platform, and of gaming in general, considering the amount of money I spend on games for both the PC and console side of things along with various paraphernalia. Perhaps you and others have a guilty conscience where it concerns pirating games be it on the PC or one of the console platforms, but I don't because I buy my games. Over the past seven months or so alone I've purchased around 50 games between my gaming PC and my Xbox 360, so you can take your groundless charge and stick it with the rest of your sour grapes. How many "true/hardcore gamers" that "never" pirate can truthfully claim the same I wonder? How much money do they actually inject in to the gaming economy? And are they as squeaky clean as they would like to appear to the world around them?
I make no apologies for not being a lapdog apologist for unscrupulous publishers that apparently will stoop to any level in an attempt to increasingly micro manage my behaviour as a gamer and as an individual all in the name of profit (aka. greed). If you are content to let faceless board members whittle away at your consumer rights while sending you an ever larger bill for increasingly less game material then eat your heart out. I however will never join you nor those that share such a simpering and quite frankly repugnant placating attitude. Appeasement is not the solution in this case because such an approach only works if the parties involved operate by the same rules and maintain some sort of respect for each other. Many publishers display neither of these traits and so I have nothing but contempt and scorn for them, their lackeys and their efforts. Let them fall and disappear into the annals of history like so much other detritus in human history. We are better off without them than with them.
@The_KFD_Case, it's people(I use the term loosely)like you who are ruining the PC as a games platform.
Acutally it's people like IW who are ruining the PC as a games platform, as a result they suffered a serious backlash from the community. screw IW, i'd personally rather see them crash and burn on the pc platform then drag the standards of all future developers down. PC will live on without them.
viva la pc! yarrrrrr
Hear, hear! The apologists are both ignorant and naive in their approach. Good intentions and all that.
While I accept the sentiments and opinions of PC gamers such as KFD Case, I don't buy it that digital rights management has increased game piracy. Of course it's impossible to know, but I imagine if digital rights management didn't exist there would still have been the same amount of piracy.
For me the piracy argument is straight forward. You cannot and will not stop people from taking the easy-route, the cheap-route or the cheating-route. Piracy is easy on the PC and so it's most prevalent. I expect if piracy were as easy on consoles many more would do the same.
Regardless of the illegality of piracy it's a unique crime. As I've said before, no one bats an eyelid if a friend downloads a game, movie or album. But if a friend were to break into houses, businesses and cars they would certainly be viewed very differently. The same goes with family. Tell your mother you downloaded a game, or several games, or movies and the reaction, if one at all, would be remarkably different than if you suggested you stole your new TV or car! And there lies the issue.
No amount of education, or time for that matter, will change this. There's as much chance of self-policed piracy as there is of expecting drivers to always stick to the speed limits. I'm not suggesting everyone breaks the speed limit all the time and drives dangerously, but ultimately driving just a few miles an hour over the limit is effectively illegal and absolutely every driver has.
Digital rights management to me seems as effective alarms in cars or houses. It probably reduces the problem a little but isn't an ultimate resolve by any means. While I understand the contempt KFD Case has for the industry as one who suffers because of others actions I think it's an issue that cannot and will not be resolved any time soon. And if it is, it's likely to be even more upsetting to legal gamers because it'll surely require a more intrusive method.
Perhaps the cloud-computing route is the only answer. Ignoring the technical issues for a second, it seems to be the only resolve I can think of that won't upset people with privacy issues.
It's comments like that from KFD that put publishers off supporting the PC, and make all PC gamers look like a bunch of cheap scummy thieves.
Trust you to nitpick one sentence concerning one publisher and disregard all the other things I stated and which showcase the long term and continuing support I contribute to the gaming industry. But speaking of "scum" why don't you dazzle me with honest claims of what you do that actively supports the gaming industry while not undermining your consumer rights in the process? Can you Ted, or are you merely another talking head?
I stand by my words: I am glad Activision and IW are suffering heavy piracy for the deplorable exercise of unadulterated greed they committed against the PC gaming community under a flimsy guise of "improving" the MP experience for everyone. Yeah, if you like online PC gaming from 1997! They brought this upon themselves and it is a sweet justice when none was to be found elsewhere. If "MW2" is the best IW has to offer then I for one, and there others, will be quite happy to see them leave the PC gaming scene for good. The gaming industry is worth billions so others will come to fill the vacuum. Especially since piracy is anything but limited to the PC market coupled with the fact that PC market has tens, even hundreds, of millions more users than any of the consoles at present.
It's people like me that keep the PC gaming scene alive by purchasing titles legally while also trying to go out of my way to support publishers and developers that make games that appear to offer value and innovation while still respecting the customers. EA and BioWare have learned the lesson recently by using sane anti-piracy methods for "Dragon Age" that do not inconvenience the legitimate customer, and the same method is said to be used for "Mass Effect 2". Apparently such concepts are beyond your grasp and it's people like you, Ted, who are suffocating the PC gaming scene by rolling over and being grateful - grateful! - for the crumbs they deign to throw your way! Compromise by all means, but do so from a position of strength; to do otherwise reeks of desperation which easily leads to being taken advantage of. Go be an apologist if you must. You disgust me.
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Zero sympathy on my end. Drop the price of the PC game to 10-15 Euros and I will consider buying it. It is not worth more than that considering its length and the fact that a legal copy will be tied to a Steam account.
