Topic: Spore tops list of top ten most pirated games

[Samker]

Will Wright's evolution based game, Spore, is the most pirated game of 2008, according to a list of the top ten most pirated games, posted on the TorrentFreak blog last Thursday.

TorrentFreak used data collected from torrents in order to create the list, which also estimated The Sims 2 to be the second most downloaded game, followed by Assasins Creed.

According to the statistics published by TorrentFreak, Spore has been downloaded over 1.7 millions times since it's release in September, making it not only the most pirated game in 2008, but also the most pirated game ever. Undoubtedly, one of the biggest contributors towards Spore's high piracy rate is the inclusion of restrictive DRM, which limits legitimate customers to just three activations. EA admitted in September that Spore had been badly effected by the inclusion of the controversial DRM.

Paul Pressley, a freelance games journalist, told the BBC that piracy is inevitable and the best game publishers can do is to stem it without effecting legitimate customers. "The best [games publishers] can do is come up with measures that stem piracy as much as they can, without impeding legitimate customers."

Pressley also alluded to the impact piracy is having on single player games. "The PC market is getting smaller in terms of single-player games and publishers do overstate the problem. The majority of their sales are console-based, which makes piracy much harder and while pirates will take a small percentage of their sales, the majority of people will buy a legitimate copy of the game."

The "Top 10 Most Pirated Games of 2008" is as follows:

    * Spore (1,700,000)
    * The Sims 2 (1,150,000)
    * Assasins 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)

(Neowin)

[vincentjoseff]

The most funny part about this (in the case of Spore at least) is that copy protection was the main reason Spore is number one, if EA didn't employ those draconian DRM measures perhaps the game wouldn't of been pirated as much.

[Haubropourb]

I believe all of those games are still open to joiners except the torchwood game. . .

[Duar97]

cause you buy 1 cd and i serves for every computer you can imagine