Spore tops list of most pirated PC games of 2008

by Griffin McElroy { Dec 7th 2008 at 12:00PM }

Despite possessing "draconian DRM" meant to thwart an internet that's currently teeming with PC gaming pirates, Electronic Arts' controversial (in more ways than one) life-sim Spore recently topped a list compiled by TorrentFreak which charts the most pirated PC games of 2008. With 1.7 million illicit downloads (much more than 2nd place finisher Sims 2, which had 1.15 million), it would seem that EA's strict anti-piracy measures led to ... extra piracy. Here's the top ten most pirated PC titles for the year -- with only BitTorrent downloads present and accounted for, we suggest taking the list with a SecuROM-protected grain of salt.

Spore -- 1,700,000
The Sims 2 -- 1,150,000
Assassins 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

[Via Big Download]

Tags: best-of-2008, drm, electronic-arts, piracy, securom, spore, torrent

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

ice~ @ Dec 7th 2008 12:07PM

Holy crap, that's a lot of pirate penis creatures!

Kenny @ Dec 7th 2008 12:09PM

And a lot of criminals!

(The Award-Winning) dark_inchworm @ Dec 7th 2008 12:18PM

And a whole lot of EA, with 4 of the 10 items on the list...

Chainblast @ Dec 7th 2008 1:25PM

"And a whole lot of EA, with 4 of the 10 items on the list..."

Yeah, makes one wonder if that stuff Valve has been saying for the last 6 months has any truth... Make the customer love you and they'll feel bad cheating.

Cubfan786 @ Dec 7th 2008 4:08PM

Far Cry 2 doesnt deserve to be pirated

BZ @ Dec 7th 2008 4:33PM

I bought the game and each of my kids installed it on their computers. Once I saw it was kinda neat, I went to install it and couldn't because of the three strikes rule. I certainly am not coughing up another $50. I very well may make a trip to one of those sites and increase this number by one more...

Dr Jeckyl and Mr ESC. @ Dec 7th 2008 5:19PM

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We pillage plunder, we rifle and loot.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.

We're rascals and scoundrels, we're villians and knaves.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We're devils and black sheep, we're really bad eggs.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.

Gehodra @ Dec 7th 2008 5:52PM

@BZ

Wait, you have three kids who are still young enough that you buy them their games, yet they each have their own computer?

Autopsy15 @ Dec 7th 2008 6:23PM

^
That's spelled Jekyll.

Lit Nazi, Ahoy!

Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Dec 8th 2008 11:38AM

@Cubfan786, you meant "[...] doesn't deserve to be paid for"? Because in part I pirate games when I'm not sure whether it is good or not.

And of course if game sucks, you would see big number of downloads, but few sales.

Actually, if you want to judge how popular game is, you need to look at ratio between leechers and seeders. Good games are seeded more and bad games goes off net in very short time (as soon as everybody finds that is sucks).

Jason @ Dec 7th 2008 12:20PM

such a shame that so many quality games are being pirated, so many criminals.
Any one claiming that they only pirate games with DRM is a liar and hypocrite cos the chance of them pirating other games without DRM is probably close to 100%. Piracy is like pringles "one you pop, you cant stop." lol

FSK405K @ Dec 7th 2008 10:37PM

Yes, you've really captured their slogan there, haven't you?

Bird59 @ Dec 7th 2008 12:19PM

In your face EA! :D

Temidien @ Dec 7th 2008 1:06PM

Seriously, when anyone's that protective of anything they f-ing deserve it. DRM fascists...

D dogg @ Dec 7th 2008 1:16PM

I'll NEVER understand why people want EA to burn in hell or fall flat on their face. I don't even know why YOU TWO come to gaming blogs if you despise it so much.

Honestly, I just read an article about Factor 5 having to close it's doors because of cash... it's NEVER a good thing when GOOD developers have to close due to no money. Spore was not a piece of shit game but if the games sales are low (and pirating is a good reason for low sales) and EA has to cut people, guess who they look at letting go... the people who's projects made the least amount of money.

Pirating is NOT GOOD FOR ANY GOD DAMN INDUSTRY AND I'M ASHAMED THAT ANYONE WHO CLAIMS TO BE A "FAN" OF A CERTAIN INDUSTRY PROMOTES ANY PIRACY.

Who about this... if you can't afford to play it, you don't DESERVE TO PLAY IT. Work harder and if you're too young to work outside of home do more for your parents to EARN it.

The internet in its current form is a cesspool and people like you two only make it bigger and stronger.

Haggard @ Dec 7th 2008 1:24PM

Let's imagine that there's a restaurant in your town. A restaurant that serves delicious and for the most part, well-made food. But you have to pay for this food, so a lot of people don't want to, and steal the food.

The restaurant realises this and sprinkles anthrax in every dish they make, to deter people from stealing the food. But right outside the resteraunt is a group of people who remove the anthrax from the food for free, and make it safe to eat, while the people inside the resteraunt, who paid for the food, freeze up and die.

And that, children, is why EA are a bunch of hypocritical, unhelpful, profit chasing/consumer hating, milk-sucking, nickle-and-diming cretins.

GenBanks @ Dec 7th 2008 1:24PM

I hate piracy as much as I'm sure a hard working developer does, but I can't help but feel satisfied with these figures. Not so much at the overall numbers, but the fact that Spore was targeted so much compared to other games. I hope EA learns from this not to implement such heavy handed measures as Securom and its install limits.

I have half a mind to just download some pirated versions of games I already own which have heavy handed DRM (Crysis, Spore, Red Alert 3 etc) just to boost the piracy figures for those games and make a point.

DBuck_Eye @ Dec 7th 2008 1:37PM

Haggard, you're saying DRM will kill everyone who doesn't steal the games with DRM. That makes no sense. If you wanted to make your analogy accurate, the people who would die would be the chefs who could no longer feed them or their families because no one was paying for the food they make.

BigD145 @ Dec 7th 2008 1:46PM

DBuck: DRM can and has killed installs of Windows. It places itself in places it should not be and destabilizes computers. Yes, it's Anthrax.

WiiFTW @ Dec 7th 2008 2:41PM

I'm a fan of try-before-you-buy. I pirated Spore and CoD4 on the PC and didn't like either of them particularly, ergo I didn't buy either of them.

aristokrat @ Dec 7th 2008 2:45PM

That's odd...any other D people have anything to add to this?

Haggard @ Dec 7th 2008 2:51PM

Yeah, I meant it damages computers. Anthrax was a little overdramatic but I'm pretty satisfied with my analogy.

Sure, I hope developers stay in business as much as the next man - but not when it fucks with the paying customers (and ONLY the paying the customers). The pirates get a superior version of the game..

And then there's the point that all the paying customers are suffering due to a system that doesn't even manage to do its job - just look how many people pirated spore despite the strictest DRM ever put into a game.

Moptimus Slime @ Dec 7th 2008 2:53PM

Dbuck: Think of it this way, when my computer bricked (AGAIN!), I had to go in and get a whole new Hard drive, reinstall my OS and everything. One of the things I had to reinstall was iTunes. Now, a little after I got my computer back running, I upgraded from my Phat Nano (which when I look at now, is a complete and utter piece of shit compared to the current ones) to the sexy new slim Nanos. Turns out, I forgot to authorize my computer and had neglected re-adding all my music to my new iTunes library. So now I am unable to transfer two albums I bought off iTunes to my current iPod. Now, that could've been avoided if instead of tying the music to my HDD, they tied it to my account. Thats what they're trying to do now with iTunes+, but it still makes me mad.

Actually, a better example would be this CD I bought that was published by Sony's music label. The DRM on that thing was so strict, I couldn't run it on Windows Media Player. Thats right, whenever I opened WMP and put that CD in, it showed up as a blank disc. In fact, it came with its own music player (malware) and to get access to that, I had to input a code from my CD case. The damn thing didn't even have a digital copy, you had to buy MP3 versions of the songs off their own stupid store. What.The.Fuck?!?!

Easo @ Dec 7th 2008 3:06PM

"Now, that could've been avoided if instead of tying the music to my HDD, they tied it to my account. "

That's exactly what MS did with zune marketplace, and that is one of the negatives that reviewers (apple fanboys) keep saying makes zune marketplace worse than itunes.

On topic, Why did so many PC gamers want to play Assassins Creed, a game that controls better with an analog controller. That would be like an xbox fanboy pirating Command and Conquer 3 for the 360.

Haggard @ Dec 7th 2008 3:18PM

Well, you could always plug a 360 controller into your PC. Like the one I have for playing Prince of Persia and DMC4 (but don't own a 360).

It's instantly compatible with hundreds of games (anything with the Games for Windows banner is guaranteed) and using a simple program called xpadder you can make it work for everything else.

Levi @ Dec 7th 2008 3:18PM

@ Dbuck: You raelly shouldn't take anything like that face value.. Of course DRM doesn't kill people, you have to just try to understand the point of the analogy he was trying to make.

Due to the nature of the DRM of Spore, I am glad it is the most heavily pirated game. Anti-piracy measures that only harm the consumer or limit their ability to play the game is really very wrong. If you pay for a product, you should have the rights to it. If there is anything that iPhone jailbreaking and PSP custom firmware have shown us, it's that any of this garbage can be cracked by thrifty programmers. The DRM on Spore only harmed the consumer.

I am not a fan of pirating anything to avoid paying for it altogether. I am also a try-before-you-buy person. I'll download a few tracks off of a CD to see if I like it before buying the whole CD. The way I see it, if I don't like it, there's no reason I should buy it, but if you get a lot of use out of a product or just really like it in general, you should fork the money over to support the people that put the hard work into said product you are enjoying. You wouldn't like it if you went to work every day and only came out with half of your take-home pay because someone out there is stealing your service.

Having said all that, Spore is just extremely poorly implemented anti piracy efforts. If I wanted the game, I would pirate it myself. This is the one case where I wouldn't even pay for a copy if I loved my illegally downloaded one. There have been plenty of times that I had a beloved CD that I had in friend-sent-it-to-me-via-AIM format for a very long time, only to pay for it later because I want to support what I enojy, and this doesn't even fall into that category.

So I hope thats's a view that both pro- and anti-piracy parties can relate to. I'm right in the middle, and for this specific case, I am happy that it is the #1 pirated game of the year.

LaughingTarget @ Dec 7th 2008 5:23PM

This isn't some philosophical chicken and egg question. The reason EA is using such an intrusive scheme is because of the piracy. Piracy doesn't build up because of copy protection, copy protection builds up because of piracy. If people don't pirate, then copy protection isn't needed.

If your house is getting broken into frequently, do you respond by leaving the doors unlocked when you're away or do you put in tougher security? This is the thought process of EA and other major distributors. The problem is, as many in this thread have shown, is that Internet users are cowardly, grade-A assholes. They know they most likely won't get caught, are too afraid of their own shadow, so they need to feel good about specifically targeting high profile games that have high profile copy protection schemes.

At the end of the day, pirates are a bunch of pussies hiding behind their computer screens because they're too afraid to engage in something hard, like going to work, let alone being real criminals. There is nothing to be proud of, a pirate is the most pathetic form of life on this planet with the exception of those dicks that scam the elderly, but they're close on their heels.

Haggard @ Dec 7th 2008 5:32PM

@LaughingTarget

Yeah, but the correct response to burglary isn't to lock all your friends out of your house either.

Plus no matter how many locks you put on your house, there'll always be a pile of tools lying round that someone can use to get in.

See what I did there, eh? eh?

Alex @ Dec 7th 2008 5:53PM

WiiFTW,
I totally agree. Although I don't pirate games, `i think that games should ALWAYS at least have a playable demo, even if it's as short as the Dead Space one on the 360.
I don't like buying games without ever playing them, mainly because the demo-less ones are nearly always crap.

XGM @ Dec 7th 2008 6:40PM

Thats alot of people disappointed, with all the hype and a very underwhelming end product...

At about 3.5GB/iso and assuming people average a 1:1 ratio thats 7GB * 1,700,000, resulting at 11.3 petabytes (probably much more then that). What a waste of bandwidth.

liquidmark @ Dec 7th 2008 7:25PM

"Now, that could've been avoided if instead of tying the music to my HDD, they tied it to my account."

the music is tied to your account. iTunes is tied to your hardware.

If you didn't authorize your computer to go with your account, that's why you can't get it back, because, as far as Apple is concerned, you're a new person.

just authorize your iTunes account on your computer.

I know this because I gave some music to a friend and it asked for my authorization code. Now all of my songs and shows work on his computer.

BigD145 @ Dec 7th 2008 7:52PM

DRM is used because stockholders want it to be used. It has nothing to do with piracy except maybe as a placebo. Or maybe that was supposed to be an enema. One way or another, some consumers are getting raped.

Jacksons @ Dec 7th 2008 12:19PM

Damned kids and their antics!

mapi @ Dec 7th 2008 12:20PM

The ironing. It's delicious.

kvp1192 @ Dec 7th 2008 1:39PM

ironing? haha its IRONY

Cal @ Dec 7th 2008 2:37PM

*whoosh*

Jason @ Dec 7th 2008 12:21PM

i am surprised how many people pirated Sims 2, it doesn't even have a very harsh DRM.

Smurfy @ Dec 7th 2008 2:23PM

We're not gonna pay for that crap!

Ignatius @ Dec 7th 2008 2:55PM

It might be because if you total up the price of the expansions and the original game with all the stuff packs, it totals somewhere in the neighborhood of _$500_.

Sidebuster @ Dec 7th 2008 12:20PM

I hate this... It's like please don't pirate so the companies don't make DRMs. Then more people get pissed and pirate MORE because they make up whatever excuse to make pirating okay, which it isn't on any circumstance and makes it harder for people like me to enjoy the fucking game.

STOP FUCKING PIRATING GAME YOU STUPID ASS HOLES. YOU'RE STEALING FOR FUCK SAKES! DON'T YOU HAVE ANY FUCKING MORALS? OF COURSE YOU DON'T! PEOPLE THESE DAYS HAVE NO FUCKING MORALS! THEY THINK THEY HAVE EVERY GOD DAMN THING COMMING TO THEM.

FUCK OFF!

ApolloIV @ Dec 7th 2008 12:28PM

MY CAPS LOCK MAKES MY POINT VALID!

Vincent @ Dec 7th 2008 12:32PM

Um, okay. Because you know, this whole pirating business is one day just going to stop and all these moral-less people are suddenly going to be saved. That must take Jesus, Buddah, and Allah for that many people.

Dragod @ Dec 7th 2008 12:45PM

Morals are nothing more than what a single person's belief of what is right and wrong. What you may believe is right may seem wrong to someone else, and vice versa.

Everyone has morals -- They just may not be the same morals you possess.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Dec 7th 2008 12:46PM

Actually, all this shows is that no matter how shitty companies make their DRM, the game will be pirated. How much money does securom make off all these developers desperate to save their software from pirates, when it obviously does nothing but give legitimate customers a headache?

DRM is pointless and a waste of time, and its killing the PC market for games. I've stopped buying PC games because I don't want to have to worry about what some dumbass method of securing GAMES (the least productive use of a computer) is going to do to the stability of the rest of the OS, which I use for important shit, like finances and taxes, and pron!