Report: Call of Duty: Black Ops most pirated game in 2010

@jr0cha

You say that but they'll whack up prices again using this as an excuse, and recoup the losses from reducing the profits given to the developers.

Pirating to bring down publishing goliaths never works in practice.

@MrAlex

I doubt anyone pirated with the intent to bring down Activision. If anything its a message for them to put out a game worth buying.

@Deschain

Yes, that's exactly why people pirate, because they hate the product so much they think it'll convince the creators to make a better game. They use up their bandwidth to illegally download something they have no interest in at all. Flawless logic.

@jr0cha yeah suck it, bigger success than ever. you really showed activision.

Not to defend pirates or anything, but you have to remember that a lot of people pirated Black ops when it was leaked early, whilst still purchasing the game when it was officially released.

@Mr Lingo

It really isn't much money lost. Most people who pirate a game weren't going to buy that game anyway.

@Mr Lingo

Piracy is not always equal to sales loss. Remember that there are a lot of people who just pirate to pirate - they weren't going to buy the game anyway. Of that crowd, they are either too poor to afford it or just plain don't want to pay.

I can't find the article now, but I believe I read somewhere that someone was able to offer up their game for either free or whatever someone wanted to pay for it. There were allegedly tons of pirated versions of that free game making their way through torrents (and it was a full featured free game, not crippled)

How about, "potential sales?"

I understand all of your points, but maybe they were never going to buy the game because they had the option to pirate it. If buying a game was the only way to play it, and your curiousity was strong enough, then that may persuade a sale.

@Mystictrust I don't know if this is the same thing you're referring to, but this happened to the Humble Indie Bundle. Lots of unauthorized downloads when you can name your price.

@Poor Tom

I don't really believe that. I'm sure that if their pirate ship sank somehow and they couldn't steal their highest anticipated game of the year, some of them would actually get desperate enough to *gasp* BUY the game!

Of course this is purely hypothetical because there is no real way to stop the pirates (other than detonating an EMP in their house) but to say that most of them wouldn't buy it is wrong. They want to play it and if they see everybody on their friends list playing it and they can't get it illegally, the they might finally snap and buy a game the legit way.

But then again, most of them are probably self-entitled douche bags who are so used to stealing every game they own that actually purchasing a game would never cross their mind in a million years. So you might be on to something.

@Mr Lingo

What about people like me who want to play the game on PC and 360 but don't want to spend 120 dollars on it? I purchased the 360 version and downloaded the leaked PC version before it released.

@Anticrawl

that's still pirating. I want to play it on 360 with some of my friends but I bought it on PS3 to play with other friends I don't think I'm entitled to two copies

@Mystictrust I think that's a lame excuse that pirates use. I know back in the day when I didn't have money that the only software I ever bought was software that was not popular enough to have a crack. Otherwise, why pay when you can get it for free.

Thats in the USA. In India, you get LOLed at if you even talk about buying original. People won't spend $100 on a GPU, think they're gonna pay for each game? Piracy = 0 lost sales here.

@Ospov

I'd be inclined to agree if it wasn't for... Well, "Don't copy that floppy!" Piracy existed long before the internet, it will be around long after it as well. If one avenue to getting something for nothing is taken away with one hand, it's given by another.

I mean, torrents/magnet links are the most common means of distributing copyright infringing material today, but back in the day it was Usenet over the 'net or on local hubs... Lots of UK universities have underground Usenet hubs for sharing media between one-another.

Businesses should be able to cost their potential projected losses through piracy by now and take this into account. No amount of government intervention with ACTA or whatever huge over-reaction they think of next will stop piracy.

The industry needs to make buying the game even more appealing than for just morality's sake, because there are people out there with a very skewed sense or morality (the parts which aren't that subjective, I mean). Offering some extra content after the game's sale [and I don't mean Project 10 dollar or removing the ending or a chapter in the game to put it back in afterwards when you've entered some 50 digit code into their website along with your name, email address and whatever inventive way they find to bombard you with crappy emails... Sorry, went on a tangent there...], doesn't really matter what, just something. Something which says "thanks for buying our game, we think you're awesome." It's sorely lacking in the industry at the moment.

/crazyrant

@Ospov

What about the people who have no intention what so ever of buying the game? They pirate it cause they can and to see what it's like.

Doesn't mean their secretly harbouring a wish to play it that will lead them to going out and buying it because they can't pirate it.

@Anticrawl

That's actually a legitimate for arguing for an industry standard blu-ray version somehow that fits on all 2-3 versions of a game (already standard with older blizzard titles like Warcraft).

I think it's a bit bs I have to pay for something TWICE just b/c Microsoft company doesn't want to share cross-capatability with the PSN. Of course 3rd parties probably enjoy the increased profits and didn't push Microsoft to ever change their access model at all before Live rolled out.

@Poor Tom That's crap. Maybe the person who downloaded it the first time didn't want to buy it, but when his friends say "Man, I can't wait for Black Ops" and he says "Hey, I've got a copy for free! Want it?" that's where the problem is.

Because people don't download it and keep it to themselves. They download it and spread it around, whether by burnt disks or torrents or what have you.

@Hooch
because of da boobies

@PR0F3TA Not bad. Only took 3 posts before blind CoD hate.

@jynxycat I can't attest to Black Ops being overrated (I don't have a keen interest in playing it), but I can attest to your logic being faulty. I recently purchased Torchlight, and though I enjoy it a lot, I think it is highly, HIGHLY overrated.

"Overrated" and "bad" do not necessarily go hand in hand. Of course, I don't know what the OP feels for certain. Just throwing my two referee cents out in the world of NET WARS, at the risk of being run over.

@jynxycat The game was shit. Reviewers only give Call of Duty games high scores is because they're afraid of getting hate for not conforming to the average frat boys choice of a good game.

@NathanDTS

Disagree. It's a solid FPS.

@Vidikron Terrible multiplayer and a boring story, yeah, completely solid. Zombies is the only enjoyable thing in the game.

@Vidikron
It's a solid FPS to be sure but not much more.
I guess a solid game isn't bad but some people just make it seem like Every COD game is the greatest thing put upon thi world.

@NathanDTS

Compared to what though? Personally, I don't really care about nor play the MP, but the single player was fine. It played like pretty much every other CoD. If you don't like the CoD gameplay, that's fine, but BLOPs isn't significantly different from any of the others in how it plays. I had no problems with the story either. It's not spectacular, but I didn't think it was bad either.

@daytripper

First thought will be something like "Must make online subscription based!"

@daytripper Would that be before or after he takes a bath in money?

@daytripper
You don't pirate games but have the same avatar as Demonoid's logo??

@daytripper - You realize that he doesn't even get the internet in his Scrooge McDuck-esque money vault, right?

I'm sure his billions would have comforted him to sleep anyway, even if he had read this news.

@Hardcore1
I'm mostly an uploader ( I do download, but not as much as I used to). Also I don't play PC games and modding an Xbox is too much of a hassle

@Muu

My fav is them being "too poor", if you cant afford it.. you dont freaking play!

@Faenix

Seriously. The upside in this case is that at least they're stealing from giant multinational corporations and not tiny indie developers (i.e. last year's "World of Goo" piracy stories.)

Not that that justifies it at all.

@baby sea tuna

There is no "upside" to piracy.

if pirates pirate, then us legit customers have to pay. *points to ubisofts "always on" DRM*

So you are actually ok for being over charge and companies racking billions of dollars, while what you paid for is half done and poorly executed? Crazy world, huh? I wonder if it was priced at 30$ with no bugs and all maps and what ever dlc they will bring later is in the package, woud people really pirate? Miss those days. Something that i want but i feel i am getting rob for will get pirated, but still bought a copy of Black Ops.

@Muu

You don't understand because you're looking too hard. 95% pirate the game because they want to see if it is indeed worth paying full price for (60 around launch or wait until the price drops), 3% are actually too damn broke but still want to game (they eventually buy an authentic copy), and 2% do it just to stick it to companies.

Yes, I pirate some games sometimes, but I eventually buy the games I liked brand new. PS3 has been jailbroken, but I still buy new BD games. This is why the smart devs don't blame piracy for decreasing sales, they blame themselves. I will never buy a Madden game again until that game has a major overhaul. I will pirate *that* game until that change happens. But honestly, it's so bad I don't even have the desire to pirate it. That's when you know a game is shit. Not *the* shit, but shit.

@monkey with glasses

Of course I'm not OK with that. However, no one's forcing me to spend money on anything, and I can just as easily vote with my dollars and not buy it. I usually buy games 6-8months after its release because it's not worth the full price. If it ends up being good and a sequel is incoming, that's a 1st-day purchase.

@BlazeKing

"I'm trying the game" is another one of the pathetic excuses you hear every day. Game demos are everywhere, and that should be the bearing for whether you want to go on with a full purchase. If they don't provide a demo and you refuse to buy on faith -- well, then you can get something else. Show support for everything else that provides a clean preview of how the game is going to play out. I'm sure you don't have the time to try everything out that you want to, and by illegitimately 'trying' something else you've probably shut out another potentially good product.

@baby sea tuna
You aren't alone, I'm proud to be able to say I have not and will never play it.

@baby sea tuna

I refuse to play it... xD

@Faenix

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to make not playing it "a thing," I'd just rather play Halo (or any one of the other 6 games on my end-of-year pile.)

@baby sea tuna

Not really a big halo fan either :/

@baby sea tuna
not the only one. i own CoD:MW; rented and played MW2; no interest in BLOPs.
too many games, much too little time. much more interstered in AC:B right now, and once it comes out, MassEffect 2 (i have a PS3).