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Forums - Gaming Discussion - pirated games of 2009 with numbers (mw2 5.1m)

Ail on 30 December 2009
ChichiriMuyo said:
Ail said:
vlad321 said:
ZenfoldorVGI said:
ssj12 said:
frankly im glad CODMW2 was pirated so badly, remove a standard PC game feature and act like its nothing, let the game rot in the eyes of PC gamers. Ill take my CS, DOD, BF, and Unreal any day of the week.

The removal of DS had nothing to do with MW2 being pirated over 4 million times since launch, imo. It would have been pirated that much anyway, and imo, I think it would probably have been pirated much more, had more PC gamers actually had an interest in it.

Piracy isn't something PC gamers do to take revenge on developers who make bad games. It's just something a lot of PC gamers do, period. Not all, but obviously enough where developers should take notice.

I don't mean for this to sound preachy, but either way, I pay for my games, and I'm never glad when ANY game is pirated, and imho, neither should anyone be. Pirates aren't special. They shouldn't be able to play a game for free before launch, that millions of us paid 60 dollars for just because they decided that no one can stop them from doing it, and the developer "deserves" to be stolen from. It is not a form of civil disobediance, it is outright criminal, and certainly accepting it here, leads you down a slippery slope. Paying for things, like them or not, is what makes society work. When you don't pay for things, because you don't like them, YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE THEM FOR FREE. That logic is completely nonsensical.

If I hate a McFish, can I just go steal one for free, and even though I stole it, do I still have the right to complain about how much it sucks? That is spoiled, illegal, selfish, amoral, and arrogant all at the same time, and it is exactly why I despise the justifications for it.

I hope the game industry puts an end to this sooner rather than later. You wanna talk loss of PC game features? Just how loud are the screams gonna rise when Activision does away with piracy next time, a primary staple of PC gaming, and MUCH more popular than DS ever were.

Your quote is BULLSHIT. Why is it that the top 5 games are shit? Outside of the Sims, which probably sold so much that it's not even funny?

Removeal of DS really had everything to do with it. It's sort of a "fuck you activision," also the fact that you can actually hack and get far far moe features, like the console, up on a hacked version over the retail also helped it out a bit.

 

I also laugh at your McFish argument, or any argument equating piracy and tangible material theft.

I'll leave you with these 2 links to think about. Please don't respond without reading them:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090219/1124433835.shtml

and now Blizzard:

http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/204/starcraft-ii-developers-talk-single-player/2     (it's the 2nd to last question on that page)

So let me get this straight, the top 2 PC games developers somehow MAGICALLY avoid this piracy thing. But oh no, the developers who release shit on the PC must be right! OBVIOUSLY!

 

P.S. Even twesterm backed out of this thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=95410&page=1 you should just do the same.

lol at your Blizzard interview.

They are aware of piracy, to limit it they are just going to make the Starcraft experience outside of battlenet subpar and you won't be able to play Battlenet without a legit copy.......

This is why there won't be any LAN without battlenet....

Why do you think they even considered preventing offline single player campaign ???

Because they like paying for Battlenet bandwidth and want to spend more money on it ??????

Again, the business model is what really counts.  By making SC2 mutliplayer b.net only they aren't doing anything about pirates, because people can just set up clone servers like they do for WoW.  This is something addressed in that article, maybe you could read the whole thing before making foolish arguments?  Nothing, I mean nothing, stops piracy outright except (apparently) the security structure of the PS3 (and even that's questionable since it could still be for lack of trying).  Even having to connect to a server in order to install won't cut it because, again, people can create clone servers. 

What Blizzard is trying to do is create a service people will want to pay for (b.net) rather than relying on selling a product (SC2).  People are going to buy legitimate copies not because they can't pirate, but because they can't get the full experience if they do.  This is the same principle that XBox Live works off of.  They can't stop piracy, they know it, all they can do is make the paid-for version better than the free one.  They can make it annoying to use pirated copies or they can have legitimate ones support extra features, but they can't actually do anything about piracy itself so (for the wiser companies) they don't really try hard at all.  They only put in the minimal effort as a means to stop the uniformed (ie mainstream) consumer that might try to make a simple copy of their legitmate product.

Also, here's Microsoft saying that piracy today makes for loyal customers tomorrow:  http://www.cbronline.com/news/microsoft_admits_piracy_benefits

Windows, too, is like a service.  You don't even have to be a pirate to get an OS for free that does 99% of what a typical PC user wants it to do.  People will pay for Windows, though, for that extra 1% and, you know, not having to worry about MS's ominous statement that pirated OS's are much more vulnerable to attacks (which is to say "what is MS plotting to do to pirates?").  There must exist incentives or disincentives beyond simply legal threats to cutail piracy.  American lawyers don't scare Chinese peasants.

Chinese peasants don't have high speed internet and anyway mainland chinese don't have access to US torrents...

 

As for clone bnet servers Blizzard knows how to deal with them. They will shut them down like they have in the past.

The Blizzard you keep mentioning as saying they are not worried by pirates is actually the one game publisher that has done the most legal actions against pirates these last 5 years ( and won most of them)...

It's much easier to sue a company setting up a clone bnet than million of pirate users...

As demonstrated by their recent actions :

http://www.sonnenschein.com/news/news_detail.aspx?id=31642

http://www.notinthere.com/2008/12/05/blizzard-closing-down-pirate-servers/



PS3-Xbox360 gap : 1.5 millions and going up in PS3 favor !

PS3-Wii gap : 20 millions and going down !

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vlad321 on 30 December 2009
Ail said:
ChichiriMuyo said:
Ail said:
vlad321 said:
ZenfoldorVGI said:
ssj12 said:
frankly im glad CODMW2 was pirated so badly, remove a standard PC game feature and act like its nothing, let the game rot in the eyes of PC gamers. Ill take my CS, DOD, BF, and Unreal any day of the week.

The removal of DS had nothing to do with MW2 being pirated over 4 million times since launch, imo. It would have been pirated that much anyway, and imo, I think it would probably have been pirated much more, had more PC gamers actually had an interest in it.

Piracy isn't something PC gamers do to take revenge on developers who make bad games. It's just something a lot of PC gamers do, period. Not all, but obviously enough where developers should take notice.

I don't mean for this to sound preachy, but either way, I pay for my games, and I'm never glad when ANY game is pirated, and imho, neither should anyone be. Pirates aren't special. They shouldn't be able to play a game for free before launch, that millions of us paid 60 dollars for just because they decided that no one can stop them from doing it, and the developer "deserves" to be stolen from. It is not a form of civil disobediance, it is outright criminal, and certainly accepting it here, leads you down a slippery slope. Paying for things, like them or not, is what makes society work. When you don't pay for things, because you don't like them, YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE THEM FOR FREE. That logic is completely nonsensical.

If I hate a McFish, can I just go steal one for free, and even though I stole it, do I still have the right to complain about how much it sucks? That is spoiled, illegal, selfish, amoral, and arrogant all at the same time, and it is exactly why I despise the justifications for it.

I hope the game industry puts an end to this sooner rather than later. You wanna talk loss of PC game features? Just how loud are the screams gonna rise when Activision does away with piracy next time, a primary staple of PC gaming, and MUCH more popular than DS ever were.

Your quote is BULLSHIT. Why is it that the top 5 games are shit? Outside of the Sims, which probably sold so much that it's not even funny?

Removeal of DS really had everything to do with it. It's sort of a "fuck you activision," also the fact that you can actually hack and get far far moe features, like the console, up on a hacked version over the retail also helped it out a bit.

 

I also laugh at your McFish argument, or any argument equating piracy and tangible material theft.

I'll leave you with these 2 links to think about. Please don't respond without reading them:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090219/1124433835.shtml

and now Blizzard:

http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/204/starcraft-ii-developers-talk-single-player/2     (it's the 2nd to last question on that page)

So let me get this straight, the top 2 PC games developers somehow MAGICALLY avoid this piracy thing. But oh no, the developers who release shit on the PC must be right! OBVIOUSLY!

 

P.S. Even twesterm backed out of this thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=95410&page=1 you should just do the same.

lol at your Blizzard interview.

They are aware of piracy, to limit it they are just going to make the Starcraft experience outside of battlenet subpar and you won't be able to play Battlenet without a legit copy.......

This is why there won't be any LAN without battlenet....

Why do you think they even considered preventing offline single player campaign ???

Because they like paying for Battlenet bandwidth and want to spend more money on it ??????

Again, the business model is what really counts.  By making SC2 mutliplayer b.net only they aren't doing anything about pirates, because people can just set up clone servers like they do for WoW.  This is something addressed in that article, maybe you could read the whole thing before making foolish arguments?  Nothing, I mean nothing, stops piracy outright except (apparently) the security structure of the PS3 (and even that's questionable since it could still be for lack of trying).  Even having to connect to a server in order to install won't cut it because, again, people can create clone servers. 

What Blizzard is trying to do is create a service people will want to pay for (b.net) rather than relying on selling a product (SC2).  People are going to buy legitimate copies not because they can't pirate, but because they can't get the full experience if they do.  This is the same principle that XBox Live works off of.  They can't stop piracy, they know it, all they can do is make the paid-for version better than the free one.  They can make it annoying to use pirated copies or they can have legitimate ones support extra features, but they can't actually do anything about piracy itself so (for the wiser companies) they don't really try hard at all.  They only put in the minimal effort as a means to stop the uniformed (ie mainstream) consumer that might try to make a simple copy of their legitmate product.

Also, here's Microsoft saying that piracy today makes for loyal customers tomorrow:  http://www.cbronline.com/news/microsoft_admits_piracy_benefits

Windows, too, is like a service.  You don't even have to be a pirate to get an OS for free that does 99% of what a typical PC user wants it to do.  People will pay for Windows, though, for that extra 1% and, you know, not having to worry about MS's ominous statement that pirated OS's are much more vulnerable to attacks (which is to say "what is MS plotting to do to pirates?").  There must exist incentives or disincentives beyond simply legal threats to cutail piracy.  American lawyers don't scare Chinese peasants.

Chinese peasants don't have high speed internet and anyway mainland chinese don't have access to US torrents...

 

As for clone bnet servers Blizzard knows how to deal with them. They will shut them down like they have in the past.

The Blizzard you keep mentioning as saying they are not worried by pirates is actually the one game publisher that has done the most legal actions against pirates these last 5 years ( and won most of them)...

It's much easier to sue a company setting up a clone bnet than million of pirate users...

As demonstrated by their recent actions :

http://www.sonnenschein.com/news/news_detail.aspx?id=31642

http://www.notinthere.com/2008/12/05/blizzard-closing-down-pirate-servers/

The most being against WoW servers, which also happens to be the most widespread game which supports online hubs. It's like saying  that the NYPD gives out the most traffic tickets therfore they are the worst/best... Also I'd love to see the piracy rate on WoW, since that's what we're tlaking about here, not amount of DMCA issues. I haven't seen it near the top 5 in any way shape or form.

You are running out of arguments here. At least it looks like it by grasping at irrelevant, nonexistent straws.



Tag(thx fkusumot) - "Yet again I completely fail to see your point..."

HD vs Wii, PC vs HD: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93374

Why Regenerating Health is a crap game mechanic: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3986420

gamrReview's broken review scores: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4170835

 

jarrod on 30 December 2009

I'd like to see DS/PSP/PS2 figures too.



slowmo on 30 December 2009
ChichiriMuyo said:
How, exactly, does it cost $40 to burn a BR disc? You can get them for well under $4. Are we counting in electricity, Internet, and hardware costs as well, or something? If it's $40 to burn a BR is it $5 to burn a DVD?

Seriously, where are you pulling this number from? I just typed "blu ray burnable disc" into Google and one of the first things I saw was an offer for 25 BR discs for $29. Even if you were looking at the more expensive dual layer BR discs it only takes a quick look at Newegg to see that those are available for under $20. And on top of that, you'd only need 2 of them since the only games that big on the PS3 are MGS4 and FF13.

Seriously, no unnecessary attacks like that other guy, you don't seem to know much of what you're talking about stage. You're just plain dead wrong on the facts, and as such there's simply no justification for your belief. BR burning is not that expensive, hasn't been for quite some time now, and the fact that hacking console hardware can make you some serious money makes it unlikely that the costs were ever an issue to begin with. It's the security that PS3 has, plain and simple. The fact that there's an entire processor that functions as a security measure and nothing else should speak to that.


No its not, do you know why the PS3 firmware is split now between the HDD and onboard NAND when it wasn't originally I'll add.  The PS3 has been close to fully hacked before now but Sony caught wind of the potential hack and splitting the firmware killed it stone dead.  The main reason the PS3 is still not hacked is the most talented hackers are mainly interested in using the hardware for homebrew, it's the thrill of getting hardware to run software it's not supposed to.  By allowing Linux installs from launch Sony killed the motivation for some of the brightest minds out there, combine that with the ridiculous expense of the console and at that time expensive costs of burning Blurays and it was never a priority for most of the hacking scene in the first few years.  Now prices have dropped on the PS3, Bluray writers and media, combined with Sony removing Linux support on the new model PS3 there is more chance of a exploit being found by the hacking scene than ever now.

The 360 which some people think has terrible security actually had only two security holes which have both been fixed now, at this current moment in time its impossible (and likely to stay that way for a while) to run unsigned code on a 360 updated with the July 09 update.  The DVD drive firmware flashing exploit is also likely to be fixed with the next revision of Liteon drive now someone in the scene released their only backdoor into the drives they had left.

 

The figures shown in the OP are hardly surprising though that the PC suffers most.



Hephaestos on 30 December 2009

THe amazing thing is that the PS3 still has the lowest attach rate...

About PS3 protection.... they made a deal with the devil: The PSP against the PS3....



OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

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Shoestar on 30 December 2009
S.T.A.G.E. said:
Shoestar said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:
Shoestar said:
A lot of people don't buy PS3s because simply, it's impossible to play pirated games on them. Some people only buy a few pirated games... they only buy originals when they want to play that game online.


bullshit. A lot of people are buying PS3's because the games are there and the price dropped. This is where the pirate demons follow. They will eventually crack it.

 

As for PC gaming those numbers were predictable.

 

 

You are not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you? oh well... a little bit of statistics for you :)

 

The X360 was hacked in the 1st year it came out with less than 5mil X360 sold... 

The Wii was hacked within 6 months it came out with less than 10 mil units sold.  

The PS3 has been out for over 3 years, sold over 30 mil units (only 5mil units approx less than the x360). Sells more than the X360 World Wide every year except its launch year with only reason while it is trailing behind is because it launched a year later than the X360. Fact, the PS3 is not hacked simply because it's freakin damn hard to do... MUCH MUCH harder than anything that existed prior to it...  It isn't because of sales numbers that the PS3 wasn't hacked.

Moreover, I could search for the thousand of articles describing how MS screwed up with the security leaks, and how complicated the hardware security for the PS3 is and list a few of these articles for you... but ur not significant enough :)

You're obviously not getting my point and secondly I do not respond to ad hominem attacks. The The 360 was at a somewhat fair market price the instant it launched. The PS3 was nowhere in that ballpark and took it three years just to reach market price. This makes it easier for hackers and potential pirates to mod and get their hands on newer games. The PS3 firmware has long since been cracked (in 2007).  The main reason it isn't spreading like the 360 is because the 360 is DVD-9 and the PS3. Recording Blu Ray discs would cost just under actual sales price to copy/burn (somewhere around $40). The size of the disc space also hurts the need for piracy on a PS3. Third of all, if you are caught with a hacked PS3 game Sony will ban you. For the few people who are dumb enough to do that it wont be hard enough for Sony to wipe the slate clean with them. Microsoft have/ and continue to axe plenty of people, but when it starts the bug is hard to stop.

Sony is just as bad as Microsoft. The only difference is its pointless to burn blu ray discs. It's just too expensive. You know nothing of what you speak, especially if you believe their firmware hasn't been hacked.

 

Again, you astound me with your ignorance. Did you know that a Blu-ray disc sells for less than $4-5? PS3 games are unhackable and haven't been playable ever since the PS3 came out... However, a great many pirated MOVIES burnt on Blu-ray discs are being sold. The price? $8/Movie. The price of an original Blu-ray movie is about $70-$80. The price of an original PS3 game is about $100-140. Obviously, the price of Movies in the US are about $35 and games at $50-60 each but even you can see the significant price difference between a blank BRD and a full priced Game/Movie.

I travel a lot, and during my last trip to the UK, I saw Blu-ray discs for less than 3 pounds each... 

All this to point out the fallacy in your logic.

And to your other point, The X360 was hacked when it was about $450($500 depending on your region). It never even had a price cut before it was hacked. The X360 was hacked in 2006. The PS3 has been below $450 since 2007. Again, you logic is flawed beyond measure. I suggest you refrain from posting again... or at the very least, google a bit your points and purge your statements of any "FUD".



I am a Gamer... I play games and not consoles. I have a PC and Console on which I game... I like games. End of Story!

MAFKKA on 30 December 2009
shio said:
nightsurge said:

@Shio

I'm not going to bother with sources.  I've showed you them all before.  They have released numbers on many occasions which only left 1-3 million possible for the PC version.  You know this.  You just can't accept it and instead make wild assumptions based off of rankings in a few digital distribution rankings.  No hard figures, no hard facts, all speculation.

No, they didn't. This was debunked already.

When they released that COD4 sold 7 millions it was only the sales of a few select countries. Consoles only had sold around 5 millions in those countries, leaving 2 millions for PC, and we are not even counting the PC sales of dozens of PC-centric countries that weren't included AND digital sales.

Robert Bowling and the internet claims that COD4 PC sold 1.5m units, and MW2 PC outsold that number in its first week.

http://www.totalvideogames.com/Modern-Warfare-2/news/MW2-PC-Sales-Seemingly-Unaffected-By-IWNet-14756.html
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/51573/Modern-Warfare-2-Already-More-Successful-Than-Modern-Warfare-1-On-PC
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93058



Fufinu on 30 December 2009

Number of downloads =/= number of pirated copies.

Here in Malta 360 pirates download then sell to peers. I think that the situation is much worse than that pictured here.



shio on 30 December 2009
MAFKKA said:
shio said:
nightsurge said:

@Shio

I'm not going to bother with sources.  I've showed you them all before.  They have released numbers on many occasions which only left 1-3 million possible for the PC version.  You know this.  You just can't accept it and instead make wild assumptions based off of rankings in a few digital distribution rankings.  No hard figures, no hard facts, all speculation.

No, they didn't. This was debunked already.

When they released that COD4 sold 7 millions it was only the sales of a few select countries. Consoles only had sold around 5 millions in those countries, leaving 2 millions for PC, and we are not even counting the PC sales of dozens of PC-centric countries that weren't included AND digital sales.

Robert Bowling and the internet claims that COD4 PC sold 1.5m units, and MW2 PC outsold that number in its first week.

http://www.totalvideogames.com/Modern-Warfare-2/news/MW2-PC-Sales-Seemingly-Unaffected-By-IWNet-14756.html
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/51573/Modern-Warfare-2-Already-More-Successful-Than-Modern-Warfare-1-On-PC
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93058

Do some research. Robert Bowling was only talking about the first week of sales of MW2 PC in the UK. The guys that thought he was talking about worldwide sales were wrong. I remember what he said because I was browsing the IW forums and that thread in which he replied to long before it was made news by gaming websites.

No one claims COD4 PC sold 1.5 millions. The guy at ve3d isn't even sure of himself when he said that: "... if I recall correctly.". Infact, he is the only guy I ever heard saying that COD4 PC sold 1.5 millions, I can't think of anyone or anywhere else that claimed that.

Unfortunately for Bowling, the sales of MW2 PC dropped like a stone in UK:

1st Week: 5th
2nd Week: 20th

MW2 dropped way faster than COD4:

1st Week: 8th
2nd Week: 13th

A huge difference.



http://i48.tinypic.com/120qaon.jpg
MAFKKA on 30 December 2009
shio said:
MAFKKA said:
shio said:
nightsurge said:

@Shio

I'm not going to bother with sources.  I've showed you them all before.  They have released numbers on many occasions which only left 1-3 million possible for the PC version.  You know this.  You just can't accept it and instead make wild assumptions based off of rankings in a few digital distribution rankings.  No hard figures, no hard facts, all speculation.

No, they didn't. This was debunked already.

When they released that COD4 sold 7 millions it was only the sales of a few select countries. Consoles only had sold around 5 millions in those countries, leaving 2 millions for PC, and we are not even counting the PC sales of dozens of PC-centric countries that weren't included AND digital sales.

Robert Bowling and the internet claims that COD4 PC sold 1.5m units, and MW2 PC outsold that number in its first week.

http://www.totalvideogames.com/Modern-Warfare-2/news/MW2-PC-Sales-Seemingly-Unaffected-By-IWNet-14756.html
http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/51573/Modern-Warfare-2-Already-More-Successful-Than-Modern-Warfare-1-On-PC
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93058

Do some research. Robert Bowling was only talking about the first week of sales of MW2 PC in the UK. The guys that thought he was talking about worldwide sales were wrong. I remember what he said because I was browsing the IW forums and that thread in which he replied to long before it was made news by gaming websites.

No one claims COD4 PC sold 1.5 millions. The guy at ve3d isn't even sure of himself when he said that: "... if I recall correctly.". Infact, he is the only guy I ever heard saying that COD4 PC sold 1.5 millions, I can't think of anyone or anywhere else that claimed that.

Unfortunately for Bowling, the sales of MW2 PC dropped like a stone in UK:

1st Week: 5th
2nd Week: 20th

MW2 dropped way faster than COD4:

1st Week: 8th
2nd Week: 13th

A huge difference.

Actually its uncertain if its UK or Not, reading page 1-17 in that thread. And im not trying to come to some big conclusion.. im just repeating what the internet is telling us. All i know is MW2 did worse than COD4 looking at the bigger picture.