Crysis 2 Most Pirated Game of 2011

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Crysis 2 Most Pirated Game of 2011

Posted by timothy on Sunday January 1, 2012 @02:31AM from the everyone-already-had-chess dept.

MojoKid writes "When an advance copy of Crysis 2 leaked to the Internet a full month before the game's scheduled release, Crytek and Electronic Arts (EA) were understandably miffed and, as it turns out, justified in their fears of mass piracy. Crysis 2 was illegally download on the PC platform 3,920,000 times, 'beating out' Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 with 3,650,000 illegal downloads. Numbers like these don't bode well for PC gamers and will only serve to encourage even more draconian DRM measures than we've seen in the past."

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correlation by Spiked_Three · 2012-01-01 02:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

I wish there was some way to correlate between the illegal down loaders and the DRM whiners. Is it 5% or 95%?

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1. Re:correlation by SJHillman · 2012-01-01 02:42 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I'd like to see if there's a a correlation between most pirated game and top selling game. I'm willing to bet the more pirated a game is the better its sales generally are as well.
2. Re:correlation by Nursie · 2012-01-01 04:12 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I like to whine about DRM, because it's present on games I pay for.
  Those that don't pay seldom have to deal with it. The 'pirate editions' are allegedly DRM free.
Since when was PC gaming ever viable? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-01 02:33 · Score: 1, Insightful

Publishers have fled to the consoles in record numbers. Now all that PC gamers get is crappy console ports.
1. Re:Since when was PC gaming ever viable? by DragonTHC · 2012-01-01 03:34 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  it did crappy, because EA removed it from steam shortly after release due to a contract dispute.
  This, and only this, is the reason why.
  
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2. Re:Since when was PC gaming ever viable? by hairyfeet · 2012-01-01 03:35 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  They should embrace the valve model, especially since they don't have to deal with retail packaging, shipping, returns, etc and make it cheap, easy and convenient. I mean does anybody know how much money went through steam on the Xmas sale? i bet it was garbage trucks just full of money because its so simple and cheap, just "whip out CC, push button, get game'. The problem with "call of honor crysis edition" style games is the publishers have deliberately made their games to have no legs as everyone knows once "call of honor crysis edition II" comes out nobody will be playing the first one and since they are appealing to the "must win teh benches!" tards who frankly spend every last dime they can get on supercoolers for their massive OCs they simply don't spend $60 a pop on games that will be tossed next quarter.
  Make it follow the valve model, give the game some real legs, and frankly they'll never have to give a wet fart what the benches tards do because that single game can be making them money year after year AFTER year. I mean how old is HL: Deathmatch now? valve was nice enough to throw it in for the fuck of it with the complete HL:2 pack I picked up on the sale and that thing STILL has tons of people playing it. They are also still selling and making cash on CS and Day of defeat and those things are older than dirt yet because they have legs they are still full of players.
  I want to feel sorry for them but its kinda hard when you pick up the game in the $30 bin and find its deserted or worse EA has pulled the plug on MP which i think ought to at least force EA to put out a sticker to be placed on boxes saying MP doesn't work anymore. If they let folks host their own servers more and threw out the occasional update with a new map here or there for the older games then the long tail on sales would mean the benchtards could be ignored. Gabe had it right IMHO when he said to the effect "piracy is your competitor offering a better product" because that means the price is too high, the game doesn't have long enough legs, you simply aren't hitting the sweet spot. Now if you'll excuse me there is this one little shit in HL:DM that keeps jamming a rocket up my ass and i think I'm gonna introduce him to Mr Python. Kinda sad though when i've had more fun with a 10 year old game than I did the last "call of honor crysis edition" I played.
  
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DRM? by QuantumLeaper · 2012-01-01 02:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

DRM never effects the pirates, just the paying users,,,,
1. Re:DRM? by Blue+Stone · 2012-01-01 03:03 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Also, judging by these figures: DRM DOESN'T WORK.
  
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2. Re:DRM? by jtownatpunk.net · 2012-01-01 03:39 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  A thousand times, "This!"
  All it takes is one hacker working in his mom's basement to defeat a DRM scheme that cost millions of dollars to develop and the crack will be circulated around the world in an hour. How can game publishers not understand this after all these years? Want more people to buy your product? Reduce the price.
3. Re:DRM? by Pharmboy · 2012-01-01 03:42 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I was going to say something similar. I don't like DRM, but at least Steam puts the user first and DRM second. It may sound like a fanboy, but I buy lots of Steam games under $5 that I typically play for a few hours and get bored with. You know what? I got my $5 worth out of them, and helped support the least oppressive method of DRM out there.
  I "get" that game producers need some way to insure they make a profit and not make pirating too easy. Yes, they should make better games, yes, many of them have prices that are ridiculous, and obviously one pirated game does NOT equal one sale lost, blah blah blah. I just choose not to buy those games that use oppressive DRM and try to buy games with little or none. (they are out there) But for main stream games, at least Steam makes the experience seemless and supports the games after the sale. I still play TFC and HL1 once in a blue moon, they are from over a decade ago, and they are still supported. I have pirated a few games in my almost 50 years, but now it is "cheaper" to buy them on Steam, if you consider the value of my time to keep the games up to date, find, patch, install, patch, etc.
  At least Steam is trying to bridge the gap between producers and consumers, without shafting the consumers. And yes, it is hard to beat their sale price. Well, gotta go and play Plants vs. Zombies, bought it from them for $3.39 earlier this week....
  
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Thus only punishing customers by discord5 · 2012-01-01 02:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

Numbers like these don't bode well for PC gamers and will only serve to encourage even more draconian DRM measures than we've seen in the past.
Thus only punishing customers who paid, not the people downloading the game illegally and applying a crack.
Makes perfect sense
crysys 2 sucked by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-01 02:34 · Score: 0, Insightful

/thread
Wrong Solution by Ynot_82 · 2012-01-01 02:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

How, exactly, will "more draconian DRM" prevent the leaking of games before their official release date?
If you're in a position to leak a pre-release build out, you're probably also in a position to strip out or disable any DRM
Was there even any DRM in the leaked game, seems like that's the last thing you'd add in
No shock; it's a tech demo posing as a bad game by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-01 02:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

Nobody wants to actually PLAY the stupid thing, they just want to see how their new video card performs.
Downloads does not equal piracy by mariushm · 2012-01-01 02:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is a multiplayer game - as far as I know the cracked game will NOT let you play in multiplayer mode... so the majority of the people that downloaded the game probably purchased legal keys or stuck to playing the single player mode or playing with friends in LAN.
Basically, the download acts as DEMO, incentive to buy the access to the multiplayer mode, and it definitely does not mean that a download equals a lost sale.
As for Crysis 2, I'm not sure how many of those downloads were just to "benchmark" their video cards...
Even so, even if a large part of the downloads were pirates, it doesn't mean lost money... it just means they don't make as much money as they wanted. I know in my own case I'm currently taking advantage of every Steam sale to buy games I pirated and enjoyed in the past - I couldn't afford spending 40 euro on a game but now I have no problems paying 5-10 euro for each of the STALKER games, for example.
I currently have over 200 games bought, in the Steam account.
Origin by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-01 02:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

EA's decision to foist it's totalitarian-steam-wannabe on it's PC customers pretty much guarantees it will see even greater levels of piracy in the future.
Paying for a game I can get for free is one thing, paying to get metaphorically raped by a games publisher is another.
Re:Smokescreen by master811 · 2012-01-01 02:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

Well in most cases when game is released on multiple platforms, they are about 25% cheaper on the PC than xbox or PS3 (at least in the UK).
I assume this is because the games are harded to pirate on a console, they can get away with pricing it higher.
Has any of them a demo? by Milharis · 2012-01-01 02:57 · Score: 5, Insightful

I know Crysis has no demo, and BF3 only had the beta; I believe none of the top five games pirated has a demo.
It would be interesting to compare games with a good demo, and those which have none; I'd bet there would be quite a difference.
Also, interestingly, Crysis 2 is only present in the top 5 for PC, and does not appear in the Xbox top 5, which would led some credence to the benchmark argument.
BTW, the original TorrentFreak article is here.
http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-games-of-2011-111230/
Re:Skepticism by dgatwood · 2012-01-01 03:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Massively overestimated, almost certainly. It's not at all uncommon to download a torrent from three or four sites before you find one with enough seeders to finish in your lifetime. Conservatively, I suspect their estimates are high by at least a factor of two if that was their methodology.

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News Flash by Spiked_Three · 2012-01-01 03:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

The most stolen cars are the most popular. Do you think stealing cars has anything to do with sales? And for some strange reason I don't see a lot of car thieves asking to do away with car keys, perhaps they have an ounce of common sense?

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1. Re:News Flash by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-01 03:21 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Do your car keys lock you out of your car after you use them 5 times such that you need to call your dealer during their regular business hours to grant you 5 more accesses into your car? No? I didn't think so.
2. Re:News Flash by amiga3D · 2012-01-01 03:29 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The biggest selling model of all time is the toyota corolla and it's not even in the top 10 of stolen cars. Maybe because it's affordable enough to buy?
3. Re:News Flash by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-01 04:49 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  So you lie to the customers and cheat them on bad games, so why aren't they entitled to pirate games to get their money back.
  I dumped so many thousands of dollars on EA and the other studios, from the 8-bit era all the way up to the PS2; a lot of the time for games I discovered were not nearly worth the price I paid, after the fact.
  Because of this, I don't feel too guilty about pirating before I buy. Plus, with all the "always on" bullshit they're adding today, I have no choice but to pirate if I don't want to clog my hard drive with shit that I do not need. The whole "requires Steam" thing in itself is fucking bullshit, I don't care how great some people think Steam is, I don't want to have to use it to play a fucking game.
  Of course, when I come across a game that is actually worth the purchase price (and doesn't require a bunch of 3rd party apps to run), I do buy it, even though I've already pirated it. The only difference is I don't find out it isn't after they've already got my $59.99. I'm sure they liked things better the old way but boo fucking hoo. You can only say "Caveat Emptor" so much before people start coming up with alternatives to keep themselves from getting burned.
4. Re:News Flash by Ferzerp · 2012-01-01 05:17 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  DRM doesn't hinder someone who doesn't license the game at all. It's a mechanism that only incoveniences paying customers and kills the second-hand market. I'm rather baffled that any of you would think otherwise.
  That's why the whole DRM is because of piracy line is quite obviously b.s. DRM is to prevent casual sharing, and kill the used market under the excuse of big bad internet piracy.
Supply and Demand by eiMichael · 2012-01-01 04:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Where else were people going to get that game a month before release? Best Buy? Steam?
You can't cram a culture of consumption down people's throat, then act surprised when the consumption skyrockets past their artificial scarcity.
Re:Smokescreen by vlm · 2012-01-01 04:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

This might be part of the reason why "hardcore" gamers are so dismissive of "casuals". If I only get a couple of hours out of a $60 game, I've made a huge mistake.
That's a pretty insightful idea. I could run with that and suggest its why "hardcore" game = remake of a sequel of the same tired old FPS .... Very boring, but its too scary to spend $60 on something that might be fun or might suck, so having basically ONE GAME with $60 level packs makes console purchasing much less stressful. Oh look, WWII level pack number 35235, etc.

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Fine with me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-01 05:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

Let EA go console-only from now on. That would be great! The economic demand for PC games will still be there, so some other companies (who understand how to market to PC owners without having to take control of their computers away from them in order to make money) will then be able to fill that void.
It would be a win all around.