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Spore set to be the most pirated game ever
Kevin Spiess - Monday, September 15th, 2008 | 12:11PM (PT)


Already downloaded more than 500,000 times

Spore set to be the most pirated game ever Image 1

For a game that has been recieving such a backlash for its restrictive DRM, Maxis will be sad to hear that Spore is set to be the most pirated title of all time.

According to Torrent Freak news service, Spore has been downloaded at rates unseen by any other game since P2P stats were being measured. More than 500,000 copies of the game have been downloaded to date, and within two weeks it seems very likely that Spore will become the most pirated game ever downloaded with BitTorrent. For comparison's sake, the popular Crysis game has been download 420,000 since its release in  November of 2007.

The Sims 2 currently has the title of most-pirated game ever on the world's largest BitTorrent tracker.

The situation for Spore was not helped by a pirated copy of the game turning up almost a full week before its official release. Furthermore, ironically, many people have claimed to download the game instead of purchasing it, because of the game's DRM. How many of these people would've actually bought the game, DRM or otherwise, is impossible to know -- but this situation at least shows that this game's DRM did extremely little to prevent the game's piracy. 

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Comments:

September 15th, 2008 12:45PM(PT)
JT gAnGstA
Such a great game constrained by piracy. It truly is a shame.
September 15th, 2008 12:59PM(PT)
Milz
I know many people who did exactly that. Got the game because of the DRM!
I myself havn't got the game because of the DRM, but i havn't pirated it.
September 15th, 2008 1:28PM(PT)
ParanahJoe
Who cares... Next game please.
September 15th, 2008 1:44PM(PT)
kspiess
Ya I've read countless comments on gaming sites, Amazon, torrent tracking sites (when looking into this story) and other places with people saying that they are pirating the game because of the DRM. I think a lot of people use the DRM as an excuse to pirate the game, or would've pirated it regardless, but you got to wonder how many sales are lost because of it.

I'd really be surprised if this game's DRM didn't cost more sales than it saved.

Unfortunately something like this is incredibly difficult to accurately gauge.
September 15th, 2008 1:55PM(PT)
chautemoc
quote kspiess
I'd really be surprised if this game's DRM didn't cost more sales than it saved.

Unfortunately something like this is incredibly difficult to accurately gauge.
Totally, I think thats maybe why they're testing the waters a bit with Red Alert 3..if sales are higher than expected because of less strict DRM, maybe they'll keep going with it until there's little or none.
September 15th, 2008 2:00PM(PT)
huntyr
here's hoping for EA's goal of 2 million pirated games ;-)
September 15th, 2008 4:42PM(PT)
ParanahJoe
Other highly anticipated games are probably torrented just as much. It's just that they don't have any DRM bundled with them. But as soon as something like this comes along it just gives people something to talk about.
September 15th, 2008 4:55PM(PT)
kspiess
ParanahJoe -=> No -- actually no other game has been pirated this much, ever.
September 15th, 2008 5:08PM(PT)
Bill Gates03
Yeah, but I heard from people that this game really sucked and isn't anything like it was supposed to be.

That it gets boring etc, and creation is the only fun part.
September 15th, 2008 6:45PM(PT)
jdj1976
i just hate that i have to deal whit drm after spending my hard earn money. and pirates get to have fun whit no drm mezzing them up
September 15th, 2008 7:12PM(PT)
Gussimotto
Man, us PC gamer sure can be whiny, but this is rediculous. I don't care how awful the DRM is, you shouldn't pirate it. YOU are the cancer that is killing PC gaming.
September 15th, 2008 7:40PM(PT)
twizttid13
quote Gussimotto
Man, us PC gamer sure can be whiny, but this is rediculous. I don't care how awful the DRM is, you shouldn't pirate it. YOU are the cancer that is killing PC gaming.
Not necessarily true the only PC games I tend to buy are blizzard games. They are truly polished, creative, and guess what DRM FREE!! So I can play the first Diablo on many computers, and I have.

The PC game makers just have to come out with some creative games. Look at WoW that's sold many copies. There will always be pirates but if you release a good game, DRM free it should sell.
September 15th, 2008 8:12PM(PT)
hollowedsol
wow i kinda saw that coming
shame...
September 15th, 2008 9:49PM(PT)
Bill Gates03
Do you think people don't pirate Xbox, Xbox 360 games? DS games?
September 16th, 2008 1:20AM(PT)
x_revenge
i also believe that people just use the drm as an excuse to dl this game but (and i don't know how this sounds) in this case i think they deserve it

let people pirate it, i don't really care if its spore or anything else, a game should receive that kind of treatment so that it can become an example, to prove that people don't like drm bugging them
September 16th, 2008 3:34AM(PT)
Miller
Sims 2 was the most Pirated game ever.. It's also the most selling Pc game ever.. Funny that.. Piracy obviously is the cause of bad games sales.. Not bad games or terrible DRM.
September 16th, 2008 6:35AM(PT)
Vegetazoid
Oh my *bleep*ing god! Oh and World of Warcraft is the most selling PC game ever, not Sims 2.
September 16th, 2008 8:44AM(PT)
MrGrimm
quote Bill Gates03
Do you think people don't pirate Xbox, Xbox 360 games? DS games?
Pirating is EXTREMELY legal in the Philippines. Stores in huge popular malls here sell pirated games next to a security room.
September 16th, 2008 10:59AM(PT)
x_revenge
quote mrgrimm
Pirating is EXTREMELY legal in the Philippines. Stores in huge popular malls here sell pirated games next to a security room.
then what's the point of selling it? if it is legal, then one can dl the game and pass it to his friends and his friends to theirs and so on
September 16th, 2008 12:31PM(PT)
kspiess
X_revenge -=> It's just a convenience thing. In Thailand for instance, they have the same sort of piracy stores. You go in they have all the games in binders and you just point at the ones you want. There are probably about 300 or 400 illegal copies of a game or movie sold in Thailand for every legal copy. (Just making that # up from what I've seen.)
September 16th, 2008 1:37PM(PT)
x_revenge
quote kspiess
X_revenge -=> It's just a convenience thing. In Thailand for instance, they have the same sort of piracy stores. You go in they have all the games in binders and you just point at the ones you want. There are probably about 300 or 400 illegal copies of a game or movie sold in Thailand for every legal copy. (Just making that # up from what I've seen.)
well if i was a game/movie developer or a singer or whatever i wouldn't want to export my game there at all, i mean it would cost more than what i'd get from it if that's the case...i had no idea there were places like that...it seems kinda insane to me, i mean, ok forget about piracy being legal or whatnot, what about the developers? don't they do something? C-razy
September 16th, 2008 3:11PM(PT)
kspiess
Unfortunately from single copy of a game or movie you can make millions of copies -- keeping the products out of the country is virtually impossible.

In many Asian countries, most notably China, copyrights are basically a foreign notion. Piracy of everything is completely rampart and in the open. Everything from hand bags to tooth paste to games to books. The whole idea of a copyright goes back many centuries in Europe and North America but it is a relatively newer concept in Asia, and basically intellectual piracy is seen as such a wide-spread fact of life that it is something that can not be stopped.

On the flip side of things, from the perspective of like street vendor who sells $5 DVD's to tourists, enforcing copy rights would shut him out of business and raise prices for consumers so I would imagine that the public would not easily get on board any anti-piracy initiatives pursued by the government unless they were backed and funded by massive corporate P.R campaigns.
September 17th, 2008 12:46AM(PT)
Miller
quote Vegetazoid
Oh my *bleep*ing god! Oh and World of Warcraft is the most selling PC game ever, not Sims 2.
Ha! Sims 2 has sold over 20 Million with all the expansion packs and still selling well. WoW has 10 million subscribers.

Sims 1 sold over 50 million games.
September 17th, 2008 9:52AM(PT)
huntyr
going way off topic, if WoW has 10 Million subscribers then they've sold more than 10 million units since people cancel accounts all the time
September 17th, 2008 11:26AM(PT)
JT gAnGstA
quote Bill Gates03
Do you think people don't pirate Xbox, Xbox 360 games? DS games?
Not nearly as much as PC games. PSP is easier (I have friends who do it).
September 24th, 2008 8:43AM(PT)
Epic Fail Guy
More proof that more companies should follow the Stardock way of handling DRM. DON'T HAVE ANY! Sins of a Solar Empire has sold 500k copies while having no DRM at all.

And sure, Sins isn't as big a game as Spore. But once the developer restricts the consumer in anyway, be it DRM like in Spore or Mass Effect or system specs with Crysis, people are not going to pay for it.
September 28th, 2008 2:36PM(PT)
77xett
I gotta say, even though ea is big it's probably been losing a lot of money with spore and sims 2 being the most pirated games ever. Though, the DRM didn't stop people from having the game a week before it came out. Wow. I'd say stick with the regular "anti-piracy" systems ea.
October 14th, 2008 7:25PM(PT)
Alan Burns
Bit late for me to be adding my $0.02 but, wouldn't NOT having DRM in the first place reduce development costs? I know that developers just pay for another company to protect the software, securom, safedisc or whatever, but it must be quite a hefty sum - factor that reduction in with the possibility of lower pirate copies/more sales from the drm-(and hence nag)-free software, and the devs must surely see that DRM doesn't make economical sense.

- This news story is archived and is closed to new comments now -

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