This week, TorrentFreak reported on the 50 most searched terms on torrent sites, giving indications as to what may have been the most pirated things of 2011. Not a single video game title was among them.
Well, now TorrentFreak has listed its top 5 most pirated games of the year, across three platforms. PC, Wii and Xbox 360? Why no PS3? "The platforms that are not mentioned, such as the PS3, get considerably less downloads and are excluded for that reason." I'm sure someone will take that as a challenge, but a) Sony's been very aggressive, to the point of cutting off some of the PS3's functionality, to combat piracy. And b) those are damn large games on that Blu-Ray disc.
Anyway, here are the top 5 for each, per TorrentFreak. While trailing in whole numbers in both the PC and the Xbox 360 list, the fact it came in No. 2 with the latest release date of any of these, and did so on two different platforms, qualifies Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 as the most pirated video game of 2011, in my book anyway.
Top 5 Pirated PC Games
1. Crysis 2 (3,920,000) (March 2011)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (3,650,000) (Nov. 2011)
3. Battlefield 3 (3,510,000) (Oct. 2011)
4. FIFA 12 (3,390,000) (Sept. 2011)
5. Portal 2 (3,240,000) (April 2011)
Top 5 Pirated Wii Games
1. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (1,280,000) (May 2010)
2. Mario Sports Mix (1,090,000) (Feb. 2011)
3. Xenoblade Chronicles (950,000) (Aug. 2011 EU)
4. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean (870,000) (May 2011)
5. FIFA 12 (860,000) (Sept. 2011)
Top 5 Pirated Xbox 360 Games
1. Gears of War 3 (890,000) (Sept. 2011)
2. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (830,000) (Nov. 2011)
3. Battlefield 3 (760,000) (Oct. 2011)
4. Forza Motorsport 4 (720,000) (Oct. 2011)
5. Kinect Sports: Season Two (690,000) (Oct. 2011)
Top 10 Most Pirated Games of 2011 [TorrentFreak. h/t LulzJager]