Spore tops list of most pirated PC games of 2008

Despite possessing "draconian DRM" meant to thwart an internet that's currently teeming with PC gaming pirates, Electronic Arts' controversial (in more ways than one) life-sim Spore recently topped a list compiled by TorrentFreak which charts the most pirated PC games of 2008. With 1.7 million illicit downloads (much more than 2nd place finisher Sims 2, which had 1.15 million), it would seem that EA's strict anti-piracy measures led to ... extra piracy. Here's the top ten most pirated PC titles for the year -- with only BitTorrent downloads present and accounted for, we suggest taking the list with a SecuROM-protected grain of salt.

1. Spore -- 1,700,000
2. The Sims 2 -- 1,150,000
3. Assassins Creed -- 1,070,000
4. Crysis -- 940,000
5. Command & Conquer 3 -- 860,000
6. Call of Duty 4 -- 830,000
7. GTA San Andreas -- 740,000
8. Fallout 3 -- 645,000
9. Far Cry 2 -- 585,000
10. Pro Evolution Soccer 2009 -- 470,000

( joystiq )

"When we posted about the impressive download rate on Spore - inflated due to the DRM that was put into the game - EA doubted our statistics. EA’s Mariam Sughayer said that every BitTorrent download was not a successful copy, and that several downloads didn’t work, were buggy, or contained viruses. We wont deny that on badly moderated torrent sites, malicious torrents probably can be found. However, this constitutes less than 1% of the available torrents, and they are not added to our statistics."

I don't think so without piracy games can be popular to more extent ... piracy working like best media for games to get more popular. :ohyeah: