StarCraft 2 Sets New Mark for Piracy

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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StarCraft 2 Sets New Mark for Piracy


StarCraft 2 [http://www.amazon.com/Starcraft-II-Wings-Liberty-Pc/dp/B000ZKA0J6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290093792&sr=8-1], the best-selling PC-exclusive game of the year, is also one of the most pirated, with more than 2.3 million downloads adding up to almost 16 petabytes of data.

According to TorrentFreak [http://torrentfreak.com/5-torrent-files-that-broke-mind-boggling-records-101107/], StarCraft 2 has set a new record for the amount of data transferred by a single torrent, with the most popular torrent file moving 15.77 petabytes of data across 2.3 million downloads. A petabyte, for those who don't know (and full disclosure, I had to Google it myself) is a billion megabytes. 15.77 billion megabytes of data. That's a lot.

Not that there's much danger of Blizzard [http://www.blizzard.com] going under as a result of the losses. StarCraft 2 was released near the end of July and by September had sold more than three million copies worldwide, excellent numbers for any game and particularly so for a PC exclusive. At the same time, this is apparently just the most popular torrent being measured so actual piracy numbers are almost certainly higher, and the fact that Blizzard can afford to absorb the loss doesn't mean it should have to.

TorrentFreak also pointed out that while 15.77 petas is a pile, Blizzard's own BitTorrent system may have actually moved more data through the distribution of legitimate copies of the game, although numbers to confirm that speculation aren't made available to the public.



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John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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leeloodallasmultipass said:
Yes but these people wont be able to play via battle net on-line im guessing?
That's correct.

Which, frankly, I'm perfectly okay with. :p You don't pay, you shouldn't get to play online with everyone else.
 

JeanLuc761

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Sep 22, 2009
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thublihnk said:
Yup, piracy is definitely an industry-killer.
Not necessarily. Don't get me wrong, this level of piracy is nothing short of horrifying, but the quality of the game ensured that Blizzard got an immense number of legit sales and that number continues to grow.
 
Apr 28, 2008
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hazabaza1 said:
Bravo to Blizzard... I think.
Is this a good thing?
Nope. Now chances are future Blizzard/Activision games will include new, intrusive DRM to try and prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Even though it won't, but they're going to do something, regardless of if it helps or not.

Then more people will pirate, meaning harsher DRM, which leads to more pirating, and the circle goes around and around.
 

SenseOfTumour

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Jul 11, 2008
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Well, with any luck , at least some of the people who've downloaded it will enjoy it enough to consider buying it to play multiplayer, which IS the main basis of the game, right?

Not defending piracy, but SC2 isn't much without the MP part right?
 

thublihnk

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Jul 24, 2009
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JeanLuc761 said:
thublihnk said:
Yup, piracy is definitely an industry-killer.
Not necessarily. Don't get me wrong, this level of piracy is nothing short of horrifying, but the quality of the game ensured that Blizzard got an immense number of legit sales and that number continues to grow.
I was being completely sarcastic, sorry about the confusion.
 

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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ciortas1 said:
John Funk said:
leeloodallasmultipass said:
Yes but these people wont be able to play via battle net on-line im guessing?
That's correct.

Which, frankly, I'm perfectly okay with. :p You don't pay, you shouldn't get to play online with everyone else.
I'm sorry, when did pirates ever get to play on Battle.net?
Since never. What does that have to do with anything?
 

JeanLuc761

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Sep 22, 2009
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thublihnk said:
JeanLuc761 said:
thublihnk said:
Yup, piracy is definitely an industry-killer.
Not necessarily. Don't get me wrong, this level of piracy is nothing short of horrifying, but the quality of the game ensured that Blizzard got an immense number of legit sales and that number continues to grow.
I was being completely sarcastic, sorry about the confusion.
My bad, sarcasm doesn't always make it through on the internet :p
 

Grey Walker

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Jul 9, 2010
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It's not as though you pirate and you can't buy the game as well. Some of those torrents may have been a chance to "test" the game, and it was later purchased by the same person legitimately.

A weak argument, but a possibility.
 

Woodsey

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Aug 9, 2009
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John Funk said:
leeloodallasmultipass said:
Yes but these people wont be able to play via battle net on-line im guessing?
That's correct.

Which, frankly, I'm perfectly okay with. :p You don't pay, you shouldn't get to play online with everyone else.
Couldn't agree more.

OT: Whilst the fact that they can absorb it is "good", I'd like to declare those 2.3 million people twats.

I don't care if you bought the game later, you still add to the figures and you still reinforce publishers' ideas about stringent DRM.
 

MrShowerHead

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Jun 28, 2010
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Hmm, I talked about this with a friend of mine and he told he's one of those guys who pirated this.

So, do I go and beat the crap out of him?
 

Fr]anc[is

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May 13, 2010
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John Funk said:
leeloodallasmultipass said:
Yes but these people wont be able to play via battle net on-line im guessing?
That's correct.

Which, frankly, I'm perfectly okay with. :p You don't pay, you shouldn't get to play online with everyone else.
You say that as if it's a bad thing