Pirated SCII downloaded how many times?

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 16 November, 2010

This is one record Blizzard doesn't want.

StarCraft II is the fastest-selling real-time strategy game of all time – but it's now in the record books for all the wrong reasons.

That's because according to TorrentFreak, StarCraft II holds the record for the most data transferred – a whopping 15.77 Petabytes.

Which means the most popular version of the game's 7.19 GB torrent file has been downloaded more than two million times – 2.3 million to be exact.

Legitimate copies of the game are distributed through Blizzard's own BitTorrent downloader – TorrentFreak speculates that downloads of that version may have transferred even more data that the pirated version.

Piracy is of course one of the greatest threats to PC gaming, and it's a big issue for Blizzard.

In August Blizzard executive Michael Ryder said the new and improved Battle.net was helping the company win the fight against pirates.

Blizzard's controversial decision to remove LAN play from StarCraft II was in part an attempt to limit piracy, and many of the game's features require a connection to Battle.net.

Oli reviewed StarCraft II for Eurogamer, awarding it a stonking 9/10.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (35) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • jaywalker3010 Verified Mastering Manager, Square Enix #1 2 years ago

    holy shit thats a lot for data.. wonder when we'll get USB drives that big :)

  • RoaringPanda #2 2 years ago

    Feel bad for activision, guess theyll just have to comfort themselves with the rest of their hundreds of millions

  • unacomn #3 2 years ago

    Considering there isn't a demo, the numbers aren't really that high. Plus, if the price would go down 20 euros in the near future, at leas half of the people who pirated it will buy it, if they already haven't. I really wish my country had the same pricing as Russia. I heard that there the boxed version is about a third the price, but you have to play later on for multiplayer. That would be ok for me, since I stink at multiplayer RTS games.

  • Freek #4 2 years ago

    I can't wait for some hilariously bad analyst to translate each downlaod into lost revenue and calculating some absurdly false number of "damage" to acti blizzard.

  • HistoryTeller #5 2 years ago

    As long as its only digital numbers its okay for everybody to take them.. oh wait?

  • orangpelupa #6 2 years ago

    great games still sell well even if its got pirated :)
    just like SC2.

    the piracy also can contribute to sales.
    a gamer pirate the game, play it, then like it. So he/she buy the original game.
    Edited by orangpelupa at 16/11/10 @ 09:09

  • bad09 #7 2 years ago

    So, yet again, making hoops for PAYING customers means nothing and piracy goes on without a single care in the world. One day this industry will learn customers matter pirates don't, probably when it's on life support like the music industry did.

    Mind you, DRM is so ineffective as an anti-piracy tool I suspect it's not the real reason for it, just wish they were honest about why they do infect games with DRM.

  • levitate #8 2 years ago

    It's just so much more convenient to buy new games, long gone is the time when you could fit 100-200 pirated games on a floppy disc and play them to your heart's content. Mind you, I don't play a lot of games these days and I don't mind that the games I buy cost money if they give me great value. Blizzard's games are renowned for giving entertainment and value for your money, that's why they still sell regardless of piracy.

    It's funny how I've stopped pirating games in my old age and start buying them; at the same time I've got less time to actually play them because I'm .. y'know.. grown up and stuff.

  • thesombrerokid #9 2 years ago

    shocking news loads of people are interested enough in starcraft 2 to click a button but not fork over £40! the real news is why didn't the other 8 billion people who don't own starcraft 2 not bother?

    DOWNLOADING IS NOT PLAYING, IT'S NOT EVEN INSTALLING.

    also wheres the report on the 360 SKU of Black Ops being downloaded twice as much as the PC?
    Edited by thesombrerokid at 16/11/10 @ 10:17

  • CouldntResist #10 2 years ago

    How do they play it without Bnet? I guess single-player is crackable, but MP, as the main long-term draw would still require a unique code for Bnet. I wonder what the conversion rate from SP to MP is.

  • ArcticStudios #11 2 years ago

    I say catch the people doing it and get them to pay full price and more as games are worth the money. Lets not kill the game industry by doing this lets help them build and become much better you pirate scum. ARRRR!

  • neems #12 2 years ago

    I don't condone it at all, but you can tell that piracy is one of the biggest threats to PC gaming by the way that the new record holder is also one of the fastest selling games of all time, shifting millions of copies on PC alone. Dear God, what will the poor bereft video game industry do now?

  • paketep #13 2 years ago

    "Blizzard's controversial decision to remove LAN play from StarCraft II was in part an attempt to limit piracy, and many of the game's features require a connection to Battle.net. "

    No, it wasn't. It was to control the Korean scene.

    Removing LAN support does nothing to curb piracy. If anything, it provokes even more. Fuck Blizzard.

    BTW, piracy is no threat to PC gaming. I've been hearing that for 20 years, and before that, it was a threat to 8 bit gaming. Please, stop babbling that already. Piracy's always been there and will always be there, as long as you have to pay for games. Developers that harass customers trying to stop piracy just don't deserve your money.

  • FooAtari #14 2 years ago

    "Piracy is of course one of the greatest threats to PC gaming, and it's a big issue for Blizzard"

    Really? Well, perhaps, but of course the biggest questions to ask here, and ones that unfortunately cannot be answered are

    1. How many of those people that downloaded the games would have bought it had it not been available illegally?
    2. How many people downloaded it in the absence of a demo and the bought it?

    It's always the same issue, there is NO way to tell how damaging piracy actually is.

    Sadly, this doesn't matter to developers and publishers who simply use these numbers to justify DRM and continue to ignore the real issues. There is more than enough evidence that shows that PC gaming can be profitable when done correctly. Hell, these games with massive piracy figures are also massive sellers.

    It's about time developers and publishers focused on customers and forgot about piracy to an extent. Provide your users with a pleasant purchasing experience that is at least as straight forward, if not easier than pirating, and they will buy your games.
    Edited by FooAtari at 16/11/10 @ 13:56

  • Spekingur #15 2 years ago

    Popular game is popular?

    I'm pretty sure that the pirated version has no multiplayer possibilities - and if it has, it is probably too much trouble to set up in any case. I don't think anyone would go through all that trouble unless they
    a. do it because they can
    b. wouldn't have the money to spend on the game anyways

    Group B are those who are too poor or too McScrooged to spend the money, if they like the game enough they would try and cough up the money for the game. Group A would do it weither they bought the game or not - just because they can. I believe that most belong to the latter group.

  • subedii #16 2 years ago

    Legitimate copies of the game are distributed through Blizzard's own BitTorrent downloader – TorrentFreak speculates that downloads of that version may have transferred even more data that the pirated version.

    Wait, forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a good thing?

    I mean yes, any piracy stats are bad, but traditionally popular games / movies / music get torrented several times more than copies sold. If that's not the case here and pirated copies aren't even matching up with the legitimate release, then Blizzard's just pulled off a major coup. And this is BEFORE you even count store-bought versions.

    I suspect a large part of the reason for that (apart from BNet and this being a fundamentally multiplayer oriented game) is that a lot of people in Korea actually got the game alongside WoW subscriptions.
    Edited by subedii at 16/11/10 @ 11:05

  • Spekingur #17 2 years ago

    I just wish publisher would realise that they can't defeat piracy - they definitely don't do it by increasing the RRP and staying with the currency exchange disparity. I'm not saying they should make it easier for pirates to pirate but every so often a pirated version of a game is in better shape than released version because the pirated version removed the DRM or other things that make it harder for the buying customer to enjoy the product. We see this with pirated movies as well - the buying customer needs to sit through all kinds of "piracy is stealing" adverts as well as intros to other movies, with no option to skip.

  • Utopolitan #18 2 years ago

    The one thing I can't stand about piracy is the lazy attitude it seems to instill in many of those who pirate. According to them everything and anything should always be available for free, and you shouldn't even have to move your fat ass off the couch in order to get it. And then when their download speeds don't exceed 300 kb/s they bitch and bitch and bitch like there's no tomorrow. I don't know how many times I've had to listen to my pirating friends whinig about this.

  • Freek #19 2 years ago

    Piracy is unpredicable but certainly not universally negative. It can lead to real world sales. For example:
    [link url=http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/22/author-4chan-bootleg.html
    ]http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/22/aut...[/link]

    Same thing when Monty Python putt it's clips online in Youtube, they saw their DVD sales shoot up.

    People come into contact with something they like they might want more of it and/or support it. But that's difficult to track. One thing is certain however: saying piracy is univerally bad and equating each downlaod as a lost sale is nonsense.
    Edited by Freek at 16/11/10 @ 11:59

  • subedii #20 2 years ago

    @Utopolitan: The big irony is that when people get into that habit of torrenting everything, they start losing any actual interest in anything.

    There's a sort of archival mentality at work that you have to have a complete set of everything "for later". Movies get downloaded but never watched. Games get torrented but never played. Those that do get played only manage to hold their interest for maybe 5 minutes because other stuff is coming in. Even the best titles are dismissed as mediocre not because of a lack of quality, but simply because the person's suffering from a constant over-abundance of content. There's too much stuff to go through and they end up being permanently burned out on games that ordinarily they might have found fun.

    It's pretty sad really, there's a tonne of time expended on getting those collections but they simply can't enjoy anything.

    There's a lot to be said for actually taking a break from consuming content and spacing things out instead. It gives you something to look forward to.
    Edited by subedii at 16/11/10 @ 12:04

  • vijay_UK #21 2 years ago

    @subedii, 16/11/10 @ 12:02:

    To date, the best post I have read on the subject matter.

  • CaptainKid #22 2 years ago

    What kind of badly put together news report is this?
    1 Does torrent freak also count the official Blizzard torrent?
    2 Perhaps people who bought the game download it "illegally" because Blizzard's server or torrent was to slow.
    3 What the hell is torrent freak and how does it work?
    4 Piracy may be PC gaming's greatest threats but the Xbox version of Black ops was available a week before the PC version.

  • NorfolkNClue #23 2 years ago

    subedii - too true. I recognised this in myself many years ago when I chipped my PS1...all of a sudden, games were £2, so you bought a tenners worth... and played each one for about half an hour before trying the next one, and so on. When you saved up for them full price, you made sure you played them, good or bad! I noticed it in my friends' music collection - they would say that they had over 100Gb (insert large number here)... had they listened to it? No chance. That is one of the main reasons I buy things now; another major factor is that I have the disposable income to do so and think that someone's hard work should be rewarded. Especially when it comes to Indies.
    Edited by NorfolkNClue at 16/11/10 @ 12:48

  • Utopolitan #24 2 years ago

    @subedii
    What you said couldn't be more true. And I think it would be safe to say this about content pertaining to any kind of media. But it doesn't apply to downloads only. With time I've come to realise that the more music, film and videogames I get my hands on the less fun I have with the stuff.
    I remember the times when I couldn't afford more than maybe one game every sixth months. But those games I treasured more than anything I play today, despite their inferior quality.

  • orangpelupa #25 2 years ago

    btw hoping more PC games will delete DRM.
    even with bnet drm, SC2 still get pirated.

    or atleast use "not harmful" DRM like in CoD4 MP.
    in MP mode, it need no DVD inserted,

    Pirated version only can play on pirated server, so original buyer not mixed with pirated buyer.
    so those pirated user can play MP, then can feel it MP is good or not.
    if they feel good, the pirated can buy original to be able to play on official server with synced ranks etc (a-la BFBC2 statistic).

  • NunianVonFuch #26 2 years ago

    They released it without a demo so what do they expect? It's a high-end PC game, shops don't allow the return of PC games so the only way to know if your system can run it up to your standards is to pirate it first. That's what I did and the game was great so I bought it.

    As for it being the most highly pirated game of all time, I'm sure whatever big game comes out for PC next year will take that crown. It's more a case of torrents being more easily accessible, internet connections improving, etc than anything else.
    Edited by NunianVonFuch at 16/11/10 @ 13:32

  • UncleLou #27 2 years ago

    @subedii:

    Yup, that's exactly why I don't trust pirates when it comes to games, with the odd exception (ie, a huge fan who can't wait till the game is released). Too many of them are hoarders suffering from SASD with not a clue what makes a good game.

  • brod #28 2 years ago

    They don't get access to the multiplayer, which is the bread and butter of SC2. Whoop-de-doo.

    What they don't tell you is how many of those downloaders are just kids who heard about the game but would never be able to afford to buy it. Piracy hurts noone if there is genuinely no possibility of a sale from someone.

    I own the SC2 CE and this news does not bother me one bit.

    "Piracy is of course one of the greatest threats to PC gaming, and it's a big issue for Blizzard."

    I disagree.
    Edited by brod at 16/11/10 @ 14:06

  • spekkeh #29 2 years ago

    It's weird how after playing Enslaved, the wooden faces in that trailer made me cringe, even if it's only a couple of months old.

    @brod, well, fact of the matter is PC games haven't been doing so well compared to console games sales. Whether that's completely because of people switching sides to the consoles and therefore the market not increasing as much is of course open for debate, but developers themselves feel that it's because of piracy. I think we all remember the terrible statistics of 2DBoy's World of Goo, for me the best game of 2008. At one point, you could buy it for ten cents, still, 90 percent of those PC gamers weren't arsed to do it.

    And for all the people who claim they're in the try-then-buy camp. Go pull the other one. I pirated games when I was young, of course you're not going to pay money for them afterwards. You might've, once, but 99% won't.

  • Nephirion #30 2 years ago

    Because there is no piracy on consoles ...

    also those people who pirated it would never have purchased it in the first place so you can't claim it as lost revenue can you?

  • spekkeh #31 2 years ago

    also those people who pirated it would never have purchased it in the first place

    erm, why?

    I know I've pirated some great games, that nowadays I'd have surely bought. Only I started experiencing the same archival mentality that subedii alluded to @#23, gradually losing my excitement about games, thus I decided to break with it completely. From then on, my pc was to be for work and related stuff, and my living room would be my leisure area where I really take my time to sit down and enjoy the games I bought in the store. Now the games industry is making some seriously hefty money from me (and paying me back as I'm sort of working in the industry).

  • Machiavellian #32 2 years ago

    My take is that PC gamers make to many excuses and blind themselves more to the problem than the developers and publishers they feel are blinded by the numbers. Because of the ease of piracy on the PC, the culture for getting digital content for free is growing an international population where paying for your content is the last thing people think about. Where content is free, any price is to expensive. The real problem with piracy is that it continues to grow faster than pretty much any industry out there. Kids as young as 7 understand how to pirate digital content that they want so what do you think happens when they get older.

    Saying that most pirates are young kids only makes the issue worst not better because growing up getting your data free only means that when those kids grow up they will be less inclined to pay.

    People use Blizzard as the cream of PC development and that PC gamers pay for games because how well SCII sold but we see that the game actually was downloaded faster than any other PC game and the reason it probably wasn't downloaded more than it sold like MW2 is because of BattleNet. Usually games that have a strong multiplayer benefit with strong sells because hooking into pirated servers isn't as easy as actually torrenting the game itself. If SCII was only a single player game, it probably would have been downloaded way more than it sold at retail.



  • sneetch #33 2 years ago

    @spekkeh

    I think the World of Goo example just goes to show that having some basic DRM probably does dissuade casual piracy or piracy of convenience (it's just there, copy it, why bother messing around with your credit card or whatever). If there's not even a serial key and online activation or whatever then people can just mail it to their friends and it just works for them. Coming up with increasingly elaborate and restrictive DRM doesn't help anyone mind you.

    How many of those 2.3 million people would otherwise have bought a copy is irrelevant, the fact remains that the pirates have no right to play that or any other pirated game. Arguing about whether or not you can count them as lost sales is meaningless.

    That said, I think subedii is correct about the archival mentality, I've encountered it in the past, I worked with people who were so busy getting things for free that they never used any of it.

  • FortysixterUK #34 2 years ago

    Sell a new game for £20.00, this would stop piracy in my opinion.

  • arcam #35 2 years ago

    I think the World of Goo example just goes to show that having some basic DRM probably does dissuade casual piracy

    2DBoy's blog post on the 90% piracy thing: [link url=http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/
    ]http://2dboy.com/2008/11/13/90/
    [/link]

    Note the final line:

    "i’m hoping that others will release information about piracy rates so that everyone could see if DRM is the waste of time and money that we think it is."