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World of Goo piracy at 90 per cent

Only 1 in 10 buy the acclaimed PC game.

Developer 2D Boy has said that 90 per cent of people playing its excellent PC game World of Goo are using pirated versions.

Speaking on its blog, the developer arrived at this figure by dividing the known sales figures by the number of unique IPs submitting high scores, and ended up with roughly 0.1.

Variables such as dynamic IPs and multiple installations could deflate this number, although further research showed, on average, 1.3 unique IPs and 1.15 unique installations per person.

Of course, there are also factors that could inflate the figure - such as not everybody choosing to submit scores, or multiple installations at offices on the same IP, where games are shared as easily as germs.

Interestingly, 2D Boy found no difference in the number of people pirating World of Goo to the number of people pirating Ricochet (by Reflexive), which shipped with DRM and publicly aired its findings recently.

"We can't draw any conclusions based on two data points, but 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," reads the conclusion.

Head over to our World of Goo review to find out more.

World of Goo is due for release on WiiWare in December.