Considering the entertainment industry records shattered by Modern Warfare 2, it's only natural that the blockbuster FPS was also popular among pirates. TorrentFreak collected data from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers, and Infinity Ward's military shooter ranked as the most torrented game of 2009.
With 4.1 million unauthorized downloads of the PC version alone, Modern Warfare 2 was distributed twice as much as last year's "winner", Spore. The "accomplishment" is remarkable when you take into account that MW2 was released on November 10, while the second most stolen title, The Sims 3, was released five months earlier on June 2 and accumulated 3.2 million downloads.
Other "contenders" include Prototype with 2.35 million (released June 2009), Need For Speed Shift at 2.1 million (released September 2009), and Street Fighter IV with 1.85 million downloads (released July 2009). MW2 was also the most pirated Xbox 360 game, while New Super Mario Bros. was the most popular Wii torrent.