No matter how you feel about torrenting, pirating, or generally playing games that you haven't paid for, the fact is that game piracy is a very real thing. Every year, millions of copies of hundreds of games are distributed via torrenting sites, black market stores, and various other outlets. While publishers and developers alike wring their hands and attempt to come up with new methods of DRM to block people from getting something for nothing, tens of millions of dollars are lost to gamers who find ways to get their hands on illicit copies.

An article on TorrentFreak has listed the games that were the most pirated for this past year. Not surprisingly, PC games were pirated more often than all other consoles combined, with the 360 taking second, and the Wii a distant third. Across all platforms, no game was stolen more than Activision's Call of Duty: Black Ops, which was downloaded over 5.2 million times for PC and 360 (PS3 data is not provided). The most pirated 360 game was EA's Dante's Inferno, with Super Mario Galaxy 2 leading the way for Nintendo. It's not exactly the kind of end of the year list that most companies want their games to end up on, but it speaks to a huge underground market.

Here's the top five for each platform, with the number of copies in parentheses.

PC Games:
1 Call of Duty: Black Ops (4,270,000)
2 Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (3,960,000) 3 Mafia 2 (3,550,000)
4 Mass Effect 2 (3,240,000)
5 Starcraft II (3,120,000)

Wii Games:
1 Super Mario Galaxy 2 (1,470,000)
2 Wii Party (1,220,000)
3 Donkey Kong Country Returns (920,000)
4 Kirbys Epic Yarn (880,000)
5 Red Steel 2 (850,000)

Xbox 360 Games:
1 Dante’s Inferno (1,280,000)
2 Alan Wake (1,140,000)
3 Red Dead Redemption (1,060,000)
4 Halo Reach (990,000)
5 Call of Duty: Black Ops (930,000)

[Via GamePolitics]