Despite selling millions of copies of Modern Warfare 2, the figures probably would have been even better if it wasn't for the pirates. Torrentfreak reports that Infinity Ward's shooter, despite only being two months old, is the most pirated video game of 2009.

"With 4.1 million unauthorized downloads of the PC version alone, the game more than doubles the achievement of last year’s ‘winner‘ Spore. Modern Warfare 2 leads both the PC and Xbox 360 lists, by a landslide, " claims the web site.

TorrentFreak gathers data from all public BitTorrent trackers and has revealed the top five most pirated games on each PC, Xbox 360 and Wii.

PC Game Downloads
1 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (4,100,000)
2 The Sims 3 (3,200,000)
3 Prototype (2,350,000)
4 Need For Speed Shift (2,100,000)
5 Street Fighter IV (1,850,000)

Xbox 360 Game Downloads
1 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (970,000)
2 Street Fighter IV (840,000)
3 Prototype (810,000)
4 Dirt 2 (790,000)
5 UFC 2009 Undisputed (720,000)

Wii Game Downloads
1 New Super Mario Bros. (1,150,000)
2 Punch-Out!! (950,000)
3 Wii Sports Resort (920,000)
4 The House of the Dead: Overkill (860,000)
5 Mario Power Tennis (830,000)

UK trade industry group, TIGA, recently conducted a survey among U.K. developers on the subject onf piracy and concluded that UK developers are taking the initiative when dealing with the issue of piracy and looking for new ways of delivering content and communicating directly with their consumers. Developers are not complacent in dealing with this problem and are mostly seeking to find solutions for themselves rather than simply relying on the Government to solve the problem of piracy.

Despite the argument that still arises now again that PC gaming may die if piracy continues at such a high rate, most developers view the actual threat of piracy to their business survival as low. According to the survey, only 20% ranking the threat as medium and only 10% considering the threat to be high.