Crysis 2 scored almost 4 million BitTorrent downloads and captured the title of the most pirated PC game of 2011.
According to TorrentFreak, Crysis 2 ended the year with 3.92 million illegal downloads, followed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 with 3.65 million and Battlefield 3 with 3.51 million.
The popularity award on the Xbox 360 goes to Gears of war 3 with 890,000 downloads, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 with 830,000 and Battlefield 3 with 760,000. On the Wii, Super Mario Galaxy 2 ended up at 1.28 million downloads, Mario Sports Mix at 1.09 million, and Xenoblade Chronicles at 950,000. TorrentFreak did not list pirated games for the PS3 as their number was too low to be shown in BitTorrent's download charts.
Despite the substantial number of downloaded games, TorrentFreak noted that the top titles in each category saw a decline of downloads over 2010.

you didn't "demo" it. you said yourself you pirated it, liked it enough to play it for 6 months and just didn't want to pay for it. if you are going to play it and not pay you are stealing. if you are going to try for an hour, decide you don't like it and delete it ill let you say your "demoing" it. we both know that's not what you did.
How about a demo? No because then they would know it sucked.
Not why people don't agree with this. There's already evidence for this, as well as common sense that backs up this point of view. Just because it's wrongful to pirate a game doesn't change the fact that people probably do it on a game whose hardware requirements are either viewed as a challenge to be conquered or a potential stopper of game play for those with lesser systems.
How about a demo? No because then they would know it sucked.
Skyrim has only been out for a couple months, remember...
Ok then I'll just let time pass so that Deus Ex HR goes down to $5 and then MAYBE I'll buy it but without trying it out first (by pirating) there's a high chance I won't buy it at all. Square Enix have said they will not be releasing a demo of this game so don't pull the "play the demo" counter argument. For some games, pirating is the only way to try-before-you-buy. Personally I refuse to waste my money on shitty games which is why I pirate games. I pirated Fallout 3 and completed it and after I did that I went and bought the game and all the DLC, in the next installment of the series (FNV) I bought it on the first day because I knew this game was gonna be worth every penny based on my experience with FO3 so there was no second thoughts. I have all the DLC for that as well. I pirated Oblivion, I bought it when I was half way into the game and now I bought Skyrim on first day because again, I knew it was good as I had already tried the previous game. I did the same with Mass Effect and I will most likely buy Mass Effect 3 first day or some short time later.
What I'm trying to get at is that by pirating games you are able to see for yourself whether the game is worth the money or not, there's absolutely no point in paying $60 for some turd that you will either barely play or that it feels like a chore to finish just to get the most bang for your buck. In my case not only do they gain a sale for the current game but sales for any future game based on that franchise too.
If a developer creates a quality game and repeatedly continues to do so, people will not pirate their games as much and a clear of example of this are Bethesda who are currently scoring big sales records on PC with Skyrim. When Fallout 4 comes the same will happen.
But they can afford gaming rigs to play them on.
So were Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. They came just before Skyrim, but Skyrim doesn't even make the top 5.