‘‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” the blockbuster video game from Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard Inc., has set sales records and garnered industry awards since its November release. Now, the game can add a more dubious distinction to its list of accolades: the most illegally downloaded game of 2009.
Illicit copies of “Modern Warfare 2” were downloaded more than 5 million times in 2009, according to Web site Torrent Freak, which tracks news and data from Internet file-sharing networks.
That’s far ahead of the second most illegally downloaded game, “The Sims 3,” which had 3.2 million and came out in June, five months before “Modern Warfare 2.”
It’s not clear how much money Activision missed out on due to the millions of illegal downloads. Copies of “Modern Warfare 2” typically retail for $60. So the market value of 5 million illegal downloads would be $300 million.
But Ernesto Van Der Sar, editor in chief of Torrent Freak, said some people who get pirated copies of video games on the Internet will later buy the game on the legitimate market.
“Most people who download these games are going to try it out and see if it’s something they like, and eventually they might end up buying it in the stores,” said Van Der Sar, in a phone interview from his office in Groningen, the Netherlands.
He added that illegal downloads are sometimes of subpar quality or they could be incomplete. “Not every download is a lost sale.”
A spokesman for Activision did not return requests for comment.
Video game piracy has become a growing problem. In 2007, the Washington, D.C.-based Entertainment Software Association estimated that pirated games had a market value of more than $3.5 billion.
But piracy is also difficult to combat. Some publishers encode game discs and only hand out passwords to those who buy the game legitimately, but pirates routinely develop software to crack the codes.
In addition, some companies have filed lawsuits against pirates. Two years ago, Activision sued several people it accused of helping to distribute a game illegally over the Internet. Most of the suits have been settled.
Van Der Sar said piracy is an inevitable problem for game companies, especially when they have a hot title on their hands.
“There’s a big correlation between sales and illegal downloads,” he said. “The more copies you sell, the more people want it, and the more downloads there will be.”
Gorog Gone
Chris Gorog, the chief executive of Napster Inc. who helped steer the digital music company into a merger with Best Buy Inc., was ousted from the company last week.
Best Buy officials on Wednesday announced in a statement that they were eliminating the positions of chief executive and president at Napster, which is based in West Hollywood. As a result, Gorog and Brad Duea, Napster’s president, found themselves out on the pavement. Neither could be reached for comment.
Best Buy made the change to “streamline Napster’s executive structure,” according to the statement. Christopher Allen, formerly Napster’s chief operating officer, will be the new general manager at Napster and report to a Best Buy executive.
Gorog helped transform Napster from an illegal music-sharing Web site into a legitimate digital music provider when he took over the company in 2002. But the company struggled and its stock, which at one point climbed as high as $4, dipped to about $1.30. The decline precipitated some shareholder grumbling, and a group of activist investors launched an unsuccessful bid for three board seats. The activists blamed Gorog for the company’s troubles.
Gorog helped negotiate Best Buy’s acquisition of Napster two years ago for $121 million, or about $2.65 a share.
Cash for Coda
Coda Automotive Inc., a Santa Monica company that is trying to bring an affordable all-electric sedan to market, raised $25 million, executives announced last week.
Coda, formerly called Miles Electric Vehicles, has taken a slightly unorthodox strategy to produce its car: It’s using Chinese manufacturers to assemble the car, which is called the Coda. Executives said outsourcing the production helps keep the company’s costs low, which in turn will make its car more affordable.
The Coda sedan is slated to hit the market in 2010 with a price of $45,000, though executives said a federal tax credit will lower that to $30,000. The car will have a range of 90 to 120 miles and can be charged from an electrical outlet in a garage.
Coda executives plan to use the $25 million for safety testing and to scale up the company’s production of lithium battery systems in China.
Staff reporter Charles Proctor can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 230.
