'Battlefield 3' a new favorite among Pirate Bay members?

Electronic Arts released "Battlefield 3" this week to big hype, rave reviews and no small number of piracy attempts. Over 30,000 members of Sweden's infamous torrent site The Pirate Bay have downloaded - or at least tried to download - the new military first-person shooter in the past few days.

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The Pirate Bay currently hosts over two dozen "Battlefield 3"-related files, the bulk of which are dedicated to the PC release. One available entry - uploaded a day ahead of the official release by warez group RELOADED - has garnered (so far) 32,366 leechers.

Not an accurate appraisal of how many customers actually managed to illicitly download and play the title, the figure instead provides a rough estimate.

"Battlefield 3"'s insane system requirements certainly narrows the number down, as does the pirated version only containing the game's single player campaign. Most consider the series' complex, addictive multiplayer modes as the main draw for stay-at-home commandos. Saying the leak represents a $2,000,000 in lost sales for EA may be a slight exaggeration, though it's unlikely the publisher makes such distinctions.

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Some argue a pirated copy shouldn't count as a lost sale since pirates never intended to buy the stolen quarry anyway. Others go one step further.

Lauded game designer Markus Persson stated "piracy is not theft" during a speech at this year's Game Developer Conference. The "Minecraft" mastermind added, "there is no such thing as a lost sale."

"Battlefield 3" developer DICE isn't too worried about piracy hurting its game, but admitted it remains an issue.

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Speaking to GameSpot in September, DICE General Manager Karl-Magnus Troedsson said, "I still believe piracy is a big problem for [the PC gaming industry] even though the public discussion has disappeared a bit. So far, Battlefield has been unaffected by it because we have a multiplayer online game where you need to be logged in, so we haven't had any huge problems with it."

Earlier this year, The Pirate Bay announced that it serves over 5 million subscribers. (Via GameZone)

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