Video Game Piracy Statistics (2018-2026)

Video game piracy remains one of the games industry’s most stubborn and least precisely-measured problems. As the global games market pushes past $200 billion in 2025 and 3.6 billion people play, the volume of pirate-site traffic still runs into the hundreds of billions of visits per year — and in 2026 the collapse of Denuvo’s long-standing anti-tamper protection has reopened a debate the industry thought was settled. This page collects the most reliable public figures from MUSO, Newzoo, the USTR, academic research and industry press for journalists working on the story. Free to use with a link back to ShaneTheGamer as the source.

Key Takeaways for Journalists

• 216.3 billion pirate-site visits in 2024 — the total across all media categories, per MUSO, a 5.7% decline on 2023 but still enormous.
• ~14.9 billion software/gaming piracy visits in 2024, down just 2.1% year-on-year, as subscription models slowly eat into demand.
• $201.6 billion legitimate games market in 2025 (Newzoo) — the backdrop against which any loss estimate should be read.
• Denuvo functionally broken in 2026 — hypervisor-based bypasses now enable day-zero cracks of major titles, upending a decade-old DRM model.
• ~10% of gamers report having played or downloaded a pirated game in a recent three-month window, per survey data.
• The United States remains the #1 source of pirate-site traffic, ahead of India and Russia, according to MUSO’s 2024–2025 data.
• Consoles stay comparatively secure; PC remains the platform most exposed to cracking and cracked-game distribution.
• All revenue-loss “billions” figures are estimates — treat headline loss numbers as contested modelling, not audited fact.

How Big Is Piracy in 2026? The Traffic Numbers

The single most authoritative recurring dataset is MUSO’s annual piracy-traffic tracking. MUSO recorded 216.3 billion visits to piracy websites in 2024, which the company described as a modest 5.72% decline from 2023 — a topline dip that masks sharp divergence between categories. TV remained the largest category at 96.8 billion visits despite a 6.8% drop, while publishing (largely manga and web fiction) was the only major sector to grow, rising 4.3% to 66.4 billion visits.

For the games beat, the relevant line is software. According to MUSO, software piracy declined to 14.9 billion visits in 2024, a 2.1% decrease, with the shift toward cloud-based and subscription software ecosystems cited as a likely driver. That “software” bucket includes cracked games and applications, so it is the closest public proxy for gaming-specific pirate demand, though it is not a games-only figure and should be labelled as such.

Longer-term, illegal-streaming and piracy traffic has trended upward across the decade even with the 2024 dip: one industry estimate put visits to illegal streaming sites climbing from roughly 130 billion in 2020 to 216 billion by 2024. Different trackers measure different site universes, so absolute totals vary widely between vendors — a point worth flagging in any story.

Revenue-Loss Estimates: Handle With Care

Loss figures are where journalism most often goes wrong. A widely-recycled “$74 billion” games-piracy loss number traces back to a single 2014 Tru Optik estimate and has been repeated for over a decade without fresh verification — it should not be presented as a current figure. More conservative national estimates exist: historically, UKIE estimated UK console piracy at around £1.45 billion in lost sales in a single year, and it cautioned those numbers were on the conservative side.

Academic work is more careful and more useful. A peer-reviewed 2024 study of Denuvo DRM found that the protection shields total revenue from piracy by a mean of about 15% and a median of 20%, that piracy causes mean total revenue to fall roughly 20% when Denuvo is cracked quickly, and — crucially — that piracy causes zero mean total revenue loss when Denuvo survives for 12 weeks or more. In other words, the damage is concentrated in the launch window, and a game that stays protected through its first quarter may lose little to piracy at all.

The counter-narrative matters too: not every pirate is a lost sale. Industry commentary in 2025 argued that structural fixes such as regional pricing, better access and free-to-play models have converted former piracy hotspots like India and Brazil into growing legitimate markets — a framing that fits Newzoo’s data showing emerging markets driving player growth. Any loss headline should be paired with this displacement caveat.

The 2026 Denuvo Collapse

The biggest gaming-piracy story of the year is technical. For roughly a decade, Denuvo — the anti-tamper DRM developed by Irdeto — bought publishers weeks or months of protection during the critical launch window by wrapping game code inside a custom virtual machine. In late 2025 and into 2026 that model broke. A new class of hypervisor-based bypasses operating beneath the operating system at “Ring -1” began enabling day-zero cracks, in some cases within hours of a game’s launch.

Press reporting confirmed a wave of high-profile compromises. TorrentFreak and others reported that major titles including Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Crimson Desert and Life is Strange: Reunion were bypassed with the technique, and that Resident Evil: Requiem became the first 2026 release to receive a full traditional crack, reportedly cracked in around 40 days. Notably, some later cracks reverted to pure reverse-engineering rather than the risky hypervisor method, which requires users to disable core Windows security features — a genuine malware risk that outlets should warn readers about.

Irdeto has told press it is actively developing countermeasures and updated security versions for affected games, and says player performance will not be compromised by the strengthened protection. The cat-and-mouse dynamic is not new, but the speed and scale of the 2026 breaches are described across multiple outlets as unprecedented — a meaningful shift for a publishing strategy that leaned heavily on protecting the first sales weeks. For context on where the money sits, see our games-industry revenue reference.

Who Pirates, and Where

Geographically, MUSO’s data for the second half of 2024 through the first half of 2025 shows the United States as the single largest source of pirate-site traffic, with India and Russia rounding out the top three. That ordering is stable across recent reports and cuts against the assumption that piracy is purely a developing-market phenomenon — high-income, high-connectivity countries generate huge raw visit volumes.

On demographics, survey data consistently skews young and male. Independent survey compilations suggest younger age cohorts dominate online piracy, and roughly 10% of all gamers report having played or downloaded a pirated title in a recent three-month period. These are self-reported survey figures with the usual reliability caveats, so they are best cited as indicative rather than definitive.

Platform matters enormously. Consoles remain comparatively secure against casual piracy, which is why the loss debate centres on PC. Newzoo’s own data adds nuance for anyone modelling “lost sales”: the firm reported that 64% of all PC gaming time in 2025 was spent in games released before 2019 — much of the audience is playing older, often already-owned or free titles rather than pirating new premium releases.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many pirate-site visits were there in 2024?

MUSO recorded 216.3 billion visits to piracy websites across all media categories in 2024, a 5.7% decline from 2023.

How much does video game piracy cost the industry?

There is no reliable, current global figure — a widely-cited “$74 billion” number dates to a 2014 estimate. Peer-reviewed research suggests Denuvo DRM protects roughly 15–20% of a title’s revenue, with losses concentrated in the launch window.

Which country generates the most pirate-site traffic?

The United States is the single largest source of pirate-site visits in MUSO’s 2024–2025 data, ahead of India and Russia.

Is Denuvo still effective in 2026?

Largely no. In 2026, hypervisor-based bypasses and new cracks broke Denuvo’s day-one protection on major titles, with some pirated releases appearing within hours of launch; Irdeto says it is developing countermeasures.

What share of gamers pirate games?

Survey data indicates roughly 10% of gamers report having played or downloaded a pirated game in a recent three-month period, though self-reported figures should be treated as indicative.

Methodology & Sourcing

Figures on this page were compiled from public reports by MUSO (traffic data), Newzoo (games-market size and player counts), a 2024 peer-reviewed study on Denuvo’s revenue effects, the USTR Notorious Markets List, and reputable trade press including TorrentFreak, Tom’s Hardware and TweakTown for the 2026 Denuvo cracking coverage. Key caveats: pirate-site “visits” are not the same as unique users, downloads or lost sales; different trackers measure different site universes, so totals are not directly comparable; the “software” category includes non-game applications and is only a proxy for gaming-specific piracy; and all dollar loss figures are contested estimates rather than audited losses. Where numbers are projections or estimates we have labelled them as such, and we have deliberately flagged the outdated “$74 billion” figure rather than present it as current.

Sources

• MUSO — 2024 Piracy Trends & Insights (2025)
• Newzoo — Global Games Market Report (2025–2026)
• ScienceDirect — peer-reviewed study on Denuvo DRM revenue effects (2024)
• USTR — 2025 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy
• TorrentFreak, Tom’s Hardware, TweakTown, The FPS Review — Denuvo bypass coverage (2026)
• UKIE — UK console piracy loss estimate (historic)
• Tru Optik — 2014 games-piracy loss estimate (legacy)

Spotted a newer figure or an error? Contact the ShaneTheGamer desk and we will update this page.