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Seven piracy sites shut down by the FBI

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Because they don't have anything more important to worry about in the entire country, video game piracy is the most important thing.


Seven Piracy Giants Shut Down by FBI​


December 13, 2025
Piracy News

ATLANTA / GLOBAL – In a dramatic crackdown on digital piracy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has seized control of seven major video game piracy domains, delivering a powerful blow to illegal free game distribution networks that catered to millions of users worldwide. This isn’t just another take down, it’s one of the most significant actions against free game piracy in years, and it could reshape the underground gaming ecosystem.

7 Major Piracy Sites Taken Down​

The FBI’s Atlanta Field Office executed a coordinated operation, obtaining legal authorization to seize the domains of these heavily trafficked piracy hubs:

  • nsw2u.com
  • nswdl.com
  • game-2u.com
  • bigngame.com
  • ps4pkg.com
  • mgnetu.com
  • ps4pkg.net
These sites, infamous in piracy circles for offering free unauthorized downloads of Nintendo Switch, PS4, PC, and other games, now display a federal seizure banner notifying visitors that they’re under U.S. law enforcement control.

Many of these domains had been active for more than four years, hosting pirated copies of games – often before official release dates – and allowing users to download them without paying a dime.

$170M in Estimated Losses​

From February 28 to May 28, 2025, there were 3.2 million illicit downloads from these sites.

The estimated impact on legitimate game sales and intellectual property is around $170 million a figure frequently cited by investigators (though debated among experts).

This massive scale shows just how entrenched and widespread game piracy had become and why authorities finally moved.

https://triggeredplay.com/blog/seven-piracy-giants-shut-down-by-fbi
Click to expand...
 
Last edited by Flame,
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From February 28 to May 28, 2025, there were 3.2 million illicit downloads from these sites.

The estimated impact on legitimate game sales and intellectual property is around $170 million a figure frequently cited by investigators (though debated among experts).
Click to expand...

Total fucking lie not one company lost any of that money not one dime. That's assuming the every time someone pirated a game if they couldn't pirate it they would have bought it, that's usually not the case.
Post automatically merged:

SylverReZ said:
There's always going to be new sites that pop-up after they've been shutdown-it's happened before.
Click to expand...

I know but it's still newsworthy when it happens. There's got to be hundreds of things more important for the FBI to worried about though than pirating games. No wonder this country is going to shit.
 
Last edited by Jayinem,
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Jayinem said:
Total fucking lie not one company lost any of that money not one dime. That's assuming the every time someone pirated a game if they couldn't pirate it they would have bought it, that's usually not the case.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't count the media for their claims, anti-piracy propaganda hasn't changed for decades. Any video game company barely lost any money from piracy. Pirates would buy the game on launch or obtain a copy early before release, and yet, the companies will still get revenue from how many units are sold regardless if people buy it.
 
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SylverReZ said:
I wouldn't count the media for their claims, anti-piracy propaganda hasn't changed for decades. Any video game company barely lost any money from piracy. Pirates would buy the game on launch or obtain a copy early before release, and yet, the companies will still get revenue from how many units are sold regardless if people buy it.
Click to expand...

Video game sales are never in the toilet they keep going up up up EA breaks records year after year by billions of dollars yet the assholes lay off employees every year. It's just the idea that someone can "steal" a game they just don't like it there's no actual victims here.
 
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A lot of those sites, already had backups! I've bookmarked them all over the years.
Even a few you listed, the backup sites, look identical and are still active.
This why the community, needs to stop sharing links to the sites and let people find them on their own!
 
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Ambers_Crimson_8K said:
This why the community, needs to stop sharing links to the sites and let people find them on their own!
Click to expand...
And Nintendo knows about GBAtemp already, they'll see one of those links and pass it off to one of their legal teams.

Ambers_Crimson_8K said:
A lot of those sites, already had backups! I've bookmarked them all over the years.
Click to expand...
I keep most of the stuff bookmarked in individual folders as categories on my browser, it saves me from browsing Reddit for that sort of thing, or Googling it up to find some sketchy website.
 
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It's just funny how things work back in the day we bought cds to listen to music right, but then the internet made it where people pirated so much that cd sales practically died forever. They had to sell subscriptions to get people to buy music no one was buying cds anymore. And guess what? No one died from it life moved on things just adapt and work out just fine. But here we have the fucking FBI spending time and money arresting people for doing the same thing for video games it's just a joke. Are they that worried about Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony EA and others?
 
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M7L7NK7 said:
Do you even understand how companies work? Why wouldn't they protect their property? C'mon man
Click to expand...

I understand it from the game companies perspective, I don't understand the FBI spending their time and effort on this when there's so many other important things in the entire nation plus they have to worry about international terrorism all sorts of things. It takes a lot of time effort and money to set up a bust like this.
 
Jayinem said:
It's just funny how things work back in the day we bought cds to listen to music right, but then the internet made it where people pirated so much that cd sales practically died forever. They had to sell subscriptions to get people to buy music no one was buying cds anymore. And guess what? No one died from it life moved on things just adapt and work out just fine. But here we have the fucking FBI spending time and money arresting people for doing the same thing for video games it's just a joke. Are they that worried about Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony EA and others?
Click to expand...
I remember when Director Michael Moore, was asked about people pirating his movie before it hit theaters!

His answer was, good, that means more people get to see my film, and those folks never had intentions on seeing my film in theaters.

So I'm not losing any money anyways, the people who do pay to see it, I will profit from that! And to the ones that pirate it, I hope you like the film.

And in 2025, he still has a net worth of $30 Million.
 
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Jayinem said:
I don't understand the FBI spending their time and effort on this when there's so many other important things in the entire nation plus they have to worry about international terrorism all sorts of things.
Click to expand...
The FBI under Kash Patel is a fucking joke, shouldn't be surprising that their role has been reduced to glorified corporate security. Any terrorist who wants to attack the US is likely to be successful.
 
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This bullshit of “estimated loss” or “damages” needs to be put to bed. It’s not a loss of product or even sales if someone wasn’t intending to purchase your shit anyway. Even less so if someone was downloading it as a “backup” because they’re misinformed that they can do that if they own a legitimate copy. It’s bullshit, but big corpo can get away with it cuz “intellectual property” jargon.
 
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ps4pkg is now owned by a guy named deadspecimen
Post automatically merged:

UPDATE: DeadSpecimen isn’t just “some guy”, he’s team twiizers
 
MeowthBlep said:
UPDATE: DeadSpecimen isn’t just “some guy”, he’s team twiizers
Click to expand...
*Team Twiizers as they're known on Xitter. Not part of Team Twiizers, the original Wii hacking group.

Screenshot From 2025-12-15 13-17-20.png
 
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