Ahhh, a yearly tradition we don’t officially support, but always love to read about. Every year, torrent network Torrent Freak releases their official list of pirated PC games, giving us normals and the video game producing suits a bit of insight into which games are topping the torrent charts.

This year’s “winner” is none other than the highly anticipated Spore from EA. With unbelievable hype and quite some backlash due to it’s SecurROM DRM (easily bypassed it seems), Spore was downloaded 1.7 million times by Torrent Freak users, followed by other hits such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, The Sims 2, Assassins Creed Creed and more.

The full list, with place, name, amount of downloads and date of release.

1. Spore
(1,700,000) (Sept. 2008)

2. The Sims 2
(1,150,000) (Sept. 2004)

3. Assassins Creed
(1,070,000) (Nov. 2007)

4. Crysis
(940,000) (Nov. 2007)

5. Command & Conquer 3
(860,000) (Mar. 2007)

6. Call of Duty 4
(830,000) (Nov. 2007)

7. GTA San Andreas
(740,000) (Jun. 2005)

8. Fallout 3
(645,000) (Oct. 2008)

9. Far Cry 2
(585,000) (Oct. 2008)

10. Pro Evolution Soccer 2009
(470,000) (Oct. 2008)

It’s being reported that Fallout 3, the blockbuster post-nuclear action adventure title from Bethesda which only yesterday went gold has already been leaked and pirated, a full 20 days before it’s slated release. Ouch. P2P services internet-wide are blazing with torrents of ripped copies for the Xbox 360 floating freely around. Neoseeker is speculating that this must be an early review copy, leaked by a scrupulous games reviewer, which we tend to agree with, unless someone from the duplication facility overseas really worked their piracy network into overdrive.

With HD-DVD currently under fire from modders who have recently began “backing up” their HD-DVD movies, rumors are starting to pour in that an early exploit has been discovered for the PS3. HDTV Blogger reveals that multiple independent sources are reporting that an exploit has been found via the PS3 which reveals title and volume keys for Blu-ray disks via the PS3. The procedure requires some minor modding of the boot process and Linux. We’ll post more information as it becomes available, *if* this rumor (did I mention it’s just a rumor so far?) develops.

Read more: Rumored Blu-ray exploit via PS3 discovered