"These figures under-represent the true magnitude of online game piracy," says the ESA, via GI.biz. "They address only downloads of a small selection of ESA member titles. And while they account for illegal downloads that occur over select P2P platforms, they do not account for downloads that occur from 'cyberlockers' or 'one-click' hosting sites, which continue to account for high volumes of infringing downloads."
Somewhat surprisingly, the heaviest pirates "by volume" came from Italy and Spain, with China a distant 5th.
"ESA’s reporting demonstrates a strong correlation between countries that lack sufficient protections for technological protection measures and countries where online piracy levels for entertainment software are high," said the trade group.