FBI seizes multiple piracy sites for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 games, dismantling their infrastructure.
The FBI, with the help of the Dutch FIOD, seized multiple piracy sites distributing pirated video games, including nsw2u.com, ps4pkg.com, and mgnetu.com, dismantling their infrastructure. These sites, active for over four years, offered early access to popular game titles and logged 3.2 million downloads between February and May 2025, causing an estimated $170 million in losses.
“The FBI’s Atlanta Field Office announced today the seizure of several online criminal marketplaces providing pirated versions of popular video games.” reads the announcement published by the FBI.
“In addition to the seizure, the FBI has dismantled the infrastructure of these websites.
The website Nsw2u was very popular in the gaming community, especially among gamers searching for pirated games for Nintendo Switch consoles. The EU added the website to the Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List in May 2025. This year, Italy, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and France blocked access to the website.
Visitors to the domains now see FBI seizure notices.
According to VPNCentral, roughly 3.3 billion gamers exist in 2023, and 10% admitted to downloading or playing pirated games in the past three months. Among PC gamers, 35% have pirated titles, based on a PC Gamer survey, while mobile game piracy is even more rampant, about 95% of Android and 50–60% of iOS games are pirated.
This widespread piracy has tangible effects: besides hurting developer revenues, pirated games often contain malware, with 3.2 million PCs infected in 2021 due to downloads from shady sources.
Overall, these figures highlight that despite efforts in digital distribution and DRM, piracy remains a deeply entrenched problem, especially on PC and mobile platforms, posing ongoing challenges for the gaming industry.
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Pierluigi Paganini
(SecurityAffairs – hacking, piracy sites)
