Game of Thrones Season 3 is most pirated show of 2013

The year 2013 is about to come to a close, which means it's time for an endless parade of lists, best-ofs, worst-ofs and more chronicles of the year that was. At the end of each year, Torrent Freak releases a list of the 10 most pirated shows of the year, and Game of Thrones once again topped this year's offering just as it did in 2012.

The site reports that Season 3 finale of Game of Thrones alone accumulated 5.9 million downloads via BitTorrent, which obliterates the competition. According to Torrent Freak, more than half of the downloads took place in the first week after the show initially aired on HBO, and the total number of downloads surpassed the number of viewers that watched the episode on regular television in the United States.

AMC rounded out the Top 3 with Breaking Bad in second place at 4.2 million downloads and The Walking Dead in third place with 3.6 million downloads.

Game of Thrones already broke two piracy records this year, including 170,000 people simultaneously sharing a copy of a Season 3 episode.

Part of the reason for the massive piracy of Game of Thrones could be the HBO network itself, which does not offer many ways to see the show other than on television or through HBO GO. Netflix made offers to get the rights to stream the show but was unsuccessful.

But it seems as though the piracy does not bother those behind the scenes on the show, as director David Petrarca said the downloads caused "cultural buzz" about the HBO hit.

Here is the rest of the list broken down by rank, estimated number of downloads and estimated number of TV viewers, in that order:

1) Game of Thrones               5,900,000      5,500,000

2) Breaking Bad                     4,200,000      10,280,000

3) The Walking Dead             3,600,000      16,110,000

4) The Big Bang Theory         3,400,000      20,440,000

5) Dexter                                3,100,000      2,800,000

6) How I Met Your Mother    3,000,000      9,400,000

7) Suits                                   2,600,000      3,520,000

8) Homeland                          2,400,000      2,380,000

9) Vikings                               2,300,000      6,000,000

10) Arrow                              2,200,000      3,240,000