Heard of one game manufacturer that willfully distributed a version of their game on torrent. The torrented version of the game came bundled with a live webcam virus. They then made a website to stream the pirates on webcam. Ouch.
Neutering game play is a particularly bad way to punish pirates -- they're likely to tell all their friends that the "game sucks" and leave bad reviews on the web. Bad reviews don't deter the "try before you buy" pirate crowd near as much as they deter legitimate purchasers.