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Remember those Nintendo Switch emulators you used to post about on Reddit? You know, when you used to comment on all those stories on r/SwitchPirates gloating about playing Tears of the Kingdom a week early on Yuzu?
Yeah. Nintendo was watching. Nintendo sees (or is that sues) everything. Nintendo’s legal eagles have been lurking in the less salubrious corners of the self-styled Front Page of the Internet, notebooks in hand flicking between Subreddits, and have filed in Federal Court alleging that alleged moderator James ‘Archbox’ Williams ran a “vast network of pirate shops” which is used the r/SwitchPirates forum to promote pirated games and tools.
Nintendo states they believe Williams to be one of the primary moderators of the subreddit and was in active control of many accounts.
The filing reads: “We…learned that Defendant was the primary moderator of the “SwitchPirates” Reddit community and apparently was the owner of a GitHub account directly tied to these activities. In nearly all of these capacities, Defendant operated as “Archbox” or a close variant of that name. Through diligent research and investigation, we were able to connect these activities to Mr. Williams, at an address in the Phoenix, Arizona area.”
The argument that r/SwitchPirates was, and is, instrumental in Nintendo Switch piracy is tricky to laugh off once you have er, seen its name.
The full filing – Nintendo of America Inc v. Williams (courtesy of Stephen Totilo) – requests the court subpoena Reddit, alongside a list of other services such as GitHub and Discord for user records that would tie Williams and any possible associates, or even users of the subreddit to the piracy of Nintendo Switch games.
Who might be on Nintendo’s ‘list’?
While it is unlikely that you would receive a knock at the door for posting about a pirated ROM, those who were active in supplying and developing tools aimed at Nintendo’s protection systems could need to lawyer up if the count grants Nintendo’s request and forces Reddit to comply.
This has major implications for many of the darker areas of the site. As ever Nintendo’s tactics seem to be as much to ward off its piracy problem by tactical assaults on key players in the scene who would never have the legal ability to take on the corporation and squash the issue that way, knowing that massive financial penalties against individuals would be unlikely to ever be paid.
With Yuzu and Rjujinx deceased, mainstream mass Switch piracy for the majority seems to be dead in the water, leaving it to the hardcore. Nintendo it seems, has not finished with its battle just yet.
