Nintendo Lawsuit Demands $4.5 Million From Reddit Mod For Selling Switch ROMs

Nintendo is once again in the news for a multi-million dollar lawsuit, but this time it's against a piracy subreddit operator instead of a game developer. Nintendo's latest high-profile lawsuit has the company pouncing on James C. Williams, aka Reddit user u/Archbox, for his behavior moderating several piracy subreddits and "Pirate Shops" for Nintendo Switch games, and it's for a whopping $4.5 million USD. Last month, we saw Nintendo take a different Switch modder to court for $2 million USD, and we've been reporting on the Nintendo Anti-Palworld lawsuit against Pocketpair since that story broke late last year. More recently and controversially on that front, Nintendo has begun trying to assert patents on fundamental game mechanics, a move that has proven particularly controversial since Nintendo did not invent any of the mechanics showcased in Pokemon.

With this latest lawsuit, it's hard to argue that Nintendo is doing something wrong when it's going after people explicitly pirating and distributing the work of it and its partners for financial gain. It's one thing to defend legitimate competition or emulation with legally-purchased games (though Nintendo clearly also hates those)—it's another to defend software piracy for a profit. According to the lawsuit filing, Nintendo even sent a formal request for Archbox to cease his activities before taking him to court—a warning that apparently went unheard, considering the bombshell filing for over $4 million dollars. 


As of now, no ruling has been made in this case, and no comments have been made by Archbox. That said, Nintendo's case seems fairly strong, so while its $4.5 million demand may seem astronomically high, we wouldn't be surprised to see the court agree to reward it in this case as a warning to other for-profit pirates. This suit, readable in full here, was originally spotted by @OatmealDome on Twitter. We're surprised so many people put themselves in the crosshairs of Nintendo's notoriously-vicious legal team. But if there was ever a target deserving of Nintendo's wrath, it would be a for-profit pirate instead of an emulator or fan-game developer. 

That said, threats to brick your console if you break EULA still come off as draconian, so we wouldn't be surprised if some readers think Nintendo is taking its war against modders and pirates a little too far.