Nintendo of America is seeking over 4 million US dollars in damages from James C. Williams, a known Redditor who moderated a now-closed subreddit focused on pirating Nintendo Switch games.
On October 3, the American branch of the Japanese company submitted a filing at the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington requesting $4.5 million in damages following a legal battle against James C. Williams, also known as Archbox, that began in March 2024.
In the filing, Nintendo of America highlights how Archbox's activities have "substantially damaged NOA’s overall business and intellectual property rights, as well as the business and intellectual property rights of NOA's development and publishing partners, and further has caused harm to the many artists, game designers, programmers and others whose livelihoods depend upon the sale of authorized Nintendo products."
The company's $4.5 million claim is "nowhere near an amount that would compensate NOA for the seriousness of Defendants’ conduct," the filing continues, as the actual amount of money sufficient to remedy the injury.
Although James C. "Archbox" Williams is one of the two individuals targeted by Nintendo in its July 2024 lawsuit, they aren't the only member of the SwitchPirates subreddit the publisher has looked into. Last year, it was confirmed that the Japanese publisher was seeking the go-ahead from the court to subpoena business records from internet domain companies NameCheap, GoDaddy, Tucows, Cloudflare, GitHub, Discord, Google, and Reddit to identify anyone who helped Archobox with their illicit activities, which were made explicit in the now-closed subreddit.
Nintendo has always held a very strong stance against piracy, a stance that only hardened ahead of the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2 this year. In 2024, the Japanese publisher shut down the Yuzu and Ryujinx Nintendo Switch emulators to prevent Switch games from being played on PC without the system and mandatory purchase of official game releases.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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