Nintendo demands £3.3 million in damages over Switch piracy case
Another person might soon owe Nintendo millions in damages, as the company continues to crack down on piracy.
Another person might soon owe Nintendo millions in damages, as the company continues to crack down on piracy.
Nintendo has a brutal reputation when it comes to dishing out lawsuits over piracy, but even after a string of successful cases, people continue to test the house of Mario.
Over the past year alone, we’ve seen someone in Japan who modded Switch consoles being sent to prison, while another was ordered to pay $2 million (£1.4 million) in damages. Although that pales compared to the $14 million (£10.4 million) that the appropriately named Gary Bowser was forced to pay in 2023.
Another case has now emerged involving someone who allegedly copied and sold pirated Nintendo Switch games across various websites, and Nintendo is asking for a huge amount in compensation.
According to the lawsuit (highlighted by OatmealDome on Bluesky), Nintendo is seeking an injunction and $4.5 million (£3.3 million) in damages against James C. Williams, who goes under the online moniker ‘Archbox’.
As noted in the filing, Williams is said to have ‘copied and distributed Nintendo game files without authorisation’, and ‘facilitated a network of unauthorised online ‘shops” which ‘offered to the public extensive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games’.
Additionally, it’s claimed Williams helped people obtain and use circumvention software so they could play pirated games, as a moderator on the SwitchPirates Reddit community.
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[Lawsuit]Nintendo is requesting that a court award it $4,500,000 in damages from a Switch piracy Reddit moderator for operating multiple piracy sites.The person refused to stop after Nintendo asked them to, which led to this lawsuit.They also did not respond to the lawsuit.
— OatmealDome ????️???? (@oatmealdome.bsky.social) 2025-10-04T17:16:10.1054580ZNintendo originally filed a lawsuit against Williams in June last year, around the same time as the aforementioned case against Modded Hardware. This came after Nintendo sent the former a cease and desist letter in March 2024, requesting he shut down his pirated shops.
Williams apparently ‘acknowledged his conduct violated Nintendo of America’s rights’ in response to the cease and desist and initially said he would ‘satisfy its demands’, but he did not agree to cease his conduct, and ‘in fact denied his involvement with the Pirate Shops in several respects’.
It continues: ‘When Nintendo of America requested that Defendant confirm in writing that he would comply with Nintendo of America’s demands, he became combative and uncooperative.’
According to this filing, Williams never directly responded to the subsequent lawsuit after the cease and desist, with his lawyer only filing a ‘notice of limited appearance’ in relation to a third party subpoena to Google over the pirated materials.
According to Nintendo, Williams’ actions have ‘substantially damaged Nintendo of America’s overall business and intellectual property rights’, and has additionally ’caused harm to the many artists, game designers, programmers and others whose livelihoods depend upon the sale of authorised Nintendo products’.
While it remains to be seen if Nintendo will be granted the injunction and $4.5 million in damages by the court, it certainly isn’t looking good for the accused.
Over the past few years, Nintendo’s strong stance against piracy has led to the shutdown of several Switch emulators, including Yuzu and Citra. The company has even gone after YouTubers who promoted these kinds of devices in videos.
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