Nintendo Wins $4.5 Million From Reddit Mod Who Sold Pirated Switch Games

Nintendo has finally won its long-running lawsuit against a Reddit moderator who sold pirated Switch games, and been awarded $4.5 million in damages.

We've been tracking Nintendo of America's legal action against James "Archbox" Williams for the past two years, ever since the firm initially used a combination of Reddit posts and Williams' own Nintendo repair orders to track him down and launch litigation back in late 2014.

Williams was accused of leading the Reddit community SwitchPirates, whose 190,000 members regularly discussed how to download illegally pirated games and circumvent Nintendo's anti-piracy measures. Williams was also accused of operating and advertising various online "shops" where piracy-enabling software and tools could be acquired.

Nintendo initially demanded $4.5 million from Williams last year, though said at the time that this figure was "nowhere near an amount that would compensate Nintendo of America for the seriousness of the Defendant's conduct." Almost 12 months later, the full amount has now been awarded by default — seemingly because Williams did not respond to the lawsuit at any point.

"It is ordered and adjudged that default judgment is hereby entered against Defendant James C. Williams," reads a ruling filed this week, confirming that Nintendo of America has now been awarded the $4.5 million it previously demanded, as well as a permanent injunction barring Williams from selling pirated Switch games and other piracy-assisting software or modded consoles.

Williams must now close all of his remaining online "shops" where "extensive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games" have been made available for download, and any social media accounts, Discord servers and the like where these have been advertised.

The legal victory follows another big win for Nintendo in Europe earlier this month, where the Mario maker successfully had the sale of piracy-enabling Switch accessories banned from sale. Commonly marketed as the MIG Switch, these devices can circumvent Nintendo's anti-piracy measures and play illegal copies of games downloaded from the internet. Nintendo made headlines last year after it began penalizing players who had used these devices on their consoles, disabling the machines' online functionality.

This is, of course, far from the first time that Nintendo has initiated legal action to stop the sale of piracy-enabling devices. Last year, a Nintendo console modder who refused to shut down his business — and who then attempted to defend himself without a lawyer — was ordered to pay $2 million by Nintendo. And then there's the infamous case of Gary Bowser, an employee of a company that sold anti-piracy devices, who served time in jail and was ordered to pay $14.5m in damages, a debt he's said he will now repay for the rest of his life.

Now, Nintendo just needs to track down Archbox and get him to pay... We'll keep an eye on how all that goes, and keep you updated.