Nintendo wins $4.5 million lawsuit against Switch pirate by default

Nintendo of America just won a lawsuit against James Williams, who allegedly moderated the r/SwitchPirates subreddit and sold pirated Switch games online. According to Aftermath, the company sued Williams in June 2024 for copyright violations. However, they failed to respond even after several months, so the company asked for and received a default judgement in their favor.

The court is now directing Williams to pay $4.5 million to Nintendo of America for damages and shut down the pirated shops they control. “To effectuate this injunction, Williams shall immediately disable access to all online ‘shops’ that he operates or otherwise controls which have offered to the public extensive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games for download,” Washington court clerk Joshua C. Lewis and deputy clerk Natalie Wood said in the default judgement filing.

Williams was reportedly uncovered through an in-depth investigation by the company and its lawyers, which tracked them through their Archbox persona on Reddit. Nintendo then matched the details it found on the social media platform to its internal database and discovered that it was linked to a Nintendo account that had a handheld sent in for repairs. A few days after the unit was returned to Williams’ address, the company sent a cease-and-desist, to which the defendant allegedly replied via email.

Nintendo said in its filing that Williams agreed to comply and cooperate with the company’s demands and requests that are within their control but has since cut-off communications. Because of this, it asked the court for a default judgement in October 2025, which the court finally granted.

Nintendo is known for being litigious when it comes to its intellectual property. The developers of Switch emulator Yuzu settled with Nintendo for $2.4 million in 2024, while the company won a $2 million settlement against a Switch modder making backup devices like the MIG Switch and MIG Dumper last year. It has also successfully applied DMCA strikes on over 400 GitHub repositories hosting Switch emulators earlier this year.

But despite many public wins, Nintendo does not always prevail in its lawsuits. Palworld, which is often described as “Pokémon with guns,” has sold over 5 million copies on Steam, and Nintendo hasn’t filed a copyright lawsuit against the company. Instead, it sued the developers of the game for patent infringement several months after it went viral. The case is still ongoing, but sources say that Nintendo could only expect a maximum payout of $30,000 if it were to win its case.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.