We Should All Be Worried About Nintendo's Latest Legal Moves, Especially If You Already Enjoy Nintendo Games

There was a time when Nintendo games sparked my imagination, along with those of game developers worldwide, but the Nintendo of today is little more than a boogeyman, frightening the next generation of game makers, and protecting its IP like a fire-breathing Bowser, with no empathy for those it burns. I would love to return to the innocent days when I would have canonized Shigeru Miyamoto, and when I could play a Mario game and enjoy the timeless charm of platforming bliss without thinking of the company’s ruthless legal department and its heartless litigation. Game developers have it far worse.

Every time Nintendo sues ROM websites for millions, some fans will leap to the company’s defense, parroting empty rhetoric that the company has the right to protect its Intellectual Property against piracy. These defenders tend to quiet down when they see Nintendo’s history of taking legal action against non-profit fan games, sheet music, and gaming tournaments that promote their own products. The massive array of video game-related patents the company has accrued is the current albatross around the neck of the entire video game industry. Nintendo can sue nearly anyone at any time that they get in the company’s crosshairs.

Nintendo Has A Notoriously Ruthless & Aggressive Legal Team

Nothing Is Safe From Nintendo's Litigation, From Tournaments To Sheet Music

The lawsuit against Tropic Haze made it clear that Nintendo will annihilate video game preservation in favor of its bottom line, as it shut down the two most promising Nintendo Switch emulators, while creating a fear-based deterrent to any future emulation endeavors. For every case that goes to trial, there are many more incidents where a cease and desist frightens a small indie developer or a fan project into submission. Nintendo is among the most profitable companies in Japan. The party with deeper pockets wins by default in most legal matters. Those challenged typically settle out of fear of Nintendo.

While Nintendo shut down Smash Bros. tournaments that used mods, and will routinely bully nonprofit developers into removing free fan games, it continues to rake in massive profits from its Switch hardware and video game sales. The same law firm Nintendo retained to drive Switch emulation to extinction, Adler Pollock & Sheehan, proudly boasts of its efforts in representing the state of Rhode Island in its efforts to withhold pension benefits from retirees and defending aviation-related wrongful death suits. As reported by Automaton, Nintendo’s patent attorney Koji Nishiura attempted to justify the company’s infamous scare tactics to dismantle emulation projects.

The survival game Palworld may change because of Nintendo, as the company reached into its bottomless bag of video game-related patents for any excuse to take the game down a peg. It is well-known that Nintendo went on a spree of patenting nearly any game design concept it could think of, like detecting a hidden enemy by seeing its shadow from behind a tree. This is an example of something so intuitive that it might not be legally defensible, much like catching a monster in a ball, but being legally right is meaningless if you can’t afford the fight.

The Next Generation Of Developers Are Afraid Of Nintendo

Unethical Litigation Creates A Toxic Environment For Future Game Makers

Video game historian John Szczepaniak was a guest lecturer at TechnoCampus University in Spain last year. As reported by Time Extension, Nintendo’s massive array of patents, and the company’s lack of scruples towards filing unethical lawsuits, has become a source of real fear for prospective game makers. Szczepaniak said, "Students then described their fears over Nintendo's excessive litigation, given they will literally sue you for anything these days. This cannot be overemphasized: the young, passionate, hopeful creators of tomorrow are afraid to explore their artistic urges in case Nintendo attacks them." The company that once inspired imagination now inspires fear.

Completely free-to-play fan projects are abandoned out of concern for legal action. A Mother 4 fan game was renamed Oddity, and appears to have gone radio silent, along with many other fan-made projects that have dried up in recent years. Numerous fantastic video games have built off Nintendo’s creations, like Braid’s subversive take on Mario, or Tunic’s deconstruction of the Zelda formula. Many of today’s best-known developers grew up with Nintendo games and hardware, and those experiences encouraged them to enter the industry. Now, Nintendo’s bullying and Draconian legal tactics are more likely to kill any dream of game development.

The Nintendo Switch outsold the PS1 and Wii years ago, and Switch 2 will likely continue the momentum. Nintendo notoriously sells hardware with a profit margin, where most gaming consoles are sold at a loss. First-party Switch games that are years old still rarely see markdowns in their prices. All of this adds to the fact that Nintendo is not hurting for money. The company does not need to crack down on games like Palworld, emulation, and fan projects, to stay profitable. Nintendo needlessly chooses to pursue relentless legal actions, without concern for ethics or consequences, creating an industry-wide chilling effect.

Aspiring Game Devs Once Inspired By Nintendo Now Fear Reprisal

Nintendo Crushes The Hobby's Future In Its Zeal To Protect Its IPs

For any misguided fans who think this is simply the legal system rendering justice, the result in which Nintendo won the Joy-Con lawsuit alone is proof that being morally, or even legally, in the right, has little to do with outcomes in litigation. Joy-Con drift is an undeniable fact, making it clear justice has no bearing in these matters. The ability to outspend the other party decides the outcome far more often than any issues of fact or precedent, as parties are forced to settle to mitigate risk and further mounting expenses. Few defendants can match Nintendo’s infamously deep pockets.

I wish I could return to the time when I could be unabashedly excited about a new Nintendo console, but now, I am constantly torn by the knowledge that every purchase funds a video game company that is inherently hostile to the medium of video games. As much as Nintendo once contributed to the art of video games, today, the company clearly views things through the lens of IP protection and maximizing profit, not furthering the art form or preserving it for the future. The next generation of game makers have good reason to fear Nintendo’s looming shadow over the industry.

Source: Automaton, Time Extension