You’ve probably heard thatNintendosettled its lawsuit with emulation company Yuzu, to the princely tune of $2.4 million. That’s a lot of money, though for Nintendo (whose 2023 revenue was $11.97 billion), the bigger victory was that Yuzu shut down as a result of the lawsuit. But you might be a little fuzzy on what the case was about, what it means for the future, and what sort of precedents were set. We’ll break it down for you here.
It’s also worth noting this is a continuation of Nintendo’s litigious streak, which sawhacker Gary Bowser imprisonedfor his crime of aiding people in hacking Switches to play pirated games. He was later released, butowes Nintendo $10 million in damages, which he is unlikely to ever pay back in full. Nintendo followed all proper legal channels in both cases, but combined, these seem to signal a new era of video game legislation with dire consequences for those who skirt the law. This added fear could be as influential in changing the shape of the market as any legal ramifications are.
What Was Yuzu?
In simple terms, Yuzu was the most popular and most widely available emulator for theNintendo Switch. Released in 2018, it allowed users to play Switch games on their PC or in some cases, their phones orSteam Deck, rather than the Switch itself. Yuzu’s maker Bunnei said in a statement following the lawsuit that “piracy was never our intention”, and that has always been the legal defence. You were ‘supposed’ to only emulate games you already owned that you had uploaded ROMs of, with PC being used purely for ease of access, higher graphics settings, mods, et cetera. Of course, in reality, many people played games they did not own, which moved it from emulation to piracy.
Emulating a game you already own is legal. Yuzu is no longer active as of the lawsuit, but last week when it was, it was all above board if you bought a game on the Switch and then emulated it through Yuzu to play it on your PC, so long as you extracted the ROM yourself. But it’s similar to torrent streaming sites telling you not to upload or download copyrighted material - while the act of being on the site is not illegal, most users were there for illegal purposes. This is what prompted Nintendo’s involvement.
Why Did Nintendo Sue Yuzu?
The short answer as to why Nintendo sued Yuzu was that Nintendo didn’t want people emulating Switch games. Though legally you’re supposed to buy the game first then emulate as you wish, a lot of people don’t. Proving that can be tricky… unless they’re emulating a leaked version of an unreleased game, which is precisely what happened.
you may’t sue a company for some of their software users not buying a video game. However, what Nintendo claimed was that not only was Yuzu infringing on Nintendo copyright and circumventing the Switch’s copyright protection, it was also selling that circumvention technology, and at that point it moved from being emulation software into specifically assisting in breaking the law.
A lot of this hinged onThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. This was available to emulate on Yuzu before the game was even released, meaning those paying for it did not own the game (legally speaking, preordering does not count as ownership). Nintendo claimed over one million copies were emulated this way, and the losses it accrued via this emulation was the justification for that $2.4 million settlement figure.
What Legal Precedents Were Set By Nintendo Versus Yuzu?
Surprisingly, the legal outcome has very little impact on the wider ecosystem of emulation, piracy, and gaming. Because this was a settlement (a judge is yet to approve, but this is considered a formality at this stage), no legal precedents have been set in court.
There is still no legal judgement on exactly when an emulation company, site, or platform endorses, supports, or aids in piracy. Typically when a case like this goes to court, whatever the outcome is becomes the standard for all future cases, which would have made it easier or harder to sue emulators as a result. There would have been an appeal and other complications, but in essence, this case would have decided the ruling for the future. Thanks to this settlement, there still is no ruling.
Of course, this settlement means Yuzu lost, at least in practical terms. It owes over $2 million, has to shut down, and has to surrender its brand name, domain, and Patreon platform. Yuzu lost. But in losing in this manner, we might say it has fallen on its sword. Emulation is as legal now as it was before this lawsuit began, although a victory this crushing will embolden corporations to sue and likely frighten emulation software providers from being quite so open.
The Defence of Emulation
There are some layers to the defence, but unfortunately a lot of them are mixed in with ‘I want to play video games for free’. In our all-digital, always-online world, games can often be taken away from players without much warning, or else forgotten through time. For Nintendo especially, there’s also the question of backwards compatibility making gaming less accessible, and making our own history harder to experience and preserve.
Many consider emulation to be analogous for piracy, but it’s also analogous for preservation. There are some games that can only be played these days via emulation, due either to the last copies being lost, developers taking the game offline and off the market, or a dependence on incredibly expensive old and unreliable consoles. Emulation is an important practice, but companies are unlikely to care about this defence and will always see emulation as piracy no matter what. After all, even if you’re playing a game you canonlyplay via emulation, then you are technically pirating that as well.
Then there is the argument that piracy itself is morally correct given the huge profit margins of corporations, the crunch often involved in game development, and a general distaste for billion dollar companies greasing the gears of capitalism. At this point, you move to an ideological stance from a legal one, and even more of that ‘I want to play video games for free’ argument gets wrapped up in there, and it gets harder to parse the true beliefs from the selfish motives disguised as a belief system.
Ultimately, this case is a significant loss for emulation, even if the legal precedent remains as it was before. It’s hard to know exactly what the future is as preservation becomes more necessary and piracy becomes more commonplace. We will likely see future lawsuits like this in the coming years, as the media landscape continues to shift in unpredictable ways.
Nintendo Switch
Launched in 2017, the Nintendo Switch allows you to switch between console and handheld gaming easily.
