Nintendo wins $4.5 million in lawsuit over pirated Switch games

Nintendo of America has been awarded $4.5 million in damages in a lawsuit against an individual who allegedly sold pirated versions of Switch games. The case, filed in 2024, ended in a default judgment because the defendant never responded in court.

Who the company sued

The target was James Williams, who operated online under the handle Archbox and was reportedly a moderator of the r/SwitchPirates community on Reddit. That community is still active, though Williams no longer appears on its list of moderators.

In its complaint, Nintendo described Williams as the "operator, overseer and driving force behind several Pirate Shops" — online storefronts that carried large libraries of pirated Switch titles. According to the company, those shops offered the games for download to anyone who wanted them.

A win by default

Nintendo has a large legal team and a reputation for pursuing copyright cases aggressively, but this suit required comparatively little courtroom work. Because Williams did not answer the complaint, the court granted Nintendo a win by default and awarded the $4.5 million in damages.

The ruling also orders him to immediately disable access to every online shop he operates or controls that has offered pirated Nintendo Switch games for download.

Part of a wider campaign

The case fits a pattern of enforcement actions Nintendo has pursued in recent years. In 2024 it sued the creators of the Yuzu emulator, arguing that the software bypassed the encryption protecting Switch games; the company said The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was downloaded from pirate sites more than a million times before its official release. A separate lawsuit targets the streamer EveryGameGuru, accused of broadcasting pirated games before launch, with Nintendo seeking $150,000 for each copyright violation.

The targets differ — emulator developers, streamers and now the operators of pirate shops — but the aim is the same: to cut off the channels through which pirated Switch software reaches players.