Gaming
Nintendo Won 4.5 Million Dollars by Default Against a Reddit Pirate
A federal judge in Washington state handed Nintendo a $4.5 million victory this week, in a case where the defense table stayed empty the whole way through. On September 23, US District Judge Lauren King entered a default judgment against James Williams, known online as Archbox, awarding Nintendo the full amount it had requested in its October 2025 filings.
The arithmetic is maximum force. The court granted $150,000 in statutory damages for each of 30 copyrighted games, the ceiling allowed for willful infringement, landing exactly at $4.5 million. The named titles include Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with Animal Crossing New Horizons and Pikmin 4 also cited in reporting. Nintendo's filing described Williams as the operator, overseer, and driving force behind several pirate shops distributing unauthorized Switch games at scale.
Williams was reportedly a leading moderator of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit, a community of nearly 190,000 members that directed users toward sites offering unauthorized downloads. Nintendo sued on June 28, 2024, and traced him through a detail that reads like a lesson in operational security. Game File reported in November 2024 that the company linked his online alias to a Nintendo account used to request hardware repairs, which produced a physical address. A repaired console shipped back to him days before the cease and desist that led to the lawsuit.
The judgment goes beyond the dollar figure. A permanent injunction requires Williams to immediately disable access to every online shop under his control, shut down social media accounts tied to piracy, and stop distributing Nintendo software or circumvention technology in any form. According to the court order, he did hire a lawyer at one point to object to a Google subpoena, but he left the complaint itself unanswered, which left every allegation uncontested.
This is the second front in Nintendo's current campaign. Earlier this month, the District Court of The Hague in the Netherlands ruled that selling Switch modding kits, including MIG Switch style devices that let players load unauthorized games, is illegal across Europe. Nintendo told IGN the ruling protects the functionality and experience of authentic consoles, and in June the company's lawyers filed a separate suit against Modded Hardware, a seller of console modification kits.
The gaming world should read this as the maturation of anti piracy enforcement. The industry used to chase download links. Now it traces repair receipts, follows the hardware, and pairs courtroom judgments with injunctions that dismantle the distribution infrastructure itself. For players, the message is equally clear. The cheapest way to keep playing Nintendo games is the simplest one, buying them, because the company has shown it will find the person behind the alias.
Quick answers
What is this story about?
A federal judge in Washington state handed Nintendo a $4.5 million victory this week, in a case where the defense table stayed empty the whole way through. On September 23, US District Judge Lauren King entered a default judgment against James Williams, known online as Archbox, awarding Nintendo the full amount it had requested in its October 2025 filings.
Why does this story matter?
The gaming world should read this as the maturation of anti piracy enforcement. The industry used to chase download links. Now it traces repair receipts, follows the hardware, and pairs courtroom judgments with injunctions that dismantle the distribution infrastructure itself. For players, the message is equally clear. The cheapest way to keep playing Nintendo games is the simplest one, buying them, because the company has shown it will find the person behind the alias.
Sources
- Aftermath: Nintendo wins $4.5M in Switch pirate lawsuit
- TechSpot: Nintendo wins $4.5 million piracy judgment
- Nintendo Wire: Court awards $4.5 million against Archbox
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