Nintendo sues creator for playing pirated Switch games on Twitch

Nintendo has made headlines with a few high-profile lawsuits this year, targeting massively popular Switch emulators like Yuzu and Ryujinx. Now, Nintendo is also targeting those who uploaded videos promoting Switch piracy and the use of those emulators. 

This week, it came to light that Nintendo is suing Jesse Keighin, also known as Every Game Guru. Keighin is accused of streaming pirated Nintendo games, in some cases, weeks ahead of a game's release after obtaining leaked game files.

Keighin wasn't exactly subtle about his use of Switch emulators. The lawsuit filing includes screenshots of different streams, which clearly display the emulator status bar for both Ryujinx and Yuzu. Nintendo also points to PC stat monitoring software shown in the corner of some streams. PC gamers will be very familiar with the overlay, which displays the graphics API, frame rate, as well as CPU/GPU usage stats.

In the lawsuit, Nintendo states:

“By not only streaming leaked games, but also directly providing users links to circumvention software, Nintendo’s proprietary cryptographic keys, and pirated ROM repositories, Defendant is giving his viewers everything they need to pirate as many games as they wish. Indeed, Defendant recently boasted online that he wants to ‘help anyone and everyone who wants to get Nintendo games for free (and early), or who needs help installing and setting up Switch emulators that let you play Switch games for free”.

The lawsuit lists ten specific titles that Keighin has streamed prior to release. The company is seeking $150,000 in damages for each of those games streamed, as well as $2500 per ‘act of circumvention', which would mean each stream where a pirated game was played, as well as $2500 for each time he provided links to direct viewers towards piracy-enabling resources.

In total, the damages will equate to millions and as there is clear evidence of piracy being utilised for these game streams, the situation does not look good for the defendant.

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KitGuru Says: While some headlines have made this sound like a case of Nintendo going after someone for simply playing games on an emulator, the situation is quite different. This is a case of an online content creator actively taunting Nintendo and repeatedly streaming leaked copies of games ahead of release. If you are doing that in private, off-stream, you probably aren't going to get served with legal papers. 

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