Nintendo of America was awarded $4.5 million in damages in its lawsuit against a Reddit moderator who allegedly sold pirated Nintendo Switch games. Nintendo sued James Williams, who goes by Archbox online, in June 2024 for violating its copyrights. The court will also force Williams to close the online shops in which he distributes pirated games. Nintendo's win was a default judgement, which means that Williams did not respond to the lawsuit in court. Therefore, Nintendo won the amount it had asked for in its October 2025 filings seeking a default judgment.
"To effectuate this injunction, Williams shall immediately disable access to all online 'shops' that he operates or otherwise controls which have offered to the public extensive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games for download," Washington court clerk Joshua C. Lewis and deputy clerk Natalie Wood wrote in the default judgment filing.
Nintendo filed this lawsuit two years ago, on June 28, 2024, in a Washington district court. The company's lawyers filed another lawsuit in June against Modded Hardware, which sells kits to mod Nintendo Switch consoles to play pirated games.
Williams was reportedly a moderator of the /r/SwitchPirates subreddit, and, according to Nintendo, was the "operator, overseer, and driving force behind several Pirate Shops," which distributed tons of Nintendo Switch games illegally. The Switch Pirates subreddit is still active, but Williams does not appear to be listed as a moderator. Nintendo tracked Williams down via Reddit, then linked him to a Nintendo account that had filed for hardware repairs from Nintendo, Game File reported in November 2024. That gave them Williams' address, which is where the company sent a repaired piece of hardware just days before the cease-and-desist that eventually led to the lawsuit. The court issued a default entry in those November 2024 court filings ahead of the final, official ruling Wednesday.
Earlier in September, Nintendo targeted illegal European Nintendo Switch game and hardware digital storefronts. A new ruling from the District Court of Hague in the Netherlands makes it illegal to sell modding kits that let players download and play pirated games. "Nintendo's message to players is to avoid purchasing or using circumvention devices, circumvention software or unauthorised copies of video games, as this increases the risk of interfering with the functionality and experience provided by authentic Nintendo game consoles, video games and systems," Nintendo said in a statement to IGN about the European ruling.
