After suing a former Reddit moderator in October 2025 for pirating Swap video games, a Washington courtroom has ordered the person in query to pay Nintendo $4.5 million in damages.
In line with a September 25 TorrentFreak report, US District Choose Lauren King ordered former r/SwitchPirates moderator James “Archbox” Williams to cough up $4.5 million in damages to Nintendo after the corporate accused him of working a number of pirate retailers to illegally decrypt and distribute Swap video games to the general public.
The lawsuit, which was filed in a Washington federal courtroom in June 2024, said that Williams had been operating this racket since at the least 2019, utilizing “circumvention machine” software program to bypass the corporate’s methods and acquire entry to over 30 Nintendo Swap video games. This consists of titles like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Tremendous Smash Bros. Final.
Williams reportedly ignored the grievance on the time, which prompted Nintendo to hunt the statutory most of $150,000 per title in October 2025. And simply this week, Choose King agreed with Nintendo’s request, stating that Williams was conscious of the case, as he each employed a lawyer to object to a Google subpoena and continued posting on Reddit however opted to not reply to the corporate’s lawsuit.
In a single screenshot saved by TorrentFreak, Williams referred to as himself a “pirate” in a Reddit thread, clarifying that he–and others like him–won’t “give Nintendo $50 for a sport” when there are “months of releases unavailable wherever.”
It’s kind of like that I Suppose You Ought to Go away skit, the place Tim Robinson, in a scorching canine go well with, drives a hot-dog-shaped automobile via a suiting retailer and is “in search of the man who did this.” Each Choose King and Nintendo know the man who did it, and so they need him to pay quite a bit for his actions.
“The final issue additionally weighs closely in favor of the statutory most penalty as a result of NOA’s grievance accommodates well-supported and intensive allegations that Williams knew the videogames had been copyrighted however willfully undertook his copying and distribution efforts anyway,” Choose King concluded within the go well with. “Williams’ egregious infringement actions advantage substantial punishment right here.”
Along with the $4.5 million in damages, Williams has additionally been ordered to stop all unlawful distributions of Swap video games via a everlasting injunction. This consists of barring him from encouraging others to obtain pirated video games or bypass Nintendo’s methods to take action, disabling his myriad pirate retailers, and deactivating his social media accounts. In line with TorrentFreak, a lot of this has already occurred, as Williams’ Discord, Instagram, Reddit, Telegram, TikTok, and X accounts are gone. Additional, among the pirate retailers Williams ran had been taken offline after Nintendo despatched a cease-and-desist letter in March 2024.
For Nintendo, that is one other win towards thieves who assume they’ll get away with pirating the corporate’s video games. In line with the lawsuit, the corporate needed to each cease Williams’ infringing actions and use him for example of what occurs if you go up towards the ever-litigious Mario maker. Watch out. These white gloves may serve you papers.