It’s easy to win when the accused doesn’t show up.
Nintendo of America has been awarded $4.5 million in damages following a lawsuit the company filed against an individual who allegedly sold pirated versions of Switch games. The target of the lawsuit was James Williams, known online by the pseudonym Archbox and believed to be a moderator of the r/SwitchPirates Reddit community. The subreddit in question is still active, although Consequences noted that Williams does not currently appear in the mod list.
Nintendo claimed in its complaint, originally filed in 2024, that Williams was the “operator, supervisor, and driving force behind several pirate stores.” Although Nintendo has a large legal team that it is known for deploying aggressively, lawyers had comparatively less to do this time around because Williams failed to respond to the lawsuit in court, handing the gaming company a victory by default. Williams was still ordered to “immediately disable access to any online ‘stores’ he operates or otherwise controls that offer large libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games to the public for download.”
