Nintendo sent a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice for over 8,000 GitHub repositories hosting code from the Yuzu Switch emulator, which the Zelda maker previously described as enabling “piracy at a colossal scale.”
If you want to discuss specifically why someone might pirate a game for the explicit purpose of not liking Nintendo’s practices then it sounds like you don’t understand the concept of spite and/or don’t understand how
infrequently that is the primary reason one would pirate a game in comparison to the other myriad reasons.
Pirating a game comes with some inherit risk depending on precise circumstances so a potential pirate would be to weigh how much their desire to play a game compares to the time and effort it would take to get it working (download time, installing emulators, installing drivers, configuring, modifying the game, etc), the risk to the machine they’d be installing it on (the malware that may be installed alongside, the risk of physical damage to hardware modifications that might be required, the potential for your console or your IP being banned from servers, etc), and if it’s worth any additional hardware they might require to install it (additional storage space, buying tools to modify hardware, buying hardware mods that could allow hacks, etc)
Not being physically, legally, or financially capable of buying games may make someone willing to risk some, many, or all of these factors. I can’t imagine a significant percentage of people who’d pirate a game like Tears of the Kingdom were financially well off enough to easily afford it, but chose to do it with the explicit purpose of saying “Screw Nintendo, they don’t deserve the money I easily could give them for this game.”
I can however reasonably believe that the majority of the pirates for a game like Tears of the Kingdom would do so because “I can’t play the game without better accessibility options that Nintendo doesn’t offer, so I need to play it on an emulator that can support what I need”, “it’s not available in my region other than from brick and mortar stores which are all out of stock or charge absurd prices I can’t afford”, or “I just want to add a few mods to make the game I love even more enjoyable without risking my console getting banned from online play”.
But refusing to discuss other reasons except the most petty feels like you want to disregard other valid reasons in order misrepresent piracy as nothing but a petty practice. Of course I don’t know your exact intentions, but that’s the vibe I get from your response here.
Actually, I have seen many, many comments by people after the ‘Yuzu’ incident that because of this action, they will now pirate Nintendo games, instead of paying them. There’s a comment in this thread saying they will not buy Switch 2 but emulate it, just to spite them.
Regularly seeing those comments so many times just made me inquire this. Though, now thinking about it, maybe there isn’t any other answer other than “spite” itself. If not for pirating, then at least for the comments.
As for piracy for other reasons, it’s a different discussion with many nuances, so don’t think this is the right place for it. Also emulation and piracy aren’t the same thing, even though Nintendo won’t like to think so, emulating your legally owned game is completely legal. And I don’t think there has been any judgement against dumping your own keys and using those. But again, different discussion.
If you want to discuss specifically why someone might pirate a game for the explicit purpose of not liking Nintendo’s practices then it sounds like you don’t understand the concept of spite and/or don’t understand how infrequently that is the primary reason one would pirate a game in comparison to the other myriad reasons.
Pirating a game comes with some inherit risk depending on precise circumstances so a potential pirate would be to weigh how much their desire to play a game compares to the time and effort it would take to get it working (download time, installing emulators, installing drivers, configuring, modifying the game, etc), the risk to the machine they’d be installing it on (the malware that may be installed alongside, the risk of physical damage to hardware modifications that might be required, the potential for your console or your IP being banned from servers, etc), and if it’s worth any additional hardware they might require to install it (additional storage space, buying tools to modify hardware, buying hardware mods that could allow hacks, etc)
Not being physically, legally, or financially capable of buying games may make someone willing to risk some, many, or all of these factors. I can’t imagine a significant percentage of people who’d pirate a game like Tears of the Kingdom were financially well off enough to easily afford it, but chose to do it with the explicit purpose of saying “Screw Nintendo, they don’t deserve the money I easily could give them for this game.”
I can however reasonably believe that the majority of the pirates for a game like Tears of the Kingdom would do so because “I can’t play the game without better accessibility options that Nintendo doesn’t offer, so I need to play it on an emulator that can support what I need”, “it’s not available in my region other than from brick and mortar stores which are all out of stock or charge absurd prices I can’t afford”, or “I just want to add a few mods to make the game I love even more enjoyable without risking my console getting banned from online play”.
But refusing to discuss other reasons except the most petty feels like you want to disregard other valid reasons in order misrepresent piracy as nothing but a petty practice. Of course I don’t know your exact intentions, but that’s the vibe I get from your response here.
Actually, I have seen many, many comments by people after the ‘Yuzu’ incident that because of this action, they will now pirate Nintendo games, instead of paying them. There’s a comment in this thread saying they will not buy Switch 2 but emulate it, just to spite them.
Regularly seeing those comments so many times just made me inquire this. Though, now thinking about it, maybe there isn’t any other answer other than “spite” itself. If not for pirating, then at least for the comments.
As for piracy for other reasons, it’s a different discussion with many nuances, so don’t think this is the right place for it. Also emulation and piracy aren’t the same thing, even though Nintendo won’t like to think so, emulating your legally owned game is completely legal. And I don’t think there has been any judgement against dumping your own keys and using those. But again, different discussion.