A US court has ordered Reddit moderator James “Archbox” Williams to pay Nintendo $4.5 million over Nintendo Switch piracy.
US District Judge Lauren King, in Washington, granted Nintendo’s motion for default judgment in full on September 23. She also issued a permanent injunction that bars Williams from distributing pirated games or circumvention tools.
What Nintendo accused him of
Nintendo filed the lawsuit in June 2024. It claimed Williams ran a network of “Pirate Shops” offering libraries of pirated Switch games to the public.
According to the complaint, he promoted them through the r/SwitchPirates subreddit, where he was lead moderator. He also allegedly asked for eShop gift card donations to fund more pirated games.
Why it was a default judgment
Williams never responded to the lawsuit.
He did hire a lawyer at one point to contest a Google subpoena, but he never answered Nintendo’s claims. Because of that, the court treated Nintendo’s allegations as true. That’s standard in default judgments, and it means the ruling isn’t based on contested evidence.
Where $4.5 million comes from
The figure is the statutory maximum of $150,000 per title, across 30 Switch games named in the suit.
Those include The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
What else he has to do
The order also requires Williams to shut down any remaining pirate shops and disable accounts linked to the case on Reddit, Discord and Telegram. Many of them already appear to be inactive.
Not Nintendo’s first fight
Nintendo has a long history of going after piracy. It previously sued the team behind the Yuzu emulator, accusing it of circumventing Switch encryption and facilitating piracy.
The ruling comes the same week an experimental Switch emulator began running on jailbroken PS5 consoles. Nintendo’s legal team is unlikely to be running out of work anytime soon.
Published: Oct 14, 2026 08:03 am