Another emulation project disappears amid Nintendo crackdown

Nintendo is cracking down on emulators of its hardware and media depicting their use. First Yuzu was taken down with a lawsuit, and now departs Ryujinx, a similar project that had sought to avoid the legal landmines Yuzu stepped on. It's reported that Nintendo approached its creator privately with an offer he did not refuse.

Yesterday, gdkchan was contacted by Nintendo and offered an agreement to stop working on the project, remove the organization and all related assets he's in control of," writes developer and moderator ripinperiperi on Discord. "While awaiting confirmation on whether he would take this agreement, the organization has been removed, so I think it's safe to say what the outcome is."

The Verge's Sean Hollister reports that he got "the runaround" from Nintendo.

Nintendo would not confirm or deny to The Verge that it made a deal with the developer. Instead, Nintendo spokesperson Eddie Garcia mysteriously pointed me to the Entertainment Software Association's head of public affairs Aubrey Quinn — who said she couldn't speak on behalf of Nintendo. I guess I got the runaround.

The implication is that even though Ryujinx went to lengths to avoid doing anything illegal, Nintendo threatened a nuisance lawsuit that would be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming to defend. And there was an obvious final straw:

While Nintendo often leaves emulators alone, Ryujinx did recently show up Nintendo by running the just-released The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom on PCs smoother than it runs on the Nintendo Switch itself, where framerate can sometimes be choppy.

In the age of social media, it's not enough to formally disclaim piracy. Emulator makers might have to completely avoid the milieu around it—maybe even gaming entirely—and structure their projects from the outset to avoid SLAPPs and other strategic litigation.

Nintendo taking down video of people using emulators is a slightly different problem. The YouTubers targeted comply, irrespective of First Amendment rights, because of the threat to their channels.

Russ added he is considering a counterclaim under fair use, arguing that his video was educational and did not impact the market for the original game. However, he remains hesitant to pursue legal action against a large corporation and plans to exclude Nintendo games from future content, saying, "I love using those games for my hardware demonstrations."

Some enterprising lawyers should create a new social media presence where they post media of themselves playing emulated Nintendo games, so that they can help Nintendo resolve its understanding of the law and any ambiguities created by YouTube's canine enthusiasm for privately enforcing it.