Nintendo says it has won a $4.5 million judgment against James Williams, known online as Archbox, a former moderator of the r/SwitchPirates subreddit. Williams was accused of running multiple pirate shops that offered extensive libraries of pirated Nintendo Switch games for free download. The US District Court for the Western District of Washington ruled by default, meaning Williams never responded to the lawsuit.
Nintendo originally filed suit in June 2024, accusing Williams of operating, overseeing, and driving several piracy shops since 2019. He also moderated r/SwitchPirates, a community that grew to nearly 190,000 members and regularly directed users toward unauthorized downloads and tools for bypassing Nintendo's protections. Williams reportedly solicited Nintendo eShop gift cards to buy games that could then be copied and distributed, and provided technical assistance to help users run pirated titles.
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The $4.5 million figure comes from the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 per title applied to 30 copyrighted games, including The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The court found the infringement was willful. A permanent injunction also bars Williams from distributing pirated Nintendo games, selling circumvention software, or encouraging others to obtain pirated content. It requires him to shut down all remaining piracy shops and associated social media accounts.
Investigators say they tracked him down by connecting his Archbox Reddit persona to a Nintendo account used to send a console in for repairs. The hardware was shipped back to his home address, and Nintendo sent a cease-and-desist shortly after. Williams initially replied by email and agreed to cooperate, then went silent entirely, which led to the default judgment.
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This is far from Nintendo's first courtroom win. A Switch modder paid $2 million in 2025, the Yuzu emulator developers settled for $2.4 million in 2024, and Gary Bowser was sentenced to prison and ordered to pay $14.5 million in a case he has described as a debt he will carry for the rest of his life. Whether Nintendo actually collects from Williams is a separate question. His Reddit account is already deleted, and the shops named in the complaint closed long ago.
