Much like the sun rises and sets each day, Nintendo continues to clash with many places online over piracy. A well-known subreddit that many have gone to for various reasons related to homebrew content and piracy managed to go unnoticed for around three years. But after the major leak of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom online, the subreddit has finally caught the ire of Reddit moderators. For some, this was bound to happen at some point.
Following the major leak of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom online, the subreddit thread known as r/newyuzupiracy saw a major increase in activity. The number of active members went from 37,000 people in May 2023, to around 69,000 as of June 2023. Multiple download links to the latest Zelda game were shared between users on the subreddit to download, as well as any mods that they came across that weren’t already on the subreddit by then. Reddit finally banned the subreddit on June 12th, according to a report on PC Gamer. A message from Reddit moderators appears now in place of the subreddit that reads, “… due to a violation of Reddit’s content policy against creating or repurposing a sub to reconstitute or serve the same objective as a previously banned or quarantined subreddit.”
The r/newyuzupiracy subreddit was originally created in 2020. People would visit the subreddit to find links to software and utilities related to the application Yuzu. This was a means for many gamers to emulate Nintendo Switch games that they own through their PC. However, the big issue was the many people who also used the software to play pirated games they would download off the internet.
Nintendo has really increased its efforts against piracy prior to the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom when the game was leaked online. Multiple outlets online have seen either legal letters sent over threatening legal action or seeing their entire website be taken down. Back in April 2023, Nintendo won a ruling against the website operator DStorage in the Paris Court of Appeals and was awarded around $484,000 in damages. And in May 2023, Nintendo also blocked the Dolphin emulator program from being published on Steam for PC users. Nintendo had issued Valve a cease & desist that cited the program as it violated Nintendo’s intellectual property.
Despite many reactions of disappointment of the subreddit closing, many expected this to happen at some point and have moved on. But this will most likely not be the last time we see another Nintendo-related piracy story that ends with something taken down. Nintendo is definitely going to continue to be aggressive against anything that pirates or attempts to pirate any of their games, whether they’re old or new releases.
What do you think about the subreddit being banned after all these years? Do you think Reddit will ban other subreddits for similar reasons? Share your thoughts about everything down below in the comments!
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