Tears Of The Kingdom Was Pirated 1 Million Times, Nintendo Claims In Lawsuit

One million people playing at 1080p and 60fps

Nah, some do be playing at 1440/2160p
- Damn I heard you can inject ray tracing and even "mod" the game.
I really don't understand these people. I'm currently playing the game and love it, not once has my experience made me even think about the resolution and frame rate. I swear that's all PC gamers care about, how crispy a game looks, even if it's a pile of shit.
- Yes, pc gamers only care about graphics, that's why pc is the biggest indie platform, because indie games are known for the best graphics
- People have given you a lot of snarky or rude answers, which isn't warranted. I partially agree with you, but partially disagree too.
  For ToTK, High resolution doesn't matter a ton because the game is well optimized for its intended platform, for playing on a switch can still give you great vistas and pictures. This is where I agree with you.
  However, the difference between 30 and 60 fps makes a big difference in this game. Controls, motion, and fights all feel a lot smoother and natural at 60 fps. And while vistas and pictures still look great, a lot of the game has additional beauty when in motion. The improved frame rate does make a difference and can enhance the experience for a game that deserves it. The people who made this game clearly put a lot of thought and creativity into and the switch isn't always able to deliver that experience to the players. Think of it like going to an indoor play with sunglasses on; it may still be enjoyable to but some of the experience is lost.
- I mean this as nicely as possible but if the difference between 30fps tops and steady 60 isn't obvious to you, you're either ignorant of what you're missing, or you're too casual for it to matter
- I'm late to the switch party, as I'm just messing with one for the first time since Christmas. I've been a PC gamer for decades. Decided to try out breath of the wild, and I'm having a blast with it. That being said, I would be lying if I said there weren't times where the frame rate dropped so low it's distracting. This new one may not have that issue, but I'm betting it's similar. I would absolutely be interested in emulating the game on better hardware. Hardware I already have at home.
  You may not understand this side of the argument, and that's fair. I also don't understand yours. If someone wants to improve their experience with the game, it costs me nothing to give them a smile and a thumbs up for enjoying their own time/money however they like.
- They're frustrated because the game could easily be better if it wasn't forced to run on a tablet. So easily in fact, that it's just a button, and it's unlocked. It's right there, but Nintendo makes more money if you can only play it on their tablet.
- You really don't understand how a crisper image and smoother controls can't enhance the experience? Like when you have the option of watching a video at 1080p or 4k why opt for 480p or less? And that's not even a video game.
- What a weird hill to die on.
  How can someone else's experience and enjoyment of something differ from my own criteria?!
  Not least because switch was old hardware when it launched, it's aged hardware at this point, and equivalent games on other platforms have far better performance.
- Its not juat about looking nice. Sub-30 fps is genuinely uncomfortable to many people. You aren't sensitive to it, good for you.
- game is 30 fps and looks like crap in my opinion. 30 may be the minumum playable framerate but it still looks choppy as hell and feels unresponsive to play which you can notice after experiencing as low as 60 fps. and the landscapes have no saving grace either, anything 5 meters away has a ton of LOD applied and just looks bad.
- For your sake I hope you're a bot.
- I really don't understand these people. I'm currently owning an Honda civic in the default color Satin Silver Metallic and love it, not once has my experience made me even think about changing the paint or using decals. I swear that's all car enthusiasts care about, how crispy their cars look, even if it's a pile of shit.
  People have preferences, man. And they don't settle for the default option, even/especially when corporations try to enforce them.
- Damn you made the hivemind angry

Tears of Nintendo

"the harm caused by this software was “manifest and irreparable.”"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Tears_of_the_Kingdom

"More than 10 million copies of Tears of the Kingdom were sold in its first three days of release, making it the fastest-selling game in The Legend of Zelda franchise, as well as the fastest selling Nintendo game in the Americas with over four million copies sold in the US alone.[50][51] 

Tears of the Kingdom sold over 2.24 million copies within its first three days of release in Japan, 1.1 million being physical copies.[52][53] 

By December 2023, the game had sold 20.28 million copies worldwide.[54] 

In August 2023, it was reported that the sales of Tears of the Kingdom may have boosted the gross domestic product of Japan, with a 2.8% increase in consumer spending in the semi-durable goods sector during April to August 2023, which included video games.[55]"

the harm caused by this software was “manifest and irreparable.”
Except it’s arguably not, because it’s not like the 1 million copies of the game was stolen and could not be sold anymore. The game is still available for sale, and it is still making them money - all people did was pirate a single copy of the game 1 million times.
Also, if they sold 20.8 million units, and assuming every single instance of pirating was done by people who did not buy the game (read: lots of people bought a legal copy and “pirated” it anyways for better performance on Yuzu), they lost out on 5% revenue as of this time of writing.
Very sad Nintendo couldn’t sell another $60 million worth of games /s
- Yup. I'd buy a digital copy of TotK if I could play it on my PC, but Nintendo doesn't offer that, so I either need to buy it for Switch, or pirate it. I found BotW kinda lame (I much prefer Skyward Sword and Link's Awakening), so I'm not motivated to buy it for Switch, especially since I've seen reports of mediocre performance.
  So yeah, I don't feel bad for Nintendo at all here. If they made their games available on PC for a reasonable price, I'm sure many would buy their games twice, once on Switch and once on PC. Their loss I guess...
- Article states that the 1M copies were downloaded before the game even came out. There's certainly an argument to be made about lost revenue there.
  But of course, Yuzu is in no way responsible, and you could argue the majority of downloads weren't intending to buy anyway, so lost revenue is likely very small.

I feel like everyone is missing the line that says "before it came out". However, I find that hard to believe that 1 million people played a pirated copy before the release date and i can't remember any leaked gameplay or screenshots.

- Nope, 2 weeks before tears of the kingdoms worldwide May 12 release, someone uploaded it to torrents.
It was actually leaked two weeks in advance...
Can't even blame emulation as the main culprits playing it either with first gen switches being able to be jailbroken and hardware mods existing for current ones.
- I do think Yuzu should win. I'm in favor of emulation. I just read all the comments being like "I only emulated after I bought it for the 1080p 60fps". Which wasnt in line with what the article was asserting.
People streamed the game on twitch for weeks prior to it being released

Pirated, or downloaded a back up of a game they bought a physical copy of?

All the people I know who emulated it also bought it in this case, because emulation was objectively a better experience for the game.

I bought it and played in on the switch, myself, but if I ever did another playthrough I'd want to higher res of emulation.

That's technically legal right? Kinda like ripping a CD?
- IANAL, depending on your jurisdiction, downloading someone else's backup of something can be illegal. Backing up your own physical copy and using that is very often legal.
- Ripping the game from your own system/cartridge is legal, downloading an identical copy from the internet is not.
Pirated in this case as they're talking about the leak that happened before it was released, so no one owned a copy of it at that point.

Oh my, that’s terrible. If anyone were to tell me however one could do something so dastardly, I would totally take active steps to avoid ever pirating the game.

Download an emulator and find a torrent for the game. It's pretty easy to do, and you get better quality. I haven't played TotK, but I did do this for Pokémon Arceus. I knew I'd hate it, but I wanted to see where it was going. It's a pretty shit game. Do not recommend.
- If anyone else wants to try Pokemon Legends Arceus, Here are a few Mods i would recommend:
  60 FPS Mod (Don't use the Nexus Mods one, its outdated, also this mod will double the battle speed, it's impossible to prevent this at the moment)
  [Comprehensive HD Character & Clothing Texture Pack ] (https://gamebanana.com/mods/357717)
  Xbox Icons
  Sky & Moon Improvement Mod
  [AI Upscaled Terrain Textures] (https://gamebanana.com/mods/354194)
  [No Terrain Reflections] (https://gamebanana.com/mods/355082) (Make sure to install AI Upscaled textures first and then overwrite the files with this one)
  Important: You need to use Yuzu, the latest Version of Ryujinx won't work because you NEED to unlock 6/8GB Ram in the emulators setting's. For some reason's this won't work in Ryujinx but in Yuzu it just works fine!
  Gameplay Mods Vanilla Style:
  Max Draw Distance for Pokemon NPCs and Trees
  [Max Animation Distance] (https://www.nexusmods.com/pokemonlegendsarceus/mods/3)
  [More Wild Pokemon] (https://www.nexusmods.com/pokemonlegendsarceus/mods/7)
  [Wyrdeer Remastered] (https://www.nexusmods.com/pokemonlegendsarceus/mods/31)
  [Shaymin and Darkrai Spawn Without Old Save Data] (https://www.nexusmods.com/pokemonlegendsarceus/mods/32)
  [Improved Pokemon De-Spawn Radius] (https://www.nexusmods.com/pokemonlegendsarceus/mods/30)
  Alternative to all this Gameplay Mods, you could also use this Big Overhaul Mod Pokemon Legends Arceus Plus But I prefer the more vanilla style Gameplay.

I love it when companies think the (often invented) number of pirated copies has any meaningful correlation to lost revenue.

My girlfriend and I have one Nintendo Switch. We share it. But the only modern Nintendo games I play are the Legend of Zelda series. Since Breath of the Wild, when a new one came out, we'd buy it right away, and then I'd end up placing a copy on my PC to play so we could play together.

If Nintendo thinks I'm gonna buy a game twice just to play at the same time as my partner, when we only have the one console, think again. If Nintendo thinks someone who only likes one game is gonna buy a whole second console, they're out of their minds.

What I do own is a Steam Deck, because Steam is a platform first and I can play my games on my fancy PC at home and on multiple devices. My Steam Deck can even play non-steam games great too!

The second Nintendo makes a PC store that let's me play their games on my other hardware, I'll start buying that second copy of all our games solely for the convenience of it. Until then they can suck an egg.

Yup, if Nintendo sold their games for PC, I'd probably buy some games twice. The Switch is really good for couch MP, so I'll still buy Mario Kart, Mario Party, etc for the Switch. It's okay for SP games, but I honestly prefer my Steam Deck, so I almost never buy third party titles for Switch.
I spend $100-150/year on Nintendo stuff, and I spend well more than that on Steam. If Nintendo first party games worked on PC, I'd probably double the amount I buy from Nintendo.

This goes to show that people want to play Nintendo's games but don't want to get a switch, Nintendo has a big opportunity in untapped market potential for PC gamers

They'd never open up to the PC market. Their whole business is based on selling their propreitary hardware.
Also, that would open the floodgates for modding. Nintendo hates modding.
- But their switch is crap. Breaks constantly, is low power, the software is painful (IMO), games are expensive, and save game backup is a subscription.
- Nintendo is not ready for the Mario cast naked mods. They most likely never will. I'm surprised there is even any Nintendo IP hentai floating around at all, really.
  Can't say I blame them for that, really.
- I still think the amount of money they'd generate from expanding their sales platforms would outweigh that philosophy, but I'd like to see the numbers as well
From a business prospective, If your whole idea is to sell your console as often as possible it's not a good idea to make your games work on every platform. Console exclusives are a big part of the selling strategie.
Also, as always, if you own the money you should buy a game to show support (especially if it's an indie title). But when it's an old game owned by a company who still thinks we are in the 90s. Which dosen't want to sell the game to you anymore but at the same time forbids everyone from making a copy of the said game, you should absolutely pirate it.
It's sometimes the only form of game preservation we have.
If we somehow discover a second library of Alexandria and it also turns out that infringes on a Nintendo IP, I have no doubt that Nintendo will burn it down immediately.
- Let's say a Nintendo switch is $300, and a game is $60, that means if 5 people buy one of their games outside of their console theyve already made back their money. I don't think that out of 5 people 1 person would be willing to buy a switch just to get a game they want, it's most likely like 1/20. Which means they'd end up making more money. This is just my speculation of course

That was mostly me. I put a copy on a clean 2tb hard drive and repeatedly hit Ctrl-A Ctrl-C Ctrl-V. Then when it was full I pressed Ctrl+A and Delete and started the process all over. I went mad with power and don't even know how many copies I stole.

Consider that your warning, Nintendo. Shut down Yuzu and I'll activate the batch script.

I own a switch, I bought the game, Game runs like shit, Instead of returning it, I play it on yuzu

I'm sure if they had their way anyone who backwards engineers a system like polymega or analogue would be next on their hit list.

I actually paid someone to rip my WiiU BotW for me years ago because I like being legit legit, but most people either feel like its morally 100% fine to download a copy if they bought one, or don't even know that its technically not legal.
Ripping your own ROMs tends to put your system at risk of bricking or being banned from online play. Its just not a desirable thing to do, so fans who care enough about the game to see it run at q higher quality or with lovingly crafted mods are very likely the ones who already purchased the game and are downloading a new copy.
I would love to see Yuzu run a poll to see how many people already purchased the game. Even if its anecdotal, maybe it would prove a point that people are crying out for more content and will go to illegal means to get it
- but most people either feel like its morally 100% fine to download a copy if they bought one, or don't even know that its technically not legal.
  Morally speaking, why would backing up your own copy make a difference, assuming you bought a copy in either case?

I have a GameCube, Wii, Wii u, 3DS and a switch with multiple games on all. I've also used emulators to play modded Zelda games with increased performance.

Nintendo made shit ports on switch and took a premium. They can get royally fucked.

They are not losing revenue from piracy. Stupid greedy orcs.

make it 1.000.001 cause my god, I am never buying a switch game ever

If I was never planning on buying your game, does that mean you lost money?

Don't be fooled. The real issue here is that Nintendo is trying to use this case as a wedge to eventually outlaw or effectively ban all emulation software because they think it somehow massively affects their bottom line, or they want to have a scapegoat for weak profits.

I've never once in my life had a Gamecube, for example. I never will. So if I wanted to pirate Gamecube games and play them on my computer, it is literally victimless, and has zero negative affect on Nintendo's profits. In fact, I might love the games and decide to buy official merch. Same with the Swtich. I haven't pirated either, but you get the idea.

Even if you can somehow prove how many people pirated a game over the years, that tells you absolutely nothing about lost potential profits, because people that pirate probably never had the money to buy your hardware and games to begin with.

This is all just corporate propaganda.

And I imagine a fair number of those who pirated also bought the game legally, either to have a digital backup or to run on a PC emulator.
So your main groups pirating a given game are:
people who never would've been customers
actual customers who own a copy and want it on PC as well
pirated first, and ended up buying the same later
actual lost sales
I imagine 4 is such a small percent of the total number of downloads that they probably help more than they hurt (e.g. word of mouth advertising).

And I bought it once. I think that’s a fair trade.

*loses
Also, I feel the same

I mean, I totally did pirate this game. And I'd do it again, too.

I bought it digitally on release day so my slightly-above-casual-gamer GF could play on the switch and then a few days later I pirated a copy to play on my steam deck and pc interchangeably. While I would have no major qualms about buying additional copies, Nintendo's insistence on maintaining their native control scheme in a western market will guarantee that many core gamers like myself, who are familiarized with Microsoft and Sony control schemes, will shy away from their products.
I can only have my immersion and fun interrupted by canceling out of a menu or action so many times before I'm just not that interested anymore despite having given it an honest try more than once.
Whine all they want about piracy but I doubt they aren't losing a significant number of legitimate sales from it. Most people who buy Nintendo consoles and games are loyal to that ecosystem from my own experiences and wouldn't bother with learning how to access pirated materials.
So yeah I also pirated it and would pirate another game from them too if I felt like giving it a shot but even if pirating wasn't an option, I would never buy a Nintendo product for myself.

i hope Nintendo looses on every count.

I'm one of those million. I also bought the game the day it came out and played 40+ hours on my switch.

I'm really curious about this case's outcome.

On one hand yuzu shouldn't be illagel, on the other hand, their patreon income surged when tears of the kingdom came out, and maybe that is enough to say that they enable pirates and thus should cease all operations.

I'm rooting for yuzu. Have they said anything at all yet? Btw if you want yuzu I think now is the time to download it while it exists (in case nintendo moves forward / wins, or yuzu devs are intimidated to take it down)

For what i have read, they dont have a case and it should be a guaranteed lost for Nintendo if they try to pursue this to court. That said, they know the legal battle will be long and expensive and are preying on the Yuzo team not having the resources to fight back.
Is not the first time they are pulling this shit.
- Nintendo needs to be sanctioned from the legal system for being a vexatious litigant.
patreon income surged when tears of the kingdom came out, and maybe that is enough to say that they enable pirates and thus should cease all operations.
Problem is, what part of that is Yuzu's fault? They themselves stressed not to go down the piracy route.
Don't forget about my homie Ryujinx! Better performance in same games, too!

I mean they're assuming everyone who downloaded it was using it with yuzu and not, for example, hacked or modded switches.

Sorry, a game that's been out for years shouldn't be $60. Start discounting these older games like they used to do.

TOTK came out not a year ago. This article is specifically about how TOTK was allegedly downloaded 1 million times before it even was released. You did not even read two sentences of this article.
Nintendo filed a civil lawsuit on February 26 against Yuzu software developer Tropic Haze, claiming that the team’s tech let folks illegally pirate 2023’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom over one million times a full week and a half before it even came out.
- My comment wasn't about the specifics of the article, rather, more about why people pirate games in the first place. For the most part it's because of the price.
Did Nintendo ever really discount their games?
- nah, best you'll get is a deal like "buy this $60 game and we'll give you uhh, $10 in credit or smth, idc just buy the game". sometimes physical shops discount their games but that's entirely up to the owners of the shops.
  Nintendo's flagship titles are basically immune to sales
- To my understanding, Nintendo actively opposed doing so.
  But when Nintendo was "competing" with Sega/Sony, brick and mortar stores had a LOT more power. EBGames/Gamestop could basically do whatever they wanted because moving the Nintendo shelves to be behind the Sony shelves would lead to noticeable sales changes. So it was a lot more common for Toys R Us to run their own sales to move merchandise.
  But in the past twenty years or so, Nintendo have actively shitlisted anyone who puts a discount on their games. Amazon famously got shitlisted at least three or four times which led to a lot of weirdness in terms of what "editions" of a given game was available for purchase.
- They run discounts all the time. So do places like Target. This myth of Nintendo never lowering prices of games is insane.

Maybe people don’t want to pay premium prices for games on 8 year old underpowered hardware.

How can they possibly know how many times it was pirated? This was the last Nintendo game I bought, actually, and will now remain so until their next console comes out. Those of us with older Switches don't need an emulator to play your games pirated, Nintendo!

Some unpaid intern was tasked to go onto public torrent sites, put in a search on Zelda, and just tallied up the number of times the various torrents were downloaded in a Excel spreadsheet using =sum(AX:AY).
That was turned over to the lawyers and charges 1k an hour, billed 20 hours for 1 hour of work a paralegal took to modify what came out of ChatGPT, bought some coke and here we are.

Yeah I pirated it, played it for 5 hours. I didn't and don't have any intention of buying a nintendo game ever, even if I couldn't pirate it. They are almost never worth the asking price. Most have the quality of a 40 usd steam indie game, some even of a 20 usd one. I know that this doesn't have anything to do with the creative departments, but nintendo can go fuck itself. Also, a friend of mine whose a fan of Nintendo pirated it even before it came out, but he played it in the switch lol.

Not buying a game that literally only runs well on emulators. Fuck you nintendo.

Should have made it cheaper...

Nintendo suing a company for a "feature" they accidentally implemented on the first gen switch. (First gen meaning early to late 2017)

I know nothing here, please explain more.
- The first gen switch has an exploit that allows you to extract the decryption keys needed to play your games on an emulator at a higher visual quality with support for mods

Wait... they're asking for 150k and part of their 30k/month patreon? That's literally nothing for a company like Nintendo...what am I missing?

Edit: k, I misread, they want the entirety of the supposed 30k per month, and for the yuzondevs to stand trial, but that's still such a tiny number for Nintendo. If 1 million copies were pirated, then I would expect them to go after 1 mil x game price. This almost seems like a reasonable slap on the wrist

They're not trying to make money just shut them down.

Not enough TBH.

30fps, I played both games on a 65" TV and they both look amazing even if they're in 1080 and are amazing to play as is. Not excusing Nintendo for being assholes, just saying that your criticism of the game is unfounded.
- The game isn't even 1080p btw, renders at 1600x900.