Nintendo tracked down Switch pirate through repairs and Reddit

Earlier this year, it was reported that James “Archbox” Williams was one of two people Nintendo was suing over Switch piracy. New details have now emerged about how Williams was tracked down, which involved repairs and Reddit.

Game File uncovered information about the case from court filings. Things begin in 2023 when Nintendo hired Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp to investigate online stores for pirated Switch games. That led to the discovery of Archbox, and based on Reddit postings including ones in the SwitchPirates and Phoenix communities, the law firm learned that he lived near Phoenix, Arizona and had attended Midwestern University.

Nintendo’s lawyers said they tied Williams to at least two Archbox-related Nintendo Accounts towards the start of the year. Also, a Nintendo Product Lifecycle Management employee “tentatively” identified Archbox as James Williams around the same time.

The next part of the story comes from Nintendo now having two email addresses for a James Williams in Arizona. With that information, a Nintendo employee went to the company’s repair tracking system and found two repair orders from James Williams, which included a shipping address for Surprise, Arizona.

Nintendo then sent Williams a cease-and-desist letter, which he signed for. According to the filing, he would “comply and cooperate with any demands or requests… within [his] control.” However, he denied any infringements. It’s also worth noting that Nintendo sent Williams one of his repaired items two days before sending the cease-and-desist.

To wrap everything up, Nintendo had to explain its detective work since the company said Williams since cut off communication and failed to plead his case to the court by the required deadlines. Because of that, they were awarded a default judgment. Nintendo needed to provide proof that it did what it could to get in contact with the person they blamed for pirating their games.

Thanks to Game File for today’s news. You can find our original report on the Switch piracy lawsuits here.