*** UPDATE ***

Writing this in the heat of the moment, I was incorrect with my understanding of one part of this story. Nintendo did not file a DMCA take down request. Nintendo sent a cease and desist, where they mentioned their rights under the DMCA. This is an important distinction that I missed. 

As to the numerous comments on this editorial claiming the Dolphin emulator uses Nintendo intellectual property, I am not a lawyer, but we’ll have to watch and see if a court case establishes that an encryption key can be considered IP. In much the same way that if someone were to “hack” your laptop because your password was “12345”, would we consider that password intellectual property?

This is an ongoing legal battle, and akin to the fight over DVD encryption, the idea of an encryption key being protected IP doesn’t seem to have been tested directly in any recent court cases. Considering the complexity of code required to run a computer or game console, I stand by my statement that the Dolphin emulator does not include any proprietary Nintendo IP, even for it including an encryption key. Many will disagree with me, but I believe including Nintendo’s “password” is not the same as including more complex code.

I’m leaving the letter as originally written, to maintain the emotional tone of the editorial. I always welcome debate, but rude or insulting comments will of course be scrubbed.

*** Original Editorial ***

Dear Nintendo, 

This emulator stuff? I think you’re doing it wrong.  

I have a LOT of fondness for your games. My family has been into gaming since the earliest days of arcades and Atari home consoles. I was so fortunate to grow up in the early 80’s with nerd parents who were ahead of the curve on video gaming.

We rode the wave of your classic consoles through the 8-bit, 16-bit, and 64-bit eras. To this day, my younger siblings still sport Switches as their primary gaming solutions.  

I still have a lot of classic Nintendo gear, mostly in storage, but I got off the console gaming train around the Wii and PS3 hardware generation.  

I’m also a PC nerd. Software licensing was changing back then. In the early 2000’s, PC gaming started experimenting with online stores and digital distribution. There was a lot of anxious editorializing of online stores, copy protection, verification, and “ownership”.

Years later, we still face some challenges with titles in online shops. We might not really “own” that content when it’s licensed to web stores, but the generational convenience has kept me far more invested in PC gaming than in recent console gaming.  

The idea of buying a box, then buying content for a box, and only being able to consume that content on one box, is sorely antiquated. My Wife and I ran into that limitation hard with Playstations.  

Sony Struggles

My Wife isn’t as avid a gamer as I am, but we enjoyed playing games together on our PS3. We owned dozens of games for the PS3. When it came time to upgrade to a PS4, I was anxious to see how she would handle the transition. We got the new console in place, and fired it up, and we had ONE game that we could play on it. 

To say she was “frustrated” would be an incredible understatement. 

“Where are all our games?”
“They’re for the PS3.”
“So, we can’t play any of them on the PS4?”
“Nope it’s a different box.”
“So, if we want to play those games…”
“…We have to keep both boxes under the TV, yes.”
“That’s F@C#ING stupid.”  

We bought far fewer games for the PS4 than we did for the PS3.

Near the end of our run with the PS4, it was mostly a fancy Tetris player. We racked up a ton of time playing Puyo Puyo Tetris at the beginning of the pandemic. We’d sprinkle in a little Street Fighter and some Crash Team Racing. It got used for little else.  

We’ve not bought a new XBox or Playstation.

Today we keep a mini-PC behind our TV for gaming. We miss some exclusives, but overall we’re a lot happier. We can play new games, and it’s easier to revisit old games. Buying old games is a LOT less expensive on PC, but I digress…

Cowards Hiding Behind the DMCA

Numerous outlets are covering the news of you sending Valve a DMCA notice over including the Dolphin Emulator in the Steam store. Whether the notice has actual merit, it’s unlikely that Valve nor the developers behind Dolphin will want to fight that issue in court. Your lawyers are really well funded.  

Whether or not Dolphin is ever listed in a public online store, your actions have contributed to a Streisand Effect for the emulator. Google Trends has almost no data on “Dolphin Emulator” before the articles went live. Search traffic for the term has skyrocketed.  

We all understand that you need to protect your intellectual property, but that’s the tricky thing about emulators. They don’t include any of your property. They’re original code. I expect Valve and Dolphin to back down, not because they’re wrong, but because you’re too big to fight in court. 

This victory for you still won’t address the main issue, however. Attacking an emulator is treating one symptom, but it won’t help cure the root disease.  

Emulators exist (and are becoming more popular) because of your business model.  

What we learned in PC gaming, piracy is often an issue with platform and distribution. Make a business “easier than free”, and people will spend money to get an easier experience.  

Nintendo, you have this amazing catalog of classic games and generational properties. Folks want to give you money to play those games. The restrictions on those games become a pain point for people who WANT to give you money.

The new subscription models for Nintendo Switch Online aren’t exorbitantly expensive. The perks, like online gaming for old NES titles, are “easier than free”, if you already own a Switch. I think many of us can look at the value of an online service, and find many consumers who fit that model. People already invested in the Switch as a platform, who enjoy retro gaming, you’ll turn them into repeat customers.  

If you’re already converting customers to subscriptions, why be afraid of an emulator on Steam? 

Selling Hardware

We know your business model depends on both software licensing and hardware sales. The tricky position for you at this moment is that hardware really isn’t special anymore.  

When I was a kid, the NES was this magical box that did something special. It was a specific kind of appliance that streamlined a social activity. It could produce a gaming experience better than our significantly larger and more expensive DOS computer. It was amazing.  

Today, kids using hand-me-down phones from their parents might have a more powerful “computer” in their pocket than what you sell in the Switch.  

Hardware isn’t special anymore.  

Many of us want to experience those classic Nintendo moments in ways that make sense for our modern lifestyle. I have a NICE phone. I KNOW my phone can play games as well as (and often better than) a Switch. I wish I could be included in your software business model, without having to pay the hardware entry fee.  

I wish I could legally play the original Blaster Master on my Steam Deck or on my Razer Edge, but you won’t sell it to me. I opted for the Blaster Master Zero trilogy on Steam instead. Blaster Master Zero isn’t as good as the original, but it scratched my itch. Now that I own Blaster Master Zero on Steam, and I can install it on any future PC or portable I own. I won’t need to re-buy it again for new hardware.  

I have concerns for the future of your hardware model, your online shops, and your subscriptions. If I fill YOUR coffers with MY money, what guarantees will I have that I can KEEP playing the games I like? How many times will I need to buy your hardware in the future, to play the OLD games I enjoy? 

Emulation is a powerful force in democratizing game play and archiving old software which no longer has a true commercial home. It could be leveraged by you to squeeze the last couple dimes out of under-performing IP. 

Why did you walk away?

Two years ago, you announced that you were pulling out of the mobile game space. Your brief experiment with mobile included a Mario runner, a stripped Kart racer, a horrifically buggy pocket version of Animal Crossing, and the hit Fire Emblem Heroes. Five games in total, that grossed over a billion dollars in less than two years.  

Why leave that money on the table? Players are opening their wallets, but you don’t seem interested unless you can also control the hardware too.  

There’s a small group of players creating a new “store” to preserve older games by emulating your hardware. They are not a significant source of revenue for you, and they likely won’t ever be a major source of profits. 

You could still squeeze them for cash.  

The beauty of this software model, you already made a better solution than “free”. You’ve emulated your old hardware to run old games on newer hardware. Bringing this software to other hardware platforms would be a rounding error on your financial expenses for a fiscal quarter. Then you would have an accessible library of content for other platforms, strengthening your philosophical stance against homebrew emulation.  

This is not an outlandish suggestion. It’s exactly what SNK is doing with old NeoGeo games at $4 a pop, and with a surprisingly robust catalog of classic console titles. I’m not a massive fan of NeoGeo games, but I’ve given a lot more money to SNK over the last year than I’ve given to you since the end of the Wii’s lifecyle.  

For older gamers like me, we didn’t want a stripped kart racer full of micro-transactions. We wanted a real version of Mario Kart. We didn’t want a dumbed down Mario runner game. We wanted Super Mario, Mario 2, Mario 3, Mario World, or even Mario 64. We would have paid you again for each of those titles, to play those games on a phone, tablet, or PC.  

But it might have been the last time we re-bought those games.  

Now shopping through PC storefronts like Steam, Epic, and GoG, I probably won’t ever buy a game that will be locked to a specific piece of hardware.

Nintendo, you don’t want to sell me a game that you can’t force me to re-buy when I upgrade to newer hardware.  

We are at an impasse.  

It kind of breaks my heart that my seven-year-old daughter is growing up in a mostly Nintendo-free household. Her only experience with Nintendo games comes from the little SNES Mini I keep in my office. It’s a novelty to her, but not something she turns to often. The most played game on that little box is Mario Kart, simply because there are no fun kart racers for PC.  

When she asks to play games, we play on PC or Android.  

She learned how to handle a controller playing Tetris Effect. We rolled credits on TMNT Shredder’s Revenge instead of playing older SNES games like Turtles in Time. She made it through several dungeons in Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris before the game mechanics got too difficult. She recently got to her first end screen in Vampire Survivors all on her own. Her first platformer is NOT a classic Mario game, or Metroid, or Castlevania. She saw me playing Dead Cells, and now she’s obsessed with a game where she “can’t really die”.   

All of those experiences COULD have been on a Switch, but between phones, tablets, PCs, and the Steam Deck, WE choose where and how we want to play. The games follow US to whatever screen we want to use. See, the issue isn’t that we’re “cheap” or “poor”. We’re privileged enough to own multiple computers, and wealthy enough to regularly buy games.

She might find the joy of Nintendo gaming later in life, but she’s not growing up with your IP like me and my siblings did.  

My household might be an outlier, but increasingly her peers are also playing outside your software licensing walled garden. The hot games right now for grade-schoolers seem to be Roblox, Minecraft, and the fifth graders are really into Fortnite. There are plenty of Switches around, but the Switch does not share the singular focus you enjoyed when I was a kid with an NES. 

When I was seven, ALL I could think about were games like Blaster Master and The Legend of Zelda. Seven-year-olds today aren’t as invested in games like Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom. They have options I never had.

My daughter’s best friend is CRAZY into Sonic the Hedgehog. His family does not own a Switch, though they are wealthier than we are. He’s never played a Mario game. He thought the Mario movie was “pretty good but not as good as Sonic”.  

I’ll get to the point…

This letter is getting a bit ramble-y, and it’s full of emotional appeals and anecdotal data. We know you make a ton of money this way. You’re a titan in the gaming space, and an island unto yourself. You’re in no danger of “failing” within my lifetime, but I still feel it worth offering some words of caution.  

If your strategy in blocking Dolphin on Steam was to reduce the use of emulators, you’ve failed spectacularly. The topic found a surge of interest following your DMCA take down notice. After other issues with how you police your IP online, a move like this continues to make you look like a bully.  

It also reinforces a feeling I have that you aren’t listening to this small group of potential customers. You don’t care about us. You don’t want our money, if you can’t dictate total control over our gaming relationship. That also makes you look like a bully.  

I’m choosing not to emulate your games. I’m not making videos online about emulating your games on the Steam Deck. I just don’t play your games at all anymore. I don’t share them with my daughter. I show her friends what games I like to play, and they have fun with those games too.  

I support developers and distribution that will at least pretend to meet me halfway, and I’ve spent a LOT of money on games for Android and PC.

I’ve shown other parents the perks of PC gaming, like sales, and free games on Epic, Steam, and GoG. I’ve shown off Microsoft Game Pass and game streaming. Several families in our area are struggling, and NEED to keep a good home internet connection, but aren’t looking to buy more powerful computers or consoles. They can still dabble with new games on the hardware they already own. They don’t feel left out.

I really shouldn’t be as excited about the small catalog of games on Netflix as I am, but it points to a change in how people might view this leisure activity. It’s a luxury to own a dedicated gaming device.  

Whatever your plans might be for the future, for a Switch 2 or a Switch Pro, or how you might sell subscription packages, I know you’re in a tough spot. You need to defend your IP and investment, but you’re also leaving money on the table. You’re fighting a trend that you could be controlling. You could dramatically change the landscape of distribution, but you’re fighting these petty battles with developers and fans.  

You could OWN mobile gaming beyond the Switch.  

I miss you Nintendo. I hope we can play together again someday, but right now, my daughter wants to try Cuphead. It plays great on the Steam Deck.  

Love,
Juan