Nintendo, a company that has taken pride in shaping the gaming industry, has faced its fair share of ups and downs in the last several years, such as the death of Satoru Iwata nine years ago in 2015 that led to Tatsumi Kimishima before ultimately retiring from Nintendo and letting Shuntaro Furukawa take over, as covered by Crecente (2018), and the lawsuit between Gary Bowser, and the development team of Yuzu.
The brand Nintendo has seen its fair share of ups and downs with the success of the Nintendo Switch and a multitude of video games such as The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, and the unforgettably poor launch of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.
Nintendo had to take the fight to the courts when they discovered an individual named Gary Bowser developed a method of breaking into the Nintendo Switch, which ultimately helped lead to the creation of Yuzu, an emulation software used to play Nintendo Switch titles on the Valve Steam Deck, PC, and other platforms. But that is where our story begins and why Nintendo’s lawsuit spells more problems for the company in its recent attempt at wrangling video game piracy, as covered by Henley (2024).
Human nature is not a mystery as we would like to perceive. When we are growing up, parents and society told us not to do drugs, and by adolescence, most of us have tried some. Our parents and society told us not to stay out past curfew, which led to heated arguments with our families.
Why do I bring up those exaggerated moments for Nintendo’s lawsuit? Because Nintendo, with its knowledge of video game design and its technical knowledge, lacks the understanding that Satoru Iwata possessed. When Iwata took a year and studied the industry, he knew that more powerful hardware was not the way forward for the company.
Nintendo has neglected the psychology of the situation and the gamers, potentially making the situation far worse for the company and its brand.
Psychological Reactance, according to a study conducted by Steindl et al. (2015), outlines that when you tell an individual no and not to do that, you reinforce the opposing constant because the individual perceives that as a threat to their freedom and the fact that Nintendo had Gary Bowser arrested for figuring out how to jailbreak the Nintendo Switch paints Nintendo as a bad guy.
The fact that Nintendo has won a $10 million lawsuit against Gary Bowser and a $2.3 million lawsuit against the developers of Yuzu outlines how Nintendo is no hero to the people. Nintendo told the world “no” even when the software modding community openly tried to aid Nintendo when Satoru Iwata was in charge (DidYouKnowGaming, 2021).
However, most people don’t realize that this exact situation has happened in the courtrooms before in Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. V. Hotz, as discussed by Gonsalves (2023). If you did not know of the case, you should be surprised that George Hotz and several others jailbroke the PlayStation 3 in much the same way as outlined in Nintendo’s lawsuit.
What happened as a result of that? Well, the hacktivism group Anonymous took down Sony’s servers in response to the lawsuit, as discussed by Benedetti (2011), and the PlayStation 3 then became one of the notoriously hackable consoles to date.
The fact remains that Nintendo, with a rich history and sordid success in the games industry, treats those it has relied on in the past, such as with Nintendo having to pirate Super Mario Brothers because they failed to back up the original, as discussed by Bratt (2017).
Nintendo harbors a deep-seated resentment and discontent towards those who pirate their games and primarily blames them for the loss of sales, evidence pointing to the contrary, with Phil Spencer of Xbox stating that exclusivity is not best for business (Biggs, 2024). In PC gaming, Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve, pointed out the only way to stop piracy is to offer a better service than what those who pirate software offer (Tito, 2011). Historically, this is an area Nintendo has suffered with reconciling, with its discontinued support for its past games only for them to be re-released again on the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo WiiU, 3DS, Nintendo Switch, and where their purchases will not carry over. 
It is true that this might be changing in the future. However, it has developed years of bad blood between gamers, who some have grown into programmers, and educated youth who don’t have the nostalgia their parents might have towards video games and who only see a company hurting individuals when lawsuits end up in the trending section of Twitter, and on Facebook (Trending: Yuzu, 2024).
Gamers see the empty vanity Nintendo makes with their poorly performing titles, such as Tears of the Kingdom or the abysmal launch of Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, as discussed by Simelane (2023), and Chowdhury (2023). Not to be overshadowed by Nintendo claiming ownership of anything made using their games on streams and YouTube content creators by striking down anything not Nintendo-approved or that Nintendo could not monetize in the Nintendo Partnership Program, as discussed by Grubb (2015).
We haven’t even touched on Nintendo-exclusive companies and the false promises the Pokemon Company makes by threatening users for having suspected altered or generated Pokemon in their accounts when it is the Pokemon Company themselves being the instigators by allowing anyone to end up with those Pokemon from Surprise/Wonder trades in the Pokemon titles.
In conclusion. Nintendo, from external appearances, appears everything is fine, well, and operating normally. But internally, it faces a myriad of problems. When we, the gamers, have grown into adults and strive for that nostalgia, we look for what we find comfort in. But we aren’t naive anymore to corporations and what they do to people.
We see the cruelty in their actions. We see how they treat people whom they relied on, who blame the consumers for their problems, and who damage consumer trust by ruining people’s lives. It should come as no surprise that after Nintendo took Yuzu down, more emulators for pirating the Nintendo Switch arrived to fill the spot, and more will keep coming because of Psychological Reactance.
But hey, what do I know? I’m just a business student studying psychology and sociology with a passion for gaming.
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!