The inevitable has happened, the Yuzu emulator along with Citra are no more.
Upon hearing news of Nintendo’s legal action against the Yuzu emulator for facilitating piracy and seeking profit from it, it became evident to me that significant consequences were imminent.
Nintendo’s staunch commitment to safeguarding its intellectual properties has been demonstrated through cases like Gary Bowser’s involvement in creating “circumvention devices” for Nintendo 3DS and Switch systems, which allowed pirated ROMs to be played. Bowser was sentenced to three years in prison and faces a lifetime of financial restitution, owing Nintendo a staggering $14.5 million in damages.
Considering Yuzu’s decision to restrict access to preview builds of its emulator behind a Patreon paywall, it was clear that they were aiming to monetize and generate profit leveraging Nintendo’s IP.
Their profiteering allowed them to engage legal representation by hiring a lawyer, setting the stage for what seemed to be the first major legal confrontation over emulation in over two decades since Sony Computer Entertainment’s clash with Bleem.
However, in an unexpected turn of events today, both Yuzu and Nintendo filed a joint motion to settle the lawsuit. The Yuzu developers have agreed to pay Nintendo a sum of “monetary relief in the sum of $2.4 million” as part of the settlement along with the complete dissolvement of the Yuzu emulator moving forward.
In today’s joint motion, it is stated that “Defendant and its members acknowledge and agree that the award of monetary relief here bears a reasonable relationship to the range of damages and attorneys’ fees and full costs that the parties could have anticipated would be awarded at and following a trial of this action.”
As part of the settlement, the Yuzu developers forfeit any right to appeal the judgment and are subject to a permanent injunction that effectively signifies the end of the emulator, at least in its present iteration.
The permanent injunction bars the developers from engaging in activities such as offering to the public, providing, marketing, advertising, promoting, selling, testing, hosting, cloning, distributing, or otherwise dealing with Yuzu or any of its source code or features. Moreover, it prohibits actions aimed at transferring ownership, forming new entities or associations, or employing any other means to circumvent or evade the outlined prohibitions.
In specific terms, this signifies that Tropic Haze, the entity behind Yuzu, has committed to ceasing all further development on the Yuzu emulator. Additionally, they have agreed to discontinue hosting the emulator and halt the distribution of its code or any associated features. Furthermore, Tropic Haze will relinquish control of the yuzu-emu.org domain, transferring ownership to Nintendo as part of the settlement agreement.
It appears that this marks the conclusion of the 3DS emulator Citra, as the GitHub page containing its source code now leads to a 404 error page.
Now, the question arises whether Nintendo’s significant victory in this case will prompt lawsuits against other emulators, including Yuzu’s competitor, Ryujinx. Since Nintendo and Yuzu reached a settlement before proceeding to trial, the outcome holds no legal precedents regarding how future court cases might interpret emulation and its compliance with the DMCA.
However, this settlement could potentially initiate a cascade of lawsuits against other emulators, especially those unable to withstand the financial burden of a prolonged legal battle against a corporate giant like Nintendo.
On the plus side however, even if Nintendo instructed Tropic Haze to remove all Yuzu sources, it’s likely that the community still possesses the complete source code. Therefore, it’s only a matter of time before someone creates their version of Yuzu under a new moniker and hopefully its development will continue as a non-profit.
Nintendo has consistently made it abundantly clear where they draw the line. Time and again, they have targeted websites and primarily individuals creating fan games based on Nintendo’s iconic franchises. These individuals often attempt to profit from their creations through platforms like Patreon, or many such projects were made using Nintendo’s assets.
Considering Yuzu’s practice of placing preview builds behind paywalls, they were generating significant revenue, tens of thousands of dollars per month to be exact.
However, given Nintendo’s aggressive stance, it was inevitable that they would target such emulators. It’s likely they will continue to pursue similar actions in the future, especially since Tropic Haze rolled over dead and settled the matter almost instantly.
Ryujinx, Yuzu’s primary competitor, adopts a significantly different approach in generating revenue for its services. Unlike Yuzu, Ryujinx does not employ paywalls for specific builds of their emulator. Instead, supporting Ryujinx is basically a donation to the developers, rather than subscribing to receive the latest build.
Consequently, their monthly earnings amount to approximately $1700 USD, a far cry from Yuzu.
The loss of Citra, the sole staple emulation tool for the Nintendo 3DS console, carries far greater significance than that of Yuzu, despite Citra’s development being in a precarious state for some time since Yuzu gained popularity.
In contrast, the Dolphin emulator stands as relatively fully developed, Ryujinx in my opinion was always the better Switch emulator with a far greater library compatibility than Yuzu.
Their Patreon campaign ultimately led to their downfall. Actively monetizing this type of content inevitably exposes you to legal ramification. However, this serves as yet another compelling reason to refrain from giving Nintendo your hard-earned money.
Nintendo consistently refuses to archive and provide access to their extensive library of long-forgotten content and games and cries foul over “piracy” concerns for an emulator that became too successful and took advantage of that.
