Over the years, Nintendo has made a name for itself by being remarkably protective of its intellectual property, from Super Mario all the way to Pokemon. While this behavior is sometimes warranted and valid, this isn’t always the case, and the company’s latest batch of DMCA takedowns may be particularly problematic in the grand scheme of things.
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Nintendo had previously warned hackers that it wouldn’t tolerate piracy in the context of its own intellectual properties, but the company is now taking things further by going after the game artwork sharing website, SteamGridDB. According to sources, SteamGridDB has received DMCA takedowns for hosting media related to some newer Nintendo Switch games, such as Splatoon 3, Super Mario Odyssey, and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Said media, it’s worth pointing out, consists purely of images that users themselves upload to share with others, and the website features links to official game marketplaces so that anybody using these images could purchase the games if they wish.
The crux of the issue is likely related to videos showing how to emulate Nintendo games on the Steam Deck. Namely, one of the most popular emulation toolboxes for Valve’s gaming handheld, EmuDeck, uses the Steam ROM Manager app to directly pull media from SteamGridDB. This allows the Deck user to seamlessly integrate the emulated game into their Steam library, with all the banners, images, and game information that the system calls for.
This particular use case is popular enough that emulation made its way into a Valve video and is likely the reason for the latest batch of Nintendo DMCAs. At the same time, SteamGridDB itself has nothing to do with the uploaded media or the manner in which people end up using it. Of course, it’s also possible that Nintendo’s litigation team has misunderstood SteamGridDB, as it may appear similar to a ROM-sharing website at a glance.
Steam Deck, too, could potentially be used to alleviate some of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s performance issues. Setting aside the potentially problematic nature of game emulation, Valve’s handheld may eventually be able to power through the various technical issues that are now present in the franchise’s latest entries, which may be why some users are so interested in getting it up and running on the device.
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Source: GBAtemp
