Gaming, in brief

A US federal judge in Washington state has ordered James Williams to pay Nintendo $4.5 million. [1][3]

Williams, known online as Archbox, was a leading moderator of r/SwitchPirates, a Reddit forum about playing copied Switch games. [1][3]

Nintendo said he asked people to donate Nintendo eShop gift cards and Switch games so they could be copied onto online pirate shops. [1]

Williams never answered the lawsuit. So the judge issued a default judgment, a ruling given because one side did not show up, on Wednesday 23 September. [1][2]

The award is $150,000 for each of 30 Nintendo games, including Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Luigi's Mansion 3 and Pikmin 4. [1]

Nintendo told the court it could have sought several million dollars in statutory damages. Those are sums set by law for each violation, not a count of lost sales. [3]

Nintendo first sued in 2024. It asked the court for the $4.5 million last October, after Williams did not respond. [1][3]

Judge Lauren King also ordered him to shut the pirate shops and any social media accounts used to share Switch games. [1]

Nintendo told the court the sum was nowhere near enough to make up for what he had done. [3]

It is the latest in a run of Nintendo lawsuits over copied games. Ryan Daly, who sold modified Switch consoles, was earlier made to pay $2 million. [2]

Nintendo also recently won a case in the Netherlands, where a court ruled that selling Mig flash cartridges, which play copied games, is illegal. [1]

Kotaku called the award a potentially life-ruinous amount for one person. On the forum, top-voted replies turned on Williams for selling copied games. [2][3]

Why it matters. Watch whether any of the $4.5 million is ever paid; Kotaku calls the sum potentially life-ruinous for one person. [2]

Stichting Massaschade & Consument, a Dutch consumer group, has filed a class action against Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite. [4] It speaks for Dutch players who played Fortnite before they turned 21, and wants more than 100 million euros in refunds and damages. [4] In 2024 the ACM, the Dutch consumer regulator, fined Epic 1,125,000 euros for shop design that pressured children. [4] A Rotterdam court upheld that fine in January. [4] The group has offered to negotiate before it goes to court. [4]

Why it matters. The group's chair says a regulator found Epic broke the rules and a court confirmed it, so the next step is paying players back. [4] Epic says under-16s in the Netherlands cannot spend real money without a parent's consent, and that its shop has no timer. [4]

Control Resonant, the new action game from Remedy, the studio behind Alan Wake and Max Payne, went on sale on 24 September for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S. [5] Cracked copies were online the same day. [5] On piracy forums and Reddit, some people who usually copy games said they would pay for this one to help Remedy. [5] IGN notes Alan Wake 2 took over a year to make a profit. [5] Remedy's multiplayer game FBC: Firebreak stopped getting new content in under a year. [5]

Why it matters. Remedy's chief executive, Jean-Charles Gaudechon, called it a must-have day-one purchase, and in August it had 1.5 million wishlists. [5] IGN's launch report carries no sales figure. [5]

Star Wars Zero Company, a squad tactics game published by EA, has sold about 1 million copies since its August launch. [6] That is an estimate by Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics, a firm that tracks game sales, who puts its takings at about $50 million. [6] Bit Reactor, the studio that made it, furloughed many of its workers before launch after running out of most of its money. [6] Game File reported 80% of its staff were sent home. [6]

Why it matters. EA is now privately owned and does not have to publish sales, so no official figure is expected. [6] Nine in ten players are in North America or Europe, and Chinese reviews on Steam are only 57% positive, many citing missing voices and languages. [6]

Bethesda and id Software have released patch 1.31 for Quake Champions, an online shooter that has been free to play since 2018. [7] They say no more content updates are planned. [7] The game now becomes a paid game, sold only on Steam for $9.99, and Steam players who already had it do not pay again. [7] All 30 seasons of past content and every champion are unlocked for everyone. [7] Battle passes and all in-game purchases are gone. [7]

Why it matters. id Software, the studio behind Doom, was reportedly cut in half in Xbox's July layoffs, with most of its coders let go. [7] Players who had the game on the Microsoft Store must link a Bethesda.net account to Steam to get the new version. [7]

Bungie, the Sony-owned studio behind Destiny 2, is bringing back campaigns, raids and places it had removed from the game. [8] A Forbes report by Paul Tassi, cited by Eurogamer, adds that all of it will be free, even for players who never owned it. [8] The seasons that ran alongside those campaigns will not return, and nor will seasonal events. [8] Tassi guesses it will arrive sometime next year. [8]

Why it matters. Regular updates are not coming back: Bungie laid off almost the whole Destiny 2 team, and no patches are due before the return except for major bugs. [8] A big update for Marathon, Bungie's other game, is expected in December. [8]

The Blood of Dawnwalker, a vampire role-playing game from Rebel Wolves, a studio started by former CD Projekt Red developers, gets its first big patch in early October. [9] Game director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz told Eurogamer it adds a new easiest difficulty for people who want the story without the fighting. [9] The current Story mode will be renamed, making five levels in all. [9] The patch also changes how the game picks targets, and makes running away from fights smoother. [9]

Why it matters. Rebel Wolves is also exploring a New Game Plus mode, a way to replay the game keeping what you earned. [9] Performance on PC was a major complaint in Steam reviews, and Tomaszkiewicz said the team is still working on it. [9]

An official Pokemon social media account posted 30 seconds of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, games first released in 2002. [10] The picture was sharper than the original Game Boy Advance hardware could show. [10] Fans read it as a sign the games are coming to Nintendo's Switch consoles, which record exactly the last 30 seconds of play, the length of the clip. [10] Nothing has been announced. [10]

Why it matters. This year's Switch releases of Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen sold more than 4 million copies in six weeks, Eurogamer reports. [10] Dataminers say those releases already carried support for all three games of the same generation. [10]

Discord, the chat app many players use, began its new age checks on 23 September. [13] It guesses most users' ages from signals such as how old an account is, its servers and the games it plays. [13] It says more than 90% of users will never be asked to prove their age. [13] The same day, American users started seeing sponsored adverts for FanDuel, a sports betting site that is illegal to use under 21, or under 18 in some places. [13]

Why it matters. Social media users assumed the two were linked, and GameSpot asked Discord about it but had no answer when it published. [13] The betting adverts can be switched off under a setting called Real Money Gaming. [13]

Rockstar Games has opened pre-orders for a box of Grand Theft Auto 6 collectables. [11] It holds a figure of Macca the Gator, Oakley sunglasses, a bag, a cap, a shot glass, pins, stickers and a poster with a map of Leonida, the game's version of Florida. [11] Eurogamer points out that a mirror, a razor-blade keychain and a spoon in the box look like a joke about drug use. [11] Rockstar's own page says nothing about it. [11]

Why it matters. Grand Theft Auto is an adult series with drug storylines, and Eurogamer says the joke is presumably deliberate. [11]

Beyond Good & Evil 2, a Ubisoft adventure game that has been in development for many years, is still being made. [12] Rik Godwin, lead writer at Ubisoft Bordeaux, said this week that he joined it a few months ago in a support role. [12] Ubisoft Montpellier leads the game under creative director Fawzi Mesmar. [12] It survived Ubisoft's cull of projects earlier this year, which cancelled a Prince of Persia remake. [12]

Why it matters. Ubisoft Bordeaux led Assassin's Creed Mirage and made Claws of Awaji, the only expansion for Assassin's Creed Shadows. [12] IGN says it is still not clear when the game will come out, or whether it keeps its name. [12]

Rocket League, the car-football game made by Psyonix and Epic Games, started Season 24 on 23 September. [14] It adds Honor Duel, a new one-against-one feature, and a Black Market Trade-In. [14] New cars arrive in the Rocket Pass, the game's season reward track. [14] The season runs on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC through Steam. [14]

Why it matters. Epic, which makes Rocket League with Psyonix, is the same company the Dutch consumer group is suing over Fortnite's shop. [14][4]

Young Suns, a game about building a spaceship home in orbit around Jupiter, now comes out on 3 November. [15] Its date was shown at the PC Gaming Show Tokyo Direct, an online showcase of PC games. [15] One to four people can play together, fixing up a ship, exploring stations and ruins, and taking quests from a cast of characters. [15] PC Gamer calls it an optimistic game for times that feel less than optimistic. [15]

Why it matters. It is built around making a home in space and getting to know its characters, not around fighting. [15] Players can add it to their Steam wishlist now, the list a store uses to count how many people are waiting. [15]