Inside the Messy, Dark Side of Nintendo Switch Piracy (vice.com) 77
Doxing rivals, stealing each other's files, and poking around Nintendo's servers are all a normal part of the ballooning Nintendo Switch hacking and piracy scenes. Joseph Cox, reports for Motherboard: The Switch piracy community -- much of which operates on the gamer-focused chat app Discord -- is full of ingenuity, technical breakthroughs, and evolving cat-and-mouse games between the multi-billion dollar Nintendo and the passionate hackers who love the company but nonetheless illegally steal its games. Pirates deploy malware to steal each other's files so they can download more games themselves. Groups deliberately plant code into others' Switches so they no longer work. And some people in the scene have been doxed, meaning they've had their personal information published online.
Pirating games for the Switch is not technically straightforward. Instead, there's a complex supply chain constantly grinding away that helps people source and play unreleased games. There are reverse engineers who figure out how Nintendo's own tools work, so hackers can then use them for their own advantage. There are coders who make programs to streamline the process of downloading or running games. Reviewers, developers, or YouTubers with access to games before general Switch users often leak unlock codes or other information to small groups, which then may trickle out to the wider community.
[...] To release a game, pirates may dump a copy from the physical cartridge; they can do this before the game releases in the United States by sourcing the cartridge from an Australian store, which releases earlier because of the time difference. But this only gets a game out one or two days before official release. For the more sought-after and early dumps, pirates often manage to grab a copy from Nintendo's eShop, the company's digital download game store that is built into the Switch. Here, pirates will likely use a piece of hacker-made software on their computers to talk to Nintendo's servers, one pirate who uploads large archives of games explained to Motherboard in an online chat. The files can sometimes be downloaded early by anyone (by design), and are encrypted and need a so-called "titlekey" to unlock them and make the game playable. Further reading: Nintendo 'Wins' $12 Million From Pirate ROM Site Operators.
Pirating games for the Switch is not technically straightforward. Instead, there's a complex supply chain constantly grinding away that helps people source and play unreleased games. There are reverse engineers who figure out how Nintendo's own tools work, so hackers can then use them for their own advantage. There are coders who make programs to streamline the process of downloading or running games. Reviewers, developers, or YouTubers with access to games before general Switch users often leak unlock codes or other information to small groups, which then may trickle out to the wider community.
[...] To release a game, pirates may dump a copy from the physical cartridge; they can do this before the game releases in the United States by sourcing the cartridge from an Australian store, which releases earlier because of the time difference. But this only gets a game out one or two days before official release. For the more sought-after and early dumps, pirates often manage to grab a copy from Nintendo's eShop, the company's digital download game store that is built into the Switch. Here, pirates will likely use a piece of hacker-made software on their computers to talk to Nintendo's servers, one pirate who uploads large archives of games explained to Motherboard in an online chat. The files can sometimes be downloaded early by anyone (by design), and are encrypted and need a so-called "titlekey" to unlock them and make the game playable. Further reading: Nintendo 'Wins' $12 Million From Pirate ROM Site Operators.
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I have nothing clever to reply, so... boobies! [youtube.com]
Repeat after me (Score:2, Interesting)
It isn't stealing unless the person stolen from doesn't have the property anymore. Period. Unless you want to discuss silly concepts like stealing a kiss, in which case, I fully support the use of the term in such a positive fashion.
It's called pirating. Illegally copying (especially since you mentioned illegal stealing, it's not even any more clumsy). Just use the right terminology, because right now I'm imagining a bunch of hackers wanting revenge on each other because their code keeps going missing.
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I also take exception to the word "pirating," since data-duplication is a FAR FUCKING CRY from murder, rape, kidnapping, and actual property theft that goes on in the high seas. They are not remotely morally equivalent, either.
But, that's the term, that ship has sailed.
In any event, it sounds like Nintendo would be wise to beef up its security efforts a bit. This article makes it sound like Nintendo is as easy to hack as Sony!
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The ship has sailed on people equating the word pirate with anything bad.
Someone should start a pirate pirate site (Score:2)
Yes, that is what they were going for... but it totally backfired. Pirates are fun and everyone loves them.
I want to see a torrent site that carries only works that glorify sea piracy, such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Sid Meier's Pirates!.
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The PiratePirateBay?
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No, but the number of big AAA game releases on PC has diminished greatly. There was a brief spike when Denuvo was king and could hold off piracy enough to make a little bit of money on the port. But before that, PC ports, if they existed were either online games or shitty ports that came out years later.
In the meantime, the PC just gets tons of crappy free to play and indie games (not a bad thing necessari
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Repeat after me: stealing is to pirating as counterfeiting is to....
...photocopying?
Re: Repeat after me (Score:2)
It isn't piracy unless it involves hijacking. It's copyright infringement.
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And it isn't spam unless it's a can of meat. It's unsolicited e-mail. Because words can never mean more than one thing.
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And it isn't spam unless it's a can of meat.
That's a bit generous. Meat like substance maybe XD
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If people weren't able to pirate "Game of Thrones" would they just shrug and go play frisbee instead, or would they have gone out and subscribed to an HBO service or paid for a digital download or DVD set so they could watch it?
If the former, then yes, they haven't really cost HBO anything. If the latter, then one can argue pretty clearly that they've "s
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If the latter, then one can argue pretty clearly that they've "stolen" revenue from HBO.
One cannot "steal" something that was never HBO's in the first place. One does not "own" potential revenues.
The only real criteria is whether your actions involving the other party make them worse off than they would have been in your absence. For theft the answer is yes: if the thief didn't exist they would still have their property, so the presence of the thief makes them worse off. For copyright infringement the answer is no: if the infringer didn't exist they still wouldn't get any revenue, so the prese
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Replace "steal" with "deprive of"? Happy now?
Imagine you had a wealthy aunt who you know is going to leave the whole pile to you when she pops her clogs. I convince her to change her will and leave two thirds to me and the rest to St Tiggywinkle's hospital; I'm not greedy.
I take it you'd have no problem with that, then, since it was only "potential" revenue?
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What people get hot and bothered by is the fact that stealing is short hand for scripture of "do not covet thy neighbors property"
Every single churchie joe who has ever pirated a game, movie, movie or other piece of art is going to hell. So pirates either do not believe in any kind of hell or do not believe in any kind of afterlife, so they are just following the rule of "live life to it's fullest, you only live once"
If you do believe that you will be judged on your deeds on earth once you pass away, then you'd also realize that fraud is considered a more heinous sin than violence. Sure you might kill someone, but you surely had a good reason for it right? There is no good reason to steal anything other than food, and even then bread is the only thing you can be justified in stealing and not reap negative karma for.
Stealing anything else, be it a cake, or a digital song, is bad, and the reason it's bad is because when people realize there is no cosmic force going to punish them, they then they feel justified in stealing everything that nobody will actually miss.
Oh, fuck off. The ones going to hell are those who stole from culture and invented a fake form of property called copyright. No religious book starts out with "Don't copy this" as they're all based on the idea that ideas are to be shared and attempting to lock them up for money is theft.
All religious leaders have used others words without compensating them. Some like Jesus even created stuff out of thin air even though it deprived someone of the opportunity to sell their stuff. Think about it, copying food
It's Theft of Permission (Score:2)
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Wanna play online? Well currently there's no private servers, so you're only option is local lan play assuming it's an option for the game in question
There's also pseudo LAN play over the internet which works on both hacked and unhacked switches. This only requires you to change your IP settings on the Switch and run a program on your PC. lan-play.com [lan-play.com]
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Copyright is just a legal construct, it has no basis nor support in nature.
So? What does nature have to do with this discussion; most of what humans create is not "natural", but nonetheless valuable.
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You wouldn't feel that way if you yourself were running a commercial software company. If someone pirates your video game - the people who pay mortgages/rent, put food on the table for their family don't get paid.
Sure you didn't take anything physical, but the net result is the same - something you should have bought didn't generate any revenue for the company who made it.
And yes I agree some companies go way to far overboard when it comes to licensing, but then - it's their software not yours - I don't see
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Has anyone ever definitively proved that piracy actually lowers revenue?
if x number of people pirate your game, some percentage will go on to purchase it. They'll also function as word of mouth free advertising, which encourages others to buy it. Can you prove that a company is worse off as a result?
Remember shareware, way back when -- and in particular Doom? ID released as a fully functioning demo of the first few stages, and it clearly didn't impact their overall sales in a negative fashion.
I'd wager
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Perhaps we should just implement a tax to pay these poor commercial game developers. They obviously deserve to be paid for their work even if people don't buy their product.
It can go with the internet streaming tax the *AA's are pushing for up here in Canada. Use over 15 GBs a month means you're streaming and since Netflix, Spotify, etc don't pay the artists enough, a tax fixes it. We could just add Steam to the list, make the tax bigger, and pay these poor souls so they can continue to produce stuff that p
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Better ... (Score:2)
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Are you afraid they'll mess with your online games of "Super Elite Sniper game #51", "Car hijacking game #67" or "Mafia Syndicate game #154"?
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That's "Super Elite Sniper game 18", "Car hijacking game 18" and "Mafia Syndicate game 18". Until next year at least when you get to buy the same game again. But with a 19 in the title!
Music And Film Industry Associations (Score:2)
Are you afraid they'll mess with your online games of [...] "Mafia Syndicate game #154"?
With Nintendo and affiliated companies bringing out new Mario and Pikachu movies, you're seeing "MAFIAA Syndicate" play out before you.
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Are you afraid they'll mess with your online games of "Super Elite Sniper game #51", "Car hijacking game #67" or "Mafia Syndicate game #154"?
Obviously you're unfamiliar with the Nintendo ecosystem and their target market. That should be Splatoon Paint Wars! #51, SuperDuper MarioKart SmashUP #67 or Luigi's Mushroom Syndicate #154.
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You're insane if you think their skillset is limited to Nintendo and not being used in "the real world"
Oh ignorance, maybe you one day go away and make us that much more insightful.
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Yeah. But did you actually steal stuff? Or just take it apart to see how it works? There's a big difference between hacking and piracy.
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So, someone spends time developing 'skillz' and then wastes them stealing make-belive pots of gold and magic cloaks. Nintendo adds little note to their credit file to the effect that they have no compunction about violating trust or contracts.
All those interesting jobs working for a TLA, banks or the DoD? Forget about them. Enjoy your career as a short-order cook.
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Grumpy ol' fuck aren't ya? Assuming my career and everything.
The greatest game (Score:2)
Sounds like Nintendo have created a successful advanced ARG for their dedicated fans.
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It's more a "down with hype, up with technology". Cracking games isn't as easy anymore as it was when I was young, today it becomes more and more a game of cryptography and breaking encryption. One has to wonder why they toy with games instead of going after more lucrative targets.
Pirate pirate hacker hacker (Score:5, Interesting)
The summary reads like an attempt to cram as many instances of "piracy" and "hacker" into the text as possible. There are other reasons people crack their Switches or other consoles, including running homebrew or just simply to explore how these devices work behind the scenes. Not everyone who is interested in hacking their Switch is interested in pirating Switch games.
One example is the lack of save game backup support like the Wii and Wii U had. We had over a year of Switch with no mechanism for backups available. Nintendo Online allows backups but certain titles opt out and there is no solution from Nintendo for backups of those. However, hacked Switches have been able to dump saved games to SD cards for months now [kotaku.com]. The hacker community does what Nintendon't.
Exclusivity and Price rigging... breeds Piracy (Score:3)
When you play the game like Nintendo does it, then you breed piracy. Games that take years to drop in price, exclusive content, rigorous control over the environment, total disrespect of their customers.
There are many reasons to break software free of the DRM grips of these kinds of businesses. If nintendo wants to provide me a walled garden with exclusive content and watch what I do, then they need to give it to me for free. I am not going to pay for this type treatment.
I don't feel sorry for consumers of Nintendo products, they have more than proven who and what kind of business they are. They have no honor!
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You want them to develop smash titles like Super Mario and give them for free?
They're protecting their IP. It may seem scummy to you, but you wouldn't like it either if you tried to make a living off your games you made at your expense, then have people break your platform just so they can have it for free.
There's nothing wrong with paying for entertainment. Every company has done dick moves of course, and I don't necessarily agree with everything Nintendo does; but at some point people are just acting like
Re:Exclusivity and Price rigging... breeds Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
your rant was a non-sequitur.
Read what I said again.
"You want them to develop smash titles like Super Mario and give them for free?"
Letting me play it at no "direct" cost to myself does not make it "free" in the way that you imply. Nintendo recoups that cost through advertising and data collection. I am just saying that if I give them my own money that I do not want them to also monetize me in other ways.
"There's nothing wrong with paying for entertainment."
Point out where I stated that paying for entertainment was wrong?
"Every company has done dick moves of course, and I don't necessarily agree with everything Nintendo does; but at some point people are just acting like the self-entitled pricks that they have shown themselves to be."
Name calling, many consider this to mean that you have already lost the argument. It is simple, if you do business with a company that makes these "dick moves" then what does that say about you? Asking a company to stop being "dicks" or making "dick moves" is hardly enough to accuse people of being self entitled pricks, but you seem to be unable to figure this out.
"I have nothing against people hacking these systems and doing what they're doing."
Seems to me that you apparently do have something against these people according to what you are saying.
"There's something to be said about the ingenuity of some of these work-arounds and just the knowledge some of these folks have"
Agree...
"But I have no sympathy for them when Nintendo turns around and does something about it either. "
even when what they do about it is more negative than positive? Why are you even commenting? If all is fair then what do you seek to gain by even bothering a comment?
"The only people who truly complain are the kids who want everything for free."
Ah, the old "no true Scotsman" fallacy combined with a provably wrong "lie" and "gate-keeping". Nice "triple-play" there fellow human.
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Meh, re-read. I just attacked your last point and nothing else, through my own boredom. You'll notice very large gaps in my commenting on here. I get bored sometimes... The fact you felt personally attacked by so many of my comments is sad. I'm sorry for you.
People buy from Nintendo because they as kids loved it and the characters never really went away. My first two sentences were out of line but I stand by pretty much the remainder of it. Nobody said you had to agree with me...
Oh, I guess you did on that
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lmao what a bunch of pretentious drivel from a pathetic thieving little teenager.
Stop stealing, you little fucking thief.
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He even went so far as to get his moderator friends to make himself look good and me bad.
Oh internet. Sad.
Spying, nonfreedom, and disablement? Not for me! (Score:2)
You're pitching this idea as though that would be unreasonable to ask for, but I don't owe Nintendo money for their investment choices. When we consider that they're currently distributing proprietary (nonfree, user-subjugating) software that can be remotely disabled (via digital restrictions management and server dependencies based on servers that aren't distributed but can go away) I see no incentive to buy. The specific price o
Bad writing. (Score:2)
This is self-contradicting.