Probably the most outstanding subreddit dedicated to discussions of Nintendo Swap piracy—in addition to emulation—was banned on Tuesday, after greater than three years on the platform. The neighborhood was first created in Could 2020, and as of June 10, its newest snapshot on the Wayback Machine, it had accrued greater than 69,800 members
In current weeks the subreddit had grown dramatically and will have turn into too high-profile for its controversial material: it had simply over 37,000 members on Could 1, after I reported that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom had leaked onto pirate websites. During the last month and a half r/NewYuzuPiracy grew to become the de facto house for discussions centered round modding Tears of the Kingdom, at the very least for gamers who pirated the sport.
As I wrote earlier than the sport’s official launch, it was a messy scenario for emulation builders, who often take nice care to distance themselves from any public connection to piracy. Along with brazenly discussing pirated video games, posters on the subreddit would additionally share “early entry” builds of Nintendo Swap emulator Yuzu, that are usually locked behind a Patreon subscription except you understand how to compile a construct your self by way of Github. Additionally they distributed in-development mods from one of many Swap emulator’s most outstanding modders, inflicting him to shut his Discord server in frustration.
Contemplating the brazen title, it appears unusual that Reddit’s banning of r/NewYuzuPiracy has taken this lengthy. In accordance with the message that now seems rather than the subreddit, it was banned “resulting from a violation of Reddit’s content material coverage in opposition to creating or repurposing a sub to reconstitute or serve the identical goal as a beforehand banned or quarantined subreddit.”
A substitute might rapidly pop up in its wake. The subreddit r/YuzuPiracy was banned on April 21, 2020, simply two weeks earlier than r/NewYuzuPiracy was created and grew to dominate search outcomes for Tears of the Kingdom mods. Clearly no matter Reddit’s content material moderation priorities are, truly banning duplicate subreddits is not excessive on the checklist.
