A sad day for emulation and open source advocates, and a reminder that Nintendo can and will destroy you if they see fit.
Hopefully their works will live in the saved repos just as ReVanced was able to live on after YouTube shut the original project down.
Tbh I think they were smart to incorporate. It might have drawn a larger target on their backs (though patreon’s target probably dwarfed it), but it also meant that individually they were financially protected from Nintendo. They’ll probably still have to pay Nintendo whatever their corporation currently has even if they declare bankruptcy, but at least the devs aren’t having their wages garnished until the end of time.
If they do attempt to declare bankruptcy, let’s hope Nintendo doesn’t try and sue them again to pierce the corporate veil.
This is almost word for word what I said in another friend group today. Protecting individuals is literally why LLCs exist. It’s what “LLC” stands for.
Nintendo Hyper Beam’d them into oblivion but they got a Substitute up first. The defense strategy was smart. The strategy that put them in the position of needing to use the defense strategy was idiotic, yes, but the defense was smart.
Short of Nintendo doing nothing at all, this is probably the best outcome that could have realistically happened.
Although it works out for these developers I hate that people can do this to avoid the full consequences of their actions.
I hate this too. But - what if we start using this ability to our advantage, just like these guys did? Corps use it, let’s also abuse it so they can’t destroy us without also waiving their rights. LLCs are the privacy abstraction layer of the real world. I figured that even registering your own personal domain is much safer when done through your own LLC than on your personal name. The examples are many.