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[Draugoth]

Read the emails: Valve helped Nintendo kick the Dolphin Emulator off Steam

But it may have a very good reason for playing chicken.

www.theverge.com

According to copies of communication that the Dolphin Team provided to The Verge, Valve helped Nintendo kick Dolphin out — first by bringing the Wii and GameCube emulator to Nintendo’s attention in the first place, and second by unilaterally deciding to pull the plug without giving Dolphin an out.

Valve doesn’t dispute this. “Given Nintendo’s history of taking action against some emulators, we brought this to their attention proactively after the Dolphin team announced it was coming soon to Steam,” Valve spokesperson Kaci Aitchison Boyle tells The Verge.

The emails also show Valve may have had very good reason to nip Dolphin in the bud.

Here’s the entire email that Valve received from Nintendo’s lawyers on May 26th, so you can follow along:

“Thank you for bringing the announced offering of the Dolphin emulator on Valve’s Steam store to Nintendo’s attention,”

Nintendo’s lawyer says. Email via Dolphin Team.

 

[StealthGoblin]

Well if I were Valve I wouldn’t want to get involved with Nintendo’s lawyers. Keep the beast happy.

 

[Quasicat]

Now that it’s come out the Dolphin uses some sort of encryption technology that was pulled from the Wii console, this makes sense. Hopefully the developers behind Dolphin will go in and remove the code in question and release a “clean” version.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Now that it’s come out the Dolphin uses some sort of encryption technology that was pulled from the Wii console, this makes sense. Hopefully the developers behind Dolphin will go in and remove the code in question and release a “clean” version.

Reminds me of the CIC lockout chip days of the NES and the Tengen fiasco.

 

[Nydius]

I thought this was known from the beginning? People just had a typical knee-jerk "Nintendo being bad guys again!" response to the headlines without reading the articles. All the original articles I saw on it said the same thing: Valve initiated the discourse. Likely to cover their asses against potential litigation if they went ahead and let it on their service.

 

[Midn1ght]

Valve be like

 

[DeepEnigma]

Valve be like

Native Nintendo games with the power of high end PCs.

/drool

 

[Success]

It is surprising that Valve even let Dolphin list in the first place.

 

[feynoob]

Well if I were Valve I wouldn’t want to get involved with Nintendo’s lawyers. Keep the beast happy.

Valve did a good job there.
They will be in legal trouble, if there was something like that on their platform.

 

[Musashipan]

Nintendo buying Valve?

 

[rofif]

Of course. Why would they want this problematic app on there ?
I don't see any reason to have it on steam anyway hen you can just download it any other way

 

[Midn1ght]

Native Nintendo games with the power of high end PCs.

/drool

This is basically how I imagine my brain would react to a Nintendo/Valve partnership announcement.

For the Nintendo Army tho, it'd probably be like:

 

[rofif]

This is basically how I imagine my brain would react to a Nintendo/Valve partnership announcement.

For the Nintendo Army tho, it'd probably be like:

I honestly don't think most pc gamers care about nintendo games.
PC master race is too proud to play kids game mario probably

 

[Midn1ght]

I honestly don't think most pc gamers care about nintendo games.
PC master race is too proud to play kids game mario probably

Fortnite, Minecraft, Roblox, Rocket League, Fall Guys, etc...

Hello?

I'll give you that Mario, Donkey Kong and Kirby probably wouldn't be as popular on PC (Sonic is very popular on PC tho)

But Zelda, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Smash Brothers, Pokemon,...

Come on now...

 

[mckmas8808]

 

[Fahdis]

Nintendo buying Valve?

I will quit gaming for real. I hope it never happens in my lifetime.

 

[bender]

GAABEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!!!!!!

 

[mitch1971]

Nintendo's lawyer. Who knew!

 

[DemonGamerTTT]

I honestly don't think most pc gamers care about nintendo games.
PC master race is too proud to play kids game mario probably

First of all, kids games are fun and relaxing. They help people to escape from the stress and worries of everyday life. They also bring back happy memories of my childhood and make me feel young at heart.

Let the grown ups fuck around from time to time...

 

[Barakov]

I don't like this.

Still this is smart move on Valve's part to keep Nintendo and its' gorillas happy. Probably a bad move to show the Yuzu emulator on that Steam Deck mock up.

Really don't want to bring this up, but it kinda begs the question why Retroarch is okay and this isn't.

 

[Silver Wattle]

Valve were just getting ahead of the issue, dolphin emulator developers caused this.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I honestly don't think most pc gamers care about nintendo games.
PC master race is too proud to play kids game mario probably

Not at all. I think at this point a large majority of us grew up with Nintendo.

 

[Captain Toad]

Why would they go out of their way to piss off Nintendo who lives in the courts over Dolphin? If I was Valve, I wouldn't anger them over something so trivial to them.

 

[theHFIC]

I honestly don't think most pc gamers care about nintendo games.
PC master race is too proud to play kids game mario probably

PCMR wouldn’t know what to do with a game that ships day one polished, stable, and feature complete.

 

[BlackTron]

It is surprising that Valve even let Dolphin list in the first place.

I agree, I expect better/wiser from Steam.

 

[BlackTron]

PCMR wouldn’t know what to do with a game that ships day one polished, stable, and feature complete.

Best combo has always been a PC and a Nintendo since 90's, if you only have one something big is left on the table

 

[93xfan]

Well if I were Valve I wouldn’t want to get involved with Nintendo’s lawyers. Keep the beast happy.

Beyond that, there’s no money in people emulating games. Wouldn’t you rather they buy games on your platform rather than enjoy something that doesn’t make you any money? There’s even a risk the customer may discover they like classic games better than some of the games you’re sellling

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

I agree, I expect better/wiser from Steam.

Probably goes to show a lot about how steams marketplace process works. Would explain the profound amounts of shovelware. The steam marketplace is like ancapistan apparently

 

[Guilty_AI]

I honestly don't think most pc gamers care about nintendo games.
PC master race is too proud to play kids game mario probably

Meanwhile in the real world

Stardew Valley has sold over 20 million copies and we’re not even surprised

13 million of those sold were on PC alone

www.gamesradar.com

 

[theclaw135]

I agree, I expect better/wiser from Steam.

More that the Dolphin team slipped up. Wii games are encrypted, and the DMCA is federal law that places many convoluted (and frequently amended I might add) legal restrictions on how/when it's acceptable to circumvent DRM.

 

[BlackTron]

More that the Dolphin team slipped up. Wii games are encrypted, and the DMCA is federal law that places many convoluted (and frequently amended I might add) legal restrictions on how/when it's acceptable to circumvent DRM.

I know exactly what happened. I think it was unwise of Steam.

 

[theclaw135]

I know exactly what happened. I think it was unwise of Steam.

Well yeah, Steam did post a "coming soon" page for software potentially in violation of the DMCA (even if nobody could download it).

 

[BlackTron]

Probably goes to show a lot about how steams marketplace process works. Would explain the profound amounts of shovelware. The steam marketplace is like ancapistan apparently

Well yeah, Steam did post a "coming soon" page for software potentially in violation of the DMCA (even if nobody could download it).

Can't even say they were hardly paying attention and it slipped through the cracks with that coming soon page. So it's even worse really, showed they were fully cognizant of the whole thing.

I'm not really arguing about semantics whether it was legal or not, just that it wasn't smart. This is the type of thing that leads to problems, at a glance.

 

[adamsapple]

Et tu, Gaben ?

 

[tkscz]

Out side of the steam deck, what purpose would they need to port the emulator over to steam? Dolphin is one of the easiest emulators to install, I can figure out why they did this.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Boooooo

Nasty Valve !

 

[TrueLegend]

Emulation doesn't violate shit. I think it's rather extra generous that we even discuss and talk about their ban. Corporations that are trying to do this are doing criminal actions under the guise of law citing the selective interpretations of the law. If emulation is a crime Nintendo is a bigger criminal in this regard since they are emulating so many things that they never invented like computers, the way hard drives work, down to the fucking concrete which they use for building offices.

 

[Tams]

Emulation doesn't violate shit. I think it's rather extra generous that we even discuss and talk about their ban. Corporations that are trying to do this are doing criminal actions under the guise of law citing the selective interpretations of the law. If emulation is a crime Nintendo is a bigger criminal in this regard since they are emulating so many things that they never invented like computers, the way hard drives work, down to the fucking concrete which they use for building offices.

Read the last sentence of the posted page of the letter.

 

[onnextflix5]

Well now we know why ms blocked emulators on Xbox lol, fuck ms,Nintendo and valve, emulation is 100% legal, even Nintendo uses emulation, they would have a hard time convincing any judge to conclude otherwise.

 

[Gudji]

Naughty Gaben.

 

[Tralosdean]

fine by me

 

[Topher]

I honestly don't think most pc gamers care about nintendo games.
PC master race is too proud to play kids game mario probably

I don't think you have a good understanding of either the PC or Nintendo gaming demographics my man.

 

[rofif]

I don't think you have a good understanding of either the PC or Nintendo gaming demographics my man.

Ask my coworkers and they will say yay for witcher 3 and battefield 5 but laugh at mario.
Not me. I would play it. I never had a switch but I will get switch 2 maybe

 

[Knightime_X]

Not having dolphin on steam is a nonissue.
It's just an extra step anyways.

 

[IFireflyl]

I honestly don't think most pc gamers care about nintendo games.
PC master race is too proud to play kids game mario probably

Another hot take from the [so-called] PC gamer who hates PC gaming.

 

[rofif]

Another hot take from the [so-called] PC gamer who hates PC gaming.

It's not a hot take. pcmr dont care for nintendo games. They see it as kids games.
I am not talking about myself here.
I am not pcmr

 

[Topher]

Ask my coworkers and they will say yay for witcher 3 and battefield 5 but laugh at mario.
Not me. I would play it. I never had a switch but I will get switch 2 maybe

You think your coworkers are representative of.......what again?

 

[jshackles]

Isn't there a Dolphin core for Retroarch? Retroarch is on Steam.

So, the fact it's not there as standalone seems like a bit of a non-issue.

 

[Stuart360]

Its ironic really that the 2 things publishers and studios hate the most, piracy and emulation, are the 2 things that allow us to play old games today, the only way to playa lot of old games today, and are the 2 leading factors in game preservation, something that should be super important to gamers and the medium as a whole.

 

[IFireflyl]

It's not a hot take.

Based on the ratio of likes to responses, it definitely was a hot take.

pcmr dont care for nintendo games. They see it as kids games.
I am not talking about myself here.
I am not pcmr

The best part of PCMR is having choices/options. I am a part of the PCMR. I have almost 10 TB of ROMs from various consoles. I rip my Switch games from the disk so I can move them to my PC when I'm not traveling (in which case I use my Switch). The friends I have who are part of the PCMR also enjoy emulating console games on their gaming PCs. Quit speaking for everyone. PCMR is doing fine without your white knighting against them.