Just buy used. You get all the goodies without supporting their shitty practices, while not even having to deal with the ethics of piracy. It’s all win.
Honestly, pirating Nintendo products should be considered an ethical obligation at this point, just to spite them.
I have been since 1998, but I ramped it up recently since they went after Yuzu.
Not even just out of spite. In a way its another form of “voting with one’s wallet”. It will affect their sales, and if their heads aren’t too far up their assess (like, sitting on their own shoulders), they’ll finally get a clue.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Pirated copies of old ROMs that Nintendo doesn’t sell anymore cannot be counted as “lost sales,” so that really only applies to their latest releases.
Personally, I think I’d rather not even give them the word of mouth of having played their game. There’s so much out there to play, and plenty of it doesn’t come from a company doing lousy stuff like this, even if it’s second hand.
plenty of it doesn’t come from a company doing lousy stuff like this
So you only play indie games? Because that’s basically the only way you avoid “companies doing lousy stuff.”
If there’s any time playing only indie games is viable it’s now. We’ve had high quality indie releases outpacing how fast you can play them for a few years now.
So you only play indie games?
Pretty much.
More specifically, I only play new games that I can verify the author is receiving a fair wage. That tends to be pretty indie.
In the rare case that I’m somehow caught up on my indie game library, I also play open source games and AAA title abandonware.
Moving from “patient gamer” to “gamer with a strong stance against Nintendo’s and EA’s bullshit” honestly wasn’t a huge deal. And it continues to be easy on my wallet.
Why bother? Paid, non-transferable cloud backups, low-spec hardware that wears out in a few months, over-hyped/half-finished games (assuming they’re ever released), back catalogs that aren’t available if you don’t subscribe or repurchase every generation… Just skip em.
If you want AAA games, there’s plenty you can play mobile or on PC (or both), or if you specifically want indie, there’s plenty of them too on Itch.io , individual websites, and steam (among many others; GoG, HumbleBundle, etc). You frequently don’t even need to pay for these games, since a lot of them are free or via user-decided donations (mostly re: indies).
Hardware that can run them range everywhere from GPD handhelds to Steam Deck to any number of either’s competitors, and they also function as more than just game machines since they run either Linux or Windows.
Nintendo who?
Nope. I’d still have to buy games somehow and I’m fucked if I’m paying a tenner less for second hand because Nintendo games rarely drop in price. Also not paying full price. If anything I’d buy a hacked switch and pirate the games.
