Directly, probably not. But if you work on an engine team or on a game and there’s some future lawsuit implying that the methods and techniques match their stuff then it will be costly. Companies would rather just avoid the potential liability.
Here’s an article discussing some aspects of Nintendo leaks being risky for those who work on emulators
"Such dumps wouldn’t be of use to the project due to it being illegal to obtain and use code contained within said dumps,” they said via Twitter DM. “Using code from dumps like that can taint the project and be active grounds for Nintendo to pursue legal action against it.”
“Having a 16 plus year old emulator project go up in smoke isn’t something I’d want to happen. I’ve already seen a few comments on Reddit saying something along the lines of, ‘Well, why don’t you just make use of it but change it up a little before using it’, which, uhh, is a profound lack of perspective,” Lioncache said. “Legally, you generally don’t get a second chance about these sorts of things if legal action actually gets taken.”
