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Video games have always been an expensive hobby, so it’s no surprise players turn to the secondhand market for good deals. Why pay $60, $70, even $80 for a game when you can get the same experience for a discount? As it turns out, there might now be a reason: avoiding a ban for your Switch 2.
Nintendo’s latest console is barely a month old, and yet players are already getting banned thanks to the company’s aggressive new stance on piracy. It’s so aggressive, in fact, that playing a used game you purchased legitimately may result in a ban. That was the experience of this Reddit user, who was banned after downloading patches for four second-hand Switch games bought from Facebook Marketplace.
Now, banning players for loading a used game isn’t an official Nintendo policy, mind you. In most cases, if you pick up a used Switch game from GameStop, pop it in your console, and play it, you’ll have the same experience as you would have buying the game new.
But if you’re particularly unlucky, that used game might trigger Nintendo to brick your Switch 2.
Nintendo’s war on piracy
This issue is with how Nintendo is implementing its anti-piracy strategy. Nintendo can tell if a purchased game is being run on more than one system, and, if it is, it will take action. The company has been clear that it can brick consoles if it detects a player is running pirated software. While buying a used cartridge is not piracy by any means, some users do rip game files from the original cartridge and upload them to something like an MIG flash cart. Most do this in order to backup their games, and for the convenience of being able to play many of them without needing to bring along all the cartridges. But if you buy a used game from someone who already copied it to an MIG cart, and now Nintendo sees two versions of that same game active across two different consoles, you’ll both be banned.
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If you get banned, talk to Nintendo
There is a happy-ish ending to this story: Users experiencing online bans and bricked consoles have had success after talking to Nintendo support about their situation. So long as you can show you have access to the legitimate version of the game, Nintendo can unban your console and account. (I’d recommend keeping your receipts for all used game purchases.)
I understand why a company like Nintendo would want to fight back against piracy. It loses money on each game users do not acquire legally. But in my view, it has gone way too far in the actions it is taking against piracy: Haphazardly banning accounts and bricking consoles is a bit too dystopian, and I’m not sure it’s a sustainable practice. Brazil’s consumer rights watchdog has even issued a legal challenge against the practice. There has to be a middle ground here where Nintendo can work to prevent illegal gaming without punishing players for saving a little money on their games after spending $450 on a new console.
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