Discord has banned two Switch emulator devs and shuttered their servers in the wake of Yuzu's defeat

Gaming IndustryDiscord has banned two Switch emulator devs and shuttered their servers in the wake of Yuzu’s defeatWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Nintendo)

Ganondorf yelling with the gem in his forehead glowing

What makes this story murky is that Yuzu connection⁠—other emulator communities on the platform remain unaffected, including the one for Ryujinx, the Pepsi to Yuzu’s Coke in the Switch emulation space. According to The Verge, the letter of Nintendo’s settlement with Yuzu allows for developers unaffiliated with the original Yuzu team to use and modify its open-source GPL v3 code in their own emulator projects.

In practice though, it’s all probably too close to pissing off the Big N for Discord’s comfort. In a statement to The Verge, a Discord rep said that “Discord responds to and complies with all legal and valid Digital Millennium Copyright Act requests. In this instance, there was also a court ordered injunction for the takedown of these materials, and we took action in a manner consistent with the court order.”

It’s always frustrating to see emulation communities suffer losses like this, especially in what may be an overreach when looking at the letter of the law, but Discord has a clear incentive to prize Nintendo’s wishes over emulator devs, and this whole debacle is another useful example of how the platform should be used and viewed.

Discord servers can feel private, like a chat between friends, but they aren’t nearly as secure as communication on Signal or Telegram, while their often open and public-facing nature means any number of people unaffiliated with you can see what you’re saying. You really should view speech on Discord servers as more akin to social media posts than private communication with friends.

Also, as userToothlessFTWpoints out on r/pcgaming, maybe a Discord server isn’t even the best venue for this sort of project in the first place: “I’m really glad that tons of software devs out there have decided to use Discord as an exclusive hub as a replacement for forums when Discord can just nuke any server they want at the click of a button and wipe it all out.”

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I feel like I have to tap the sign PCG associate editor Lauren Morton hung up here back in 2022:Please stop making Discord servers for things that shouldn’t be Discord servers.

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