Valve has removed the Steam page for the Dolphin emulator at the request of Nintendo, according to gaming blog Kotaku. Although Dolphin hadn’t been released on Steam, the page was created in March in preparation for the upcoming release. Dolphin allows gamers to play Nintendo GameCube and Wii games on their PC. Nintendo objected to the cryptographic keys of its consoles being stored in Dolphin Simulator without permission. Documents in the US gaming magazine PCGamer reveal that Nintendo considered this to be a violation of copyright law DMCA and therefore the emulator could not be offered on Steam.
In a statement to Kotaku, a Nintendo spokesperson said the company is committed to protecting the hard work and creativity of video game developers. “This emulator illegally bypasses Nintendo’s protections and runs illegal copies of games,” the spokesperson said. “Using illegal emulators or illegal copies of games harms game development and ultimately hampers innovation. Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies and expects in return that others do the same.”
Dolphin’s developers have only briefly responded to the Steam ban, writing in a blog post that the release of Dolphin on Steam has been postponed indefinitely. They are currently evaluating their options and will discuss them in more detail shortly. Although the Dolphin emulator is no longer available on Steam, it can still be found on Github.
Nintendo has been cracking down on emulators recently. Earlier this month, the company took action against the providers of dumping tools, which extract encrypted keys from purchased switch games and can then make them usable on other devices. Developers of the Android emulator Skyline have also abandoned their program due to Nintendo’s intervention. Nintendo has filed copyright complaints with the hoster Github against dumping tool Lockpick RCM and many forks pointing out that these tools also violate DMCA.
