Nintendo is so desperate to smite Zelda leaks it DMCAed a legitimate streamer
May 12 cannot come soon enough.
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Nintendo is having a bad one. Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has leaked well ahead of its official Friday release, prompting the company to mercilessly fire offDMCA takedown requests, most notably to GitHub, for hosting crucial code used by emulators like Yuzu. So trigger-happy are they, that Nintendo has erroneously issued a takedown request targeting legit preview footage, resulting in a prominent Twitch streamer’s temporary banning.
Streamer, podcaster and Sony Santa Monica writer Alanah Pearcetweetedyesterday that her Twitch account was suspended mid-stream as she reacted to Nintendo-approved preview footage belonging toSkill Up. By “Nintendo-approved”, I mean the footage was legitimately recorded by Skill Up during a Nintendo-hosted event, which Nintendo organised in order to promote this Nintendo-developed game.
Pearce was “reacting” to Skill Up’s video when her stream was abruptly halted. As the streamer points out in her ensuingYouTube videoabout the situation, it’s likely that Nintendo issued the DMCA before noticing that it was a stream of a video of approved footage. (As one clever commenter notes in the video: “You thought you were reacting to Nintendo, but Nintendo was actually reacting to you”.)
WhilePearce’s channelhas returned, the situation emphasises how dogged Nintendo is on smiting TOTK leaks. It’s too late, though: One need not travel far online to find troves of leaked info and footage from the game, not to mention that the game itself has been circulating on piracy sites for over a week.
As Wesnoted earlier this week, TOTK’s early leak has caused chaos in the modding community, which despite attempting to eliminate discussion and material related to the game ahead of its official release, has still attracted the powerful ire of Nintendo. This has resulted in development ceasing on Skyline, an Android-based Switch emulator.
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Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.
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