Valve removes Dolphin Emulator listing on Steam following request from Nintendo

The popular Dolphin Emulator, widely used for playing GameCube and Wii games, has been removed from the Steam platform by Valve after receiving a request from Nintendo, according to claims made by the emulator's developers. The video game company has accused Dolphin of illegally bypassing its protections and violating intellectual property rights. Nintendo argues that it is safeguarding the hard work and creativity of video game engineers and developers.

The presence of Dolphin on Valve's digital storefront was initially announced in March with great enthusiasm by the emulator's creators. The addition of an official store page for the open-source project would have made it even more accessible, especially given the growing interest in retro emulators following the launch of the Steam Deck.

However, on May 27, in an update on the emulator's blog, the Dolphin team revealed that the Steam release had been “indefinitely postponed” and expressed disappointment over the situation. The developers are currently exploring their options and plan to provide a more detailed response soon.

According to a legal notice, Nintendo accuses Dolphin of utilizing cryptographic keys without authorization and decrypting game ROMs at or just before runtime. While emulation itself is considered legal, enabling users to bypass protections on individual game ROMs potentially infringes upon Nintendo's intellectual property rights. The resolution of this matter may require legal proceedings, although it is uncommon for homebrew projects like Dolphin to engage in lengthy court battles with large corporations due to the power imbalance.

At present, Dolphin will not be available on Steam. However, its GitHub page and website remain unaffected, as the emulator developers have not received any direct communication from Nintendo or encountered takedown notices targeting other platforms hosting the emulator.

Update: We're removed the mention of the cease and desist, because it appears it was not the case. According to a former Dolphin project member, it was not a cease or desist or a DMCA, but just a request from Nintendo.