News Nintendo is suing the creators of popular Switch emulator Yuzu. They claim TOTK was pirated over 1 million times before release

[Danny]

It's the classic argument of if those sales were actually lost in any significant way.

Historical evidence suggests that no, those 'lost sales' would not have translated into real sales for Nintendo. The people who wanted to pirate will not have purchased the game if they couldn't emulate. The film and music industries try to argue this point for many years and haven't gotten anywhere with it either.

So when the next Zelda game get downloaded 5 million times and gets leaked by of hundreds of youtube videos before official release Nintendo should just be happy about it?

 

[Razgriz]

It's the classic argument of if those sales were actually lost in any significant way.

Historical evidence suggests that no, those 'lost sales' would not have translated into real sales for Nintendo. The people who wanted to pirate will not have purchased the game if they couldn't emulate. The film and music industries try to argue this point for many years and haven't gotten anywhere with it either.

The actual lawsuit doesn't really sue for lost sales though - it's 2 counts of trafficking in circumvention devices, 1 count of bypassing technological measures, 1 count of unauthorized reproduction of protected works and 1 count of contributory infringement.

The actual desired money are either a base fee of ~300k or whatever profits Yuzu made (to be determined at trial, if it comes to that), according to the prayer for relief.

 

[Mekanos]

So when the next Zelda game get downloaded 5 million times and gets leaked by of hundreds of youtube videos before official release Nintendo should just be happy about it?

Unironically, yes

study after study shows most of those people wouldn’t have bought the game to begin with. Approaching piracy as lost revenue is a losing game.

 

[Mango]

I think you're right, in broad strokes. Yes piracy hurts companies and media. Look at the unfortunate state of the music industry. Musicians have to tour relentlessly and sell far more merch than they used to because the music has been devalued after piracy went rampant.

I think where the point of contention lies is when this line of thinking is applied to Nintendo in particular. Nintendo is not a small group of musicians. They are a multi-billion dollar corporation in an industry that despite recent struggles of ballooning development costs, layoffs, and slipping profit margins, is still blossoming and bringing in money industry-wide. They'll weather the storm just fine. That doesn't mean they aren't wrong re: Yuzu profiting and Zelda piracy, but the point still stands. The money they've lost is a small drop in the Pacific considering how much money Nintendo has and is bringing in.

I get this logic, I just don't agree with it. I want Mario Vs. Donkey Kong for example and have had to put off buying it for two paychecks just to ensure I had food to survive, I don't suddenly feel ok in stealing a copy just because Nintendo is a big corporation. Ironically enough that logic of "oh they're too big to fail," I only ever agreed with when I was actually pirating games from them.

However to be fair I was basically only a single step above homelessness at point in my life, eating out of food banks and only having internet access because I lived next to a bar, so I don't feel particularly bad about stealing when you're that worse off, I guess. I just find the argument of "oh they're huge so it doesn't matter" flimsy. It's imo on the same level of "oh they didn't give me the hardware I want so it's justifiable" it just seems very "cope-y." I really think the only good emulation does is game preservation, but TotK is a modern game that is easily accessible.

 

[menx64]

Yuzu will need to provide info on how the emulator was able to run those games well on release dates, and how their devs were working on correcting issues for something unreleased already...
The Verge article sounds like Nintendo is not against emulators in general. just that Yuzu used piracy as a way to bring more patreons. Also encouraging people to break a DRM is very bad, but including instructions on how to do it...
They better have some savings otherwise they are in for a hard time.

 

[Guaraná]

how is yuzu responsible for Zelda TotK illegal downloads?

 

[ns156]

Gabe Newell: Piracy is an issue of service, not price

“Piracy is not a pricing issue,” insists Valve boss

www.gamesradar.com

Feel this quote is relevant coming from the richest person in the entire gaming industry.

Precisely. In the case of the Switch, people wanted to emulate because the system power frankly sucks, and being able to emulate games in high resolution with crisp visuals makes them look amazing.

We can choose to not support greedy anti-consumer practices in many legal ways.

We have bigger issues coming our way I think with the all digital only future and stuff. Will Nintendo continue to offer vouchers? I really hope so. Nintendo's been pretty consumer friendly thus far comparatively.

The all digital future incoming is precisely why we need emulators to exist. Without a way for individuals to keep copies of their own games and preserve them, we're at the mercy of the company. And Nintendo has a horrible track record of keeping their services running for the long term. They may preserve things well internally in their little 'vaults', but us plebs only get drip fed from that every so often, and some stuff never sees the light of day again.

Those who want Nintendo to win out of spite really don't know what they're asking for. Or maybe they do and they're just the 'I'm alright Jack' types.

 

[VDenter]

So when the next Zelda game get downloaded 5 million times and gets leaked by of hundreds of youtube videos before official release Nintendo should just be happy about it?

They should go after the people who leaked the game online and are distributing it on piracy websites. Not this...

 

[Danny]

Precisely. In the case of the Switch, people wanted to emulate because the system power frankly sucks, and being able to emulate games in high resolution with crisp visuals makes them look amazing.



The all digital future incoming is precisely why we need emulators to exist. Without a way for individuals to keep copies of their own games and preserve them, we're at the mercy of the company. And Nintendo has a horrible track record of keeping their services running for the long term. They may preserve things well internally in their little 'vaults', but us plebs only get drip fed from that every so often, and some stuff never sees the light of day again.

Those who want Nintendo to win out of spite really don't know what they're asking for. Or maybe they do and they're just the 'I'm alright Jack' types.

The system power level will always be an excuse, soon they will argue that the Switch 2 is a shit system as well that needs to be emulated day 1 to PC.

 

[Lugia667]

Yuzu will need to provide info on how the emulator was able to run those games well on release dates, and how their devs were working on correcting issues for something unreleased already...
The Verge article sounds like Nintendo is not against emulators in general. just that Yuzu used piracy as a way to bring more patreons. Also encouraging people to break a DRM is very bad, but including instructions on how to do it...
They better have some savings otherwise they are in for a hard time.

They are against most emulators but it does seem like they found a vulnerability with Yuzu that could make things difficult for them.

Make no mistake, Yuzu is in DEEP trouble if the allegations Nintendo is being made are true

 

[Serif]

Precisely. In the case of the Switch, people wanted to emulate because the system power frankly sucks, and being able to emulate games in high resolution with crisp visuals makes them look amazing.

This would justify emulation, not piracy.

 

[ns156]

The actual lawsuit doesn't really sue for lost sales though - it's 2 counts of trafficking in circumvention devices, 1 count of bypassing technological measures, 1 count of unauthorized reproduction of protected works and 1 count of contributory infringement.

The actual desired money are either a base fee of ~300k or whatever profits Yuzu made (to be determined at trial, if it comes to that), according to the prayer for relief.

Wasn't specifically talking about the lawsuit, more of the folly of saying 1 million copies downloaded = 1 million lost sales.

 

[JazzyFuture]

The system power level will always be an excuse, soon they will argue that the Switch 2 is a shit system as well that needs to be emulated day 1 to PC.

I mean to be fair, it will almost undoubtedly be a handheld. PC's will always have top of the line options comparatively.

 

[Leviraps]

Never used yuzu or any other Switch emulator but I stand with them on principle. The big corporation will be fine, I assure you.

The smaller-mid sized studios are being absolutely being impacted by piracy, I assure you. This isn’t a Dolphin or Retroarch situation.

 

[ns156]

This would justify emulation, not piracy.

I don't think anyone is justifying piracy here. The problem is legitimate emulation will get destroyed if Nintendo wins a case like this, so we're all in it anyway. There won't be any 'just don't emulate current systems' policy, it'll be every emulator at risk of the chopping block.

 

[Toad King]

Yuzu will need to provide info on how the emulator was able to run those games well on release dates, and how their devs were working on correcting issues for something unreleased already...

From Reddit (via the other site), it seems like there's evidence of the devs sharing games around before release.

Long image

 

[Serif]

I don't think anyone is justifying piracy here. The problem is legitimate emulation will get destroyed if Nintendo wins a case like this, so we're all in it anyway.

You were responding to someone sharing Gabe Newell's quote that 'piracy is a services issue'.

 

[Lugia667]

From Reddit (via the other site), it seems like there's evidence of the devs sharing games around before release.

Long image

...yeah Yuzu is fucked. Discovery would DESTROY them

 

[LinkURL]

Nintendo doesn't have a history of suing Emulators, even some like CEMU which I believe was actually a bigger problem for BotW than Yuzu to TotK.
What we see here is not Nintendo going after Emulators, wanting to take away our right to play the games we buy on the hardware we want.
Nintendo is going after something that in the long term could affect its sales, portable PCs are increasingly mainstream and one of the unofficial marketing is the possibility of emulating the Switch.
The way physical media is distributed it is almost impossible not to have leaks before launch and Nintendo is not abandoning physical media anytime soon.
And perhaps the main thing, there is nothing that Nintendo can do to avoid the emulation of its future hardware, what most hinders Emulation, contrary to what many think, it is not the raw power of the hardware, but its architecture, the more quirky the more difficult , and Nintendo will not make hardware with complex architectures to emulate because this would hinder game development itself.
The fact is, Emulation is increasingly common, game leaks before launch are inevitable, Emulation of Nintendo's Future Hardware is inevitable, in other words, the tendency is to get worse. If they can at least curb the use of games before and close to their launch on emulators, that would be a huge victory.
And yes, if emulator devs were really ethical, they wouldn't facilitate the use of pirated ROMs, use of Shaders and keys with other people's code, nor would they update their emulators just to run a certain game before launch.

 

[Danny]

I don't think anyone is justifying piracy here. The problem is legitimate emulation will get destroyed if Nintendo wins a case like this, so we're all in it anyway. There won't be any 'just don't emulate current systems' policy, it'll be every emulator at risk of the chopping block.

Maybe something poor little Yuzu should have thought before they entered into an alliance with piracy and has as their number 1 priority to get Nintendo games running on their emulator perfectly before official release. But of course the holy emulators should never be judged by their bad behaviour.

Yozu, really doing a brilliant job preserving game history by......Having an emulator of a living and healthy console ecosystem.

 

[Razgriz]

Wasn't specifically talking about the lawsuit, more of the folly of saying 1 million copies downloaded = 1 million lost sales.

Frankly, that's usually more the logic used to determine fines when it comes to cases related to torrenting and other kinds of illicit filesharing. (Which has little relevance to this case.)

It's important to keep in mind that that logic is usually also applied with the goal of having the fine both be punitive and as a way to deter other infringers; make 1 person pay a massive price and it hopefully deters other people from taking that risk.

I don't really think it works, but that's one of the underlying ideas of the "1 download = 1 lost sale" metric; the scare factor is a big component in it.

 

[WestEgg]

I guess what I'm interested the most in this all...

Why now?

Nintendo could have pushed a legal case against emulation at any point in the last couple decades. The Switch has been dealing with PC emulation competition from the start 7 years ago, and the Wii U before it. If they were worried about lost revenue, that's a generation worth of potential lost sales, why come at them towards the end? Why not go for it during the Steam/Dolphin situation was in the public attention?

Nintendo seems to have been more or less accepting of the status quo. They've still been unimaginably successful.

Something is different, and we don't know what yet. Either Nintendo sees something so dangerous that they'll risk the status quo, or the risk has been greatly reduced to the point where they don't feel nervous at all about going for it, ie, Yuzu messed up and they have proof.

Either way, this is all worth keeping an eye on.

 

[VDenter]

Nintendo doesn't have a history of suing Emulators, even some like CEMU which I believe was actually a bigger problem for the Wii U than some imagine.

What? Didn't CEMU become a thing in 2015 and it only started booting games like 3D World in late 2016?

That is pretty much after the Wii U was about as dead as dead can be.

 

[Guaraná]

The smaller-mid sized studios are be absolutely being impacted by piracy, I assure you. This isn’t a Dolphin or Retroarch situation.

and thats yuzu fault how?

 

[Lugia667]

I guess what I'm interested the most in this all...

Why now?

Nintendo could have pushed a legal case against emulation at any point in the last couple decades. The Switch has been dealing with PC emulation competition from the start 7 years ago, and the Wii U before it. If they were worried about lost revenue, that's a generation worth of potential lost sales, why come at them towards the end? Why not go for it during the Steam/Dolphin situation was in the public attention?

Nintendo seems to have been more or less accepting of the status quo. They've still been unimaginably successful.

Something is different, and we don't know what yet. Either Nintendo sees something so dangerous that they'll risk the status quo, or the risk has been greatly reduced to the point where they don't feel nervous at all about going for it, ie, Yuzu messed up and they have proof.

Either way, this is all worth keeping an eye on.

judging by what people above have posted, Yuzu definitely messed up. I HIGHLY doubt they would make an allegation that the Yuzu devs were pirating games to improve their emulator if they didn't have some proof

 

[ns156]

You were responding to someone sharing Gabe Newell's quote that 'piracy is a services issue'.

Because it's true. Doesn't mean I'm advocating it. Is nuance dead?

 

[Red Monster]

By the by, how is the state of PS5 emulation and Series X emulation?


It's one thing to emulate decades old games whose systems are long out of print. That is preserving a history whose hardware and physical software is scarce.

It's another thing to emulate a current machine. Is how I see it.

There are no PS5 or Xbox Series emulators, and there won’t be for years. We’ve only just recently got a PS4 emulator, and it’s very early stages. Current gen emulators are years and years away.

edit: it’s likely that there won’t ever be emulators for Xbox Series

 

[Danny]

I guess what I'm interested the most in this all...

Why now?

Nintendo could have pushed a legal case against emulation at any point in the last couple decades. The Switch has been dealing with PC emulation competition from the start 7 years ago, and the Wii U before it. If they were worried about lost revenue, that's a generation worth of potential lost sales, why come at them towards the end? Why not go for it during the Steam/Dolphin situation was in the public attention?

Nintendo seems to have been more or less accepting of the status quo. They've still been unimaginably successful.

Something is different, and we don't know what yet. Either Nintendo sees something so dangerous that they'll risk the status quo, or the risk has been greatly reduced to the point where they don't feel nervous at all about going for it, ie, Yuzu messed up and they have proof.

Either way, this is all worth keeping an eye on.

Because contrary what people seem to think emulation and piracy is growing. 1 million pirated Tears of Kingdom before official release. Nintendo is of course terrified of the incredible growth this industry is under. Because if it continues to grow like that Nintendo's business model collapses. They are terrified of Switch 2 getting hacked and emulated early like Switch 1 was.

 

[ns156]

I guess what I'm interested the most in this all...

Why now?

Nintendo could have pushed a legal case against emulation at any point in the last couple decades. The Switch has been dealing with PC emulation competition from the start 7 years ago, and the Wii U before it. If they were worried about lost revenue, that's a generation worth of potential lost sales, why come at them towards the end? Why not go for it during the Steam/Dolphin situation was in the public attention?

Nintendo seems to have been more or less accepting of the status quo. They've still been unimaginably successful.

Something is different, and we don't know what yet. Either Nintendo sees something so dangerous that they'll risk the status quo, or the risk has been greatly reduced to the point where they don't feel nervous at all about going for it, ie, Yuzu messed up and they have proof.

Either way, this is all worth keeping an eye on.

It probably boils down to people getting cocky. The amount of bragging on Twitter about pirating the game on launch was pretty big, Even Reggie responded to someone bragging about it. Icarus and the sun and all that.

 

[LinkURL]

What? Didn't CEMU become a thing in 2015 and it only started booting games like 3D World in late 2016?

That is pretty much after the Wii U was about as dead as dead can be.

Man, the number of people who pirated BotW through CEMU is much greater than TotK through Yuzu, and Nintendo never lifted a finger about it.
But you're right, it wasn't a problem for the Wii U, it was a problem for Nintendo's software sales.

 

[ns156]

Because contrary what people seem to think emulation and piracy is growing. 1 million pirated Tears of Kingdom before official release. Nintendo is of course terrified of the incredible growth this industry is under. Because if it continues to grow like that Nintendo's business model collapses. They are terrified of Switch 2 getting hacked and emulated early like Switch 1 was.

You are beyond hysterical.

 

[Razgriz]

Why now?

Given the complaint mentions them selling Early Access builds on the Play Store "recently" (the Early Access version of Yuzu is last updated on December 2023 according to the Play Store), I'd personally guess that this is what irked Nintendo enough to file the lawsuit.

That and it seems the Yuzu devs may have screwed up a few times when it comes to the whole "it's not for piracy" thing with their Patreon posts.

 

[PandaAndino]

totk is not the problem, what is 1 millon from it? what about xenoblade 3 or bayonetta 3. those same 1 millon clients play for free and really damage its final sell. I said this before but w/e.

 

[Síriocaz]

Barely a single youtuber I know is playing on original hardware outside maybe a handful.

Dang, that's crazy. Which youtubers are playing on unoriginal hardware?

 

[WestEgg]

Because contrary what people seem to think emulation and piracy is growing. 1 million pirated Tears of Kingdom before official release. Nintendo is of course terrified of the incredible growth this industry is under. Because if it continues to grow like that Nintendo's business model collapses. They are terrified of Switch 2 getting hacked and emulated early like Switch 1 was.

The thing is, I don't think they are. The Switch was hilariously easy to jailbreak soon into it's life cycle, and it went on to succeed not just in hardware sales, but a ludicrous software attach rate. There's nothing to suggest this will be worse with Switch 2, so that's why I think there's something else, something that gave them the confidence to act now.

 

[lattjeful]

Pokemon Platinum was illegally downloaded 2 million times, with less than 8 million copies sold, and last I checked all the DS emulators never caught Nintendo's ire.

Piracy happens because of someone doing what they want with the copy they purchased. It's a copy of a game that was bought. If people are downloading that, I doubt they would have bought it new anyways. Or in the case of leaked games, sometimes people do buy the game when it actually comes out, sometimes people just want to play something early.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I somebody reselling a copy they bought to one person is a tad different from somebody dumping a ROM with their copy for a bunch of people to download for free.

All that aside, I do think a discussion around how visible and comparatively easy piracy is nowadays is worth having. Some people need to take a breather and relax with the hyperbole; piracy is growing, sure but it's not growing fast. As piracy gets more visible and noticeably easier though, how should companies approach this whole thing? I don't think using a 25 year old lawsuit as the blueprint is correct when the industry, tech, and practices are so different now. But... surely there's a way to do it without going full Nintendo?

 

[ns156]

Given the complaint mentions them selling Early Access builds on the Play Store "recently" (the Early Access version of Yuzu is last updated on December 2023 according to the Play Store), I'd personally guess that this is what irked Nintendo enough to file the lawsuit.

That and it seems the Yuzu devs may have screwed up a few times when it comes to the whole "it's not for piracy" thing with their Patreon posts.

According to another user, because the builds are open source, you could just download them from Github without having to subscribe to their Patreon. If that checks out I'm not sure what leg they have to stand on there.

 

[WestEgg]

Given the complaint mentions them selling Early Access builds on the Play Store "recently" (the Early Access version of Yuzu is last updated on December 2023 according to the Play Store), I'd personally guess that this is what irked Nintendo enough to file the lawsuit.

That and it seems the Yuzu devs may have screwed up a few times when it comes to the whole "it's not for piracy" thing with their Patreon posts.

When Nintendo subscribes to your patreon:

 

[Renmazuo]

Yuzu devs are pieces of shit and I'm not going to lose any sleep over them shutting down. If you care about Switch emulation then support Ryujinx instead.

 

[VintoWin]

I guess what I'm interested the most in this all...

Why now?

Nintendo could have pushed a legal case against emulation at any point in the last couple decades. The Switch has been dealing with PC emulation competition from the start 7 years ago, and the Wii U before it. If they were worried about lost revenue, that's a generation worth of potential lost sales, why come at them towards the end? Why not go for it during the Steam/Dolphin situation was in the public attention?

Nintendo seems to have been more or less accepting of the status quo. They've still been unimaginably successful.

Something is different, and we don't know what yet. Either Nintendo sees something so dangerous that they'll risk the status quo, or the risk has been greatly reduced to the point where they don't feel nervous at all about going for it, ie, Yuzu messed up and they have proof.

Either way, this is all worth keeping an eye on.

Honestly no clue... could the new CEO's vision have anything to do with it? I don't know how much any one person would be involved in this sort of decision.

 

[Razgriz]

Pokemon Platinum was illegally downloaded 2 million times, with less than 8 million copies sold, and last I checked all the DS emulators never caught Nintendo's ire.

It should also be noted that up until relatively recently, the only relevant DS emulator in town was maintained by a paranoiac who is generally considered responsible for why the old Nintendo DS online was never properly preserved and who refused to fix bugs in Pokemon games because kids kept spamming his forums with bugs in those games.

To put it simply: the DS emulator wasn't the threat back then. Flashcards were. And Nintendo went after those hard.

 

[Deleted member 645]

The real reason switch 2 got delayed

 

[BlackthornOrion]

I'll just say I find the idea of an emulator dev having a patreon kinda gross. Feels so ... gentrified

You're supposed to download emulators with the same slightly nervous energy as when you used a fake ID for the first time, and you're meant to get ROMs off sketchy-ass sites with 1 real download button and 5 much more obvious fake ones that could all brick your shitty laptop, just as our forefathers did before us

 

[Razgriz]

According to another user, because the builds are open source, you could just download them from Github without having to subscribe to their Patreon. If that checks out I'm not sure what leg they have to stand on there.

Was moreso referring to why the lawsuit was filed right now as opposed to say, shortly after TOTKs release (when it might have been more appropriate timewise, since that's when Yuzu got public attention). The actual stuff they are suing over hasn't much to do with profiting from the piracy itself via Google Play specifically, but it's a "known factor" that one of the quickest ways to get Nintendo's legal team after you is to commercialize anything related to their games or systems.

When Nintendo subscribes to your patreon

At a glance, the Patreon posts that are about game compatability are public, not moneygated, but the idea is pretty funny.

 

[lattjeful]

The real reason switch 2 got delayed

It's all a smoke screen. They sent a cease and desist because they're actually going to recruit the Yuzu devs to aid in the development of Switch 2's emulation layer for backwards compatibility. /j

Was moreso referring to why the lawsuit was filed right now as opposed to say, shortly after TOTKs release (when it might have been more appropriate timewise, since that's when Yuzu got public attention). The actual stuff they are suing over hasn't much to do with profiting from the piracy itself via Google Play specifically, but it's a "known factor" that one of the quickest ways to get Nintendo's legal team after you is to commercialize anything related to their games or systems.


At a glance, the Patreon posts that are about game compatability are public, not moneygated, but the idea is pretty funny.

Honestly the answer could just be that the legal system is slooooooooooooooow. If Nintendo is making a case out of this, they think they have something. The arguments, along with the evidence to go with it, might've just taken a while to put together.

 

[Mango]

I'll just say I find the idea of an emulator dev having a patreon kinda gross. Feels so ... gentrified

You're supposed to download emulators with the same slightly nervous energy as when you used a fake ID for the first time, and you're meant to get ROMs off sketchy-ass sites with 1 real download button and 5 much more obvious fake ones that could all brick your shitty laptop, just as our forefathers did before us

Kids these days will never know the pain of Coolroms.com

 

[menx64]

how is yuzu responsible for Zelda TotK illegal downloads?

To run a copy of your game on the emulator you need a key to break the security. Yuzu gave users detailed instructions on how to obtain those keys. Please keep in mind breaking DRM is an illegal thing to do, and they were encouraging people to do it.
If you check a few post below, it seems they were also caught using pirated copies for testing and dev.

 

[Serif]

Because it's true. Doesn't mean I'm advocating it. Is nuance dead?

Didn't say you did. I disagree with the relevance of that statement to this context, which is the interpretation I gleaned from your quote. There is no services issue here to justify piracy. Most Switch games are readily available for purchase. This is separate from being dissatisfied with hardware performance and dumping one's personal copy for use on emulators.

 

[Síriocaz]

I would've thought console modding is the bigger "threat". I'm still astonished by how easy is to alter a Switch these days.

 

[kasparov77]

Okay, but mass piracy - we're talking in the scale of millions here - weeks before a game's official release date has literally never happened before, or has only just recently become the norm. It's not a sustainable long term practise for any company, or for the video game industry as a whole regardless of how profitable they are currently. Your assessment that "it would've already happened" is just plain wrong when you look at how much the numbers are growing compared to how many people were pirating games on release date previously, and the trend towards hardware uniformity which only makes this a more accessible practise going forward.

The numbers mentioned in regards to pre launch piracy of TotK are just unprecedented, and we're also in uncharted waters with regards to the growth of piracy in the industry, so it's just nowhere near as black and white as you're claiming.

That's nothing compared to the amount of ToTK units sold according to official numbers from Nintendo.
And even if, (supposedly) the numbers rose considerably:

• we don't know how accurate nintendo totk piracy numbers are and we don't even know where they got these numbers from
• it was a really high demand game in a platform that at the time already had a developed enough emulation scene (unlike botw on release) so it's only natural the number would be considerably higher. it's not that people started pirating more, it's just that it became actually viable so the people who would've tried it back then but couldn't because emulators sucked in 2017, now can.

I can guarantee you, had people a way to play botw with decent emulation on pc back in 2017, there would be about the same if not more the amount of people who played totk on an emulator before/after release.