Here’s Why the Steam App That Would Have Played Gamecube and Wii Games Was Scrapped

The Gamecube and Wii emulator Dolphin is no longer coming to Steam.

In a mournful explainer, the team behind the software that allows users to play Nintendo Gamecube and Wii games on their PCs announced that its original plan to bring the program to the world's foremost PC gaming storefront are no longer in the works.

“Well that blew up huh?” the post says. “After a long stay of silence, we have a difficult announcement to make. We are abandoning our efforts to release Dolphin on Steam.”

First brought to light in March after the team announced plans to bring the emulator to Steam, the possibility of integrating the ability to play 2000s era Nintendo games into the Steam ecosystem quickly generated hype.

In two months time, however, those plans were “indefinitely postponed,” with the Dolphin team adding that it was investigating its options and hoped to provide a more in-depth update in the near future.

On Thursday, July 20, the community finally got that update. The team explained that Nintendo never pursued direct legal action. It was actually Valve’s legal department that was in communication with the legendary Japanese software and hardware maker known for being especially litigious and protective of its properties.

“In reply to [Valve’s inquiry], a lawyer representing Nintendo of America requested Valve prevent Dolphin from releasing on the Steam store, citing the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] as justification,” the post reads. “Valve then forwarded us the statement from Nintendo's lawyers, and told us that we had to come to an agreement with Nintendo in order to release on Steam.”

Emulation has been a nebulous subject in gaming culture for as long as home computers have been capable of running console games. While the ability of PCs to emulate other devices is firmly established on a technical level, the legality behind it has been in consistent flux. Emulation software itself, which allows devices to mimic proprietary hardware, is totally legal, a precedent set at the conclusion of the U.S. Court of Appeals case between Sony Computer Entertainment America and defunct commercial emulation software company Bleem back in 2000.

However, obtaining game files that can run in an emulator, commonly called ROMs (despite not always using that file format), is a different story. So long as a player has an original copy of a game and has no plans of profiting off of it or sharing it with others, they are within their right to create back-up versions that can run on an emulator. Any other method of acquiring ROMs is considered piracy.

This precedent hasn’t deterred some companies, such as Nintendo, from changing their stance on emulation. As recently as this year, when asked about Dolphin, Nintendo told Kotaku that it believed the use of emulators “stifles innovations” and it would be “committed to protecting the hard work and creativity” of game makers.

At the same time, proponents of emulation argue that these programs are vital to archiving games that are no longer in print. These retro gaming enthusiasts find vindication in studies revealing that the vast majority of retro games are difficult or impossible to acquire through traditional means. They also point to the ability of emulators to add additional features or graphical fidelity to games, as well as official use of emulators in products like the Nintendo Classic Mini.

Nintendo’s unwavering stance and deep pockets compared to the relatively small Dolphin team is why the latter has given up on bringing the software to Steam.

“Considering the strong legal wording at the start of the document and the citation of DMCA law, we took the letter very seriously,” the post continues. “Given Nintendo's long-held stance on emulation, we find Valve's requirement for us to get approval from Nintendo for a Steam release to be impossible.”

Though Dolphin won’t be coming to Steam, it doesn’t mean the software won’t still be accessible. As mentioned earlier, emulators themselves aren’t illegal to download, only the games. In fact, earlier versions of the Dolphin Gamecube and Wii emulator have been accessible to the public from as early as 2008.