The developers of the GameCube and Wii emulator, Dolphin, flew too close to the sun in their attempt to publish it on Steam, and this led to a scandal between companies and the enthusiast scene. Unfortunately, there's bad news as it's now a fact that the controversial Dolphin won't make it to the PC platform.
Dolphin won't come to Steam, developers explain what happened
In an official statement on the Dolphin website, the project's developers announced that they made the decision to abandon their attempt to publish Dolphin on Steam due to the debate it generated and the potential actions Nintendo might take if they proceeded. Initially, the team confirmed that everything began when Valve contacted Nintendo to notify them about Dolphin's potential release on Steam and to avoid a legal conflict. This led to the emulator's removal from the PC platform: "Valve runs the Steam store and has the right to allow or reject anything they want on that front of the store for any reason. As for Nintendo, this incident simply continues their existing stance on emulation. We don't believe this incident should change anyone's opinion about either company."
"We are abandoning our efforts to release Dolphin on Steam. Valve ultimately runs the store and can set any condition they wish for software to appear on it."https://t.co/PGr6bVPcta pic.twitter.com/D1F6HxIEQB
— Wario64 (@Wario64) July 20, 2023
The developers of Dolphin then explained that the problem lies in the guts of the emulator, specifically in the way it functions to display Wii titles. The issue, according to the document, is that Nintendo's console uses an encrypted "common key" to recognize its video games, which is only found in the hardware, not in the software. Therefore, it had to be extracted from a console to integrate it into Dolphin.
While the statement cites sections of the law that support the extraction and sharing of the Wii's "common key," appealing to ensuring interoperability on computer systems, the developers of the emulator pointed out that the letter they received from Nintendo contained from the outset a "strong legal wording based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)." This made them fear a conflict with the Japanese company that would be difficult to resolve since it would involve various interpretations of the law in this particular case.
While Nintendo claims that Dolphin "bypasses" the security system of the GameCube and Wii, thus violating copyright, the emulator's developers counter: "We have a very strong argument that Dolphin is not designed or produced primarily for the purpose of bypassing protection. Dolphin is designed to recreate the GameCube and Wii hardware as software and to provide the means for a user to interact with this emulated environment. Only an incredibly tiny portion of our code is actually related to bypassing."
Finally, to avoid a legal battle with Nintendo, the developers of Dolphin decided to step back, and it's now a fact that the emulator will not return to Steam.
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