ehhh, Pretendo and Nintendo operate completely differently financially. the former can afford to make multiple supporter tiers and gate some of the servers behind tester ranks; the latter has shareholders to appease and needs to focus on the Switch 2!

and btw its FREE to keep up these severs showing that nintendo just wants you to spend $500

@Matthew definitely not free, that's the wrong takeaway >.< we take donations for a reason :3 we, very thankfully, typically get double our goal each month!! but it's definitely not free - not monetarily. and definitely not light on effort or time either

oh wait i see what you mean now - it IS free to play on, but specifically because of those donations. i personally expect Nintendo could afford to make theirs free to play as well but i have no knowledge of their financials so i cannot make such a claim with certainty

either way, the monetary gate also acts as a dissuasion for would-be cheaters and exploiters, which is probably part of their goal as well

Yeah, I get that Pretendo receives donations, but still, you are not forced to pay unlike Nintendo Switch Online.