Then why would the litigants contribute in the first place?

If nothing compels them to, they won't, so effectively the status quo.

What I'm hearing is that it solves the problem of Nintendo being to outspend the defendant. If Nintendo brings a lawsuit and spends zero dollars on court cost, it should be rather easy for the defense to also contribute zero and the lawsuit is avoided. Problem solved.

And if Nintendo spends $10 million dollars?

And Yuzu spends $25,000 and maybe wins the first case but runs out of money during the appeal and defaults judgment.

Nintendo gets the pot because they won right?

As I pointed out to another user, this reverses the damage if they win, but does not solve the problem of preventing them from being able to win.

Now if you make it where if you want to spend $5 on lawyer fees, you have to loan $5 to the other side and if the other side wins they don't have to pay it back, that may work.

I think the proposal is not "each side contributes to a pot and the winner takes it", it's "if one side wants to spend 10mil on a case and the other side puts in 25k, then each side has 5mil and 12.5k to spend on legal fees"

Thank you. Correct, there is not "pot" where the winner takes all. The fund is simply and always split 50/50 towards lawyers and fees.

Ah okay, if that's the case then yeah totally in support for that.

That's essentially what I was suggesting with having to loan the opposing team the same amount of money you spend.