Gary Bowser, a hacker who was sentenced to 40 months in jail for his involvement with a Nintendo piracy group, has said his punishment is a “warning” to others.
Bowser was charged in 2021 for his involvement with hacker group Team-Xecuter, who created devices allowing users to play pirated copies of games on the Nintendo Switch and 3DS.
He was sentenced to 40 months in jail and also plead guilt in a civil suit filed by Nintendo. Between the two cases, Bowser was ordered to pay back £11.45million even though he claimed he was only earning a few hundred dollars a month to update Team-Xecuter’s website and get feedback from users.
Speaking to The Guardian, Bowser has now said he could have fought the allegations if he could afford too. He was released after 14 months for good behaviour [though was still incarcerated for 30] but still has to pay Nintendo a 25 per cent chunk of his monthly income, after necessities. “The sentence was like a message to other people that [are] still out there, that if they get caught … [they’ll] serve hard time,” he said.
Bowser went on to say that while in prison, he earned a dollar an hour counselling inmates who were on suicide watch. “I was paying Nintendo $25 a month,” he added.
“I’ll pay them what I can, which won’t be very much money, that’s for sure,” Bowser said. Since being released, Bowser has started a GoFundMe to help him “restart his life” and pay for medical care.
The @guardian has finally published a nice article on me, my life history, legal issues, restarting my life. It is from a series of interviews, I did a while ago with them. Good to see it in print. 📰 Check it out, and I will answer any questions you have. https://t.co/mILusTQ0bB
— Gary Bowser (@Bowser_GaryOPA) February 1, 2024
During the sentencing, Nintendo’s lawyer Ajay Singh said: “This is a significant moment for us. It’s the purchase of video games that sustains Nintendo and the Nintendo ecosystem, and it is the games that make the people smile. It’s for that reason that we do all we can to prevent games on Nintendo systems from being stolen.”
“There would be a large benefit to further education of the public,” in regards to the repercussions of hacking, he added.
Bowser’s defence team argued that the U.S. government was using his case to “take the full brunt” of its desire to send a message.
In other news, the developer of the cancelled Portal 64 demake has said the project was “probably doomed from the beginning because it depends on Nintendo‘s proprietary libraries.”