Support NeoGAF

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

The hacker whose involvement with anti-piracy software ended in a jail sentence has emerged from prison struggling to make rent as he starts paying his fine. ‘It could be worse,’ he says.

In April 2023, a 54-year-old programmer named Gary Bowser was released from prison having served 14 months of a 40-month sentence. Good behaviour reduced his time behind bars, but now his options are limited. For a while he was crashing on a friend’s couch in Toronto. The weekly physical therapy sessions, which he needs to ease chronic pain, were costing hundreds of dollars every week, and he didn’t have a job. And soon, he would need to start sending cheques to Nintendo. Bowser owes the makers of Super Mario $14.5m (£11.5m), and he’s probably going to spend the rest of his life paying it back.

Since he was a child, Bowser’s life has revolved around tinkering with electronics. His dad was a mechanical engineer, and he learned from him how to wire up model trains and mod calculators. As a teenager he already had a computer business: his mother died when he was 15, his father had retired and Bowser supported him.

Bowser would go on to run an internet cafe, where patrons played Counter-Strike and Dance Dance Revolution, and repair hardware for a living. He got briefly caught up with the law during a stint fixing games consoles at flea markets, which nearly implicated him alongside vendors who sold pirated movies. Eventually he moved to the Dominican Republic in 2010. He spoke no Spanish for years, but he loved the island anyway: you could drive from one end to the other in just 12 hours, he recalls. It was here that Bowser – who, in a case of nominative determinism that feels almost too trite to acknowledge, shares a name with Super Mario’s in-game antagonist – started becoming the face of Nintendo piracy.

In the late 00s he made contact with Team Xecuter, a group that produces dongles used to bypass anti-piracy measures on Nintendo Switch and other consoles, letting them illegally download, modify and play games. While he says he was only paid a few hundred dollars a month to update their websites, Bowser says the people he worked with weren’t very social and he helped “testers” troubleshoot devices.

“I started becoming a middleman in between the people doing the development work, and the people actually owning the mod chips, playing the games,” he says. “I would get feedback from the testers, and then I would send it to the developers … I can handle people, and that’s why I ended up getting more involved.”

In September 2020, he was arrested in a sting so unusual that the US Department of Justice released a press release boasting about the indictment, in which acting assistant attorney general Brian C Rabbitt called Bowser and his co-defendants “leaders of a notorious international criminal group that reaped illegal profits for years by pirating video game technology of US companies”.

“The day that it happened, I was sleeping in my bed, it was four in the morning, I’d been drinking all night,” Bowser says. “And suddenly I wake up and see three people surrounding my bed with rifles aimed at my head … they dragged me out of the place, put me in the back of a pickup truck and drove me to the Interpol office.”

Bowser was arrested at the height of the pandemic, which complicated everything. He was imprisoned in a series of jails, and each transfer had Covid safety precautions that required him to spend time in isolation. Despite this, Bowser still caught the coronavirus and spent two weeks so sick that, he says, a priest would come over once a day to read him a prayer.

Bowser was charged with fraud over his connection to Team Xecuter. While in custody, he was also hit with a civil suit from Nintendo. Between the civil and criminal cases, he was ordered to pay $14.5m.

In transcripts from the court, Nintendo’s lawyer Ajay Singh outlined the company’s case against piracy. “It’s the purchase of video games that sustains Nintendo, 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,” he told the judge.

Pirates are usually fined in court, but Bowser’s case was meant to draw attention. “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 says. As he tells it, Bowser didn’t make or develop the products that sent him to prison; he “just” updated the websites that told people what they could buy, and kept them informed about what was coming next.

Bowser maintains that he could have fought the allegations, and that other members of the hacking group remain at large. But fighting against 13 charges would have cost time and money. It was easier, he claims, to plead guilty and only deal with a couple of the charges. As a part of that agreement, Bowser now has to send Nintendo 20-30% of any money left over after he pays for necessities such as rent.

“I’ll pay them what I can, which won’t be very much money, that’s for sure,” he says. Despite his predicament, Bowser counts his blessings. “It could be a lot worse,” he says. Bowser has now managed to secure housing, and he thinks that after rent, he has a couple of hundred dollars leftover for food and other necessities. He assumes he’ll be turning to food support services.

While the months after his release have been bumpy and uncertain, he has still experienced worse. It’s better than the time he spent homeless in his early 20s, he says. “I have experienced many things over the years, bad situations and good.” He carried an optimistic outlook even while imprisoned; at one point he was paid to counsel other prisoners on suicide watch. “A lot of other people were going crazy, banging their cell doors, screaming, yelling, harming themselves,” he says. Bowser was paid a dollar an hour to help them, and his four-hour shifts allowed him to start chipping away at his pending bill. “When I was in jail, I was paying Nintendo $25 a month,” he recalls.

While inside, Bowser couldn’t always get the medical attention he needed, he claims, and even when he did, the realities of prison still exacerbated his health issues – he has elephantiasis in his left leg. At times, due to Covid, Bowser could only leave his cell a few times a week and only for about 10 minutes. The rest of the time, he spent sitting.

“For a while I couldn’t even get a shoe on my left foot, so I was walking around barefoot,” he recalls.

At least there was a wheelchair to help him get around. Nowadays, Bowser only has a cane – but his leg hasn’t let-up. Bowser goes to physical therapy three times a week, but it’s expensive. He is estranged from his family. Instead, it’s his friends who are helping him buy food and clothes. He pays for medical care from a GoFundMe page dedicated to helping him restart his life, which received a few dozen donations. He is hoping that he can get disability payments soon. Since he got out, he’s often gone without access to a refrigerator or a stove due to trouble paying his electricity bills.

In the meantime, and after months of inconsistent access to the internet, Bowser is looking for jobs. On his website, he lists all the services he can provide and while he has found a few coding gigs, he’s been having a hard time securing anything long-term. Any prospective employer who does a background check will of course see his legal history with Nintendo, but that may not work against him. A cybersecurity company might welcome his tech expertise, regardless of how he got it. For now, he is getting back into his first love, retro hardware, tinkering away with old-school Texas Instruments calculators. Legally, he’s not allowed to mess around with modern gaming hardware.

If there is one thing he is sure about, it’s his talent. Before everything went down the drain, Bowser had started several businesses that were successful enough to have employees. “I should be the executive in charge of the company, not someone working as a junior,” he says. In that regard, he doesn’t just share his surname with Mario’s reptilian foe; he also, improbably, shares it with Nintendo of America’s current president, Doug Bowser. Gary is certain that the executive can be found somewhere in his family tree, perhaps in a distant branch.

“I must be the first Bowser that’s ever been arrested,” he says, with a resigned laugh.

The man who owes Nintendo $14m: Gary Bowser and gaming’s most infamous piracy case

The hacker whose involvement with anti-piracy software ended in a jail sentence has emerged from prison struggling to make rent as he starts paying his fine. ‘It could be worse,’ he says

www.theguardian.com

 

[Punished Miku]

Can't say I feel any sympathy here. Hope Nintendo does this to more people who enable mass piracy of their games. $10 million is a tiny, tiny fraction of what they actually lose, and they won't even see the $10 million. Nintendo basically gets no justice while this guy gets sob stories about his rent. He's lucky he's not in jail considering he can't actually pay this in his lifetime.

 

[Dr_Ifto]

Can't say I feel any sympathy here. Hope Nintendo does this to more people who enable mass piracy of their games. $10 million is a tiny, tiny fraction of what they actually lose, and they won't even see the $10 million. Nintendo basically gets no justice while this guy gets sob stories about his rent. He's lucky he's not in jail considering he can't actually pay this in his lifetime.

Ill raise a glass to him, but as with any pirate, no sympathy.

 

[Bojji]

So how they calculated this number?

 

[Mr Hyde]

Nintendo be like

 

[HL3.exe]

Piracy isn't a good thing, let's just say that upfront. But this seems cruel and fucked up. I get companies getting into fights with each other, or punishing an individual to make a broader point. But at the end of the day, he didn't hurts an individual, he hurt stock values and numbers.

And having to pay back not only in his lifetime, but also in the lifetimes of his children after he is gone, and the debt is inherited by his children, or even their grandchildren, who have nothing to do with the situation, is very frightening and dystopian.

 

[lughnasadh123]

A mess entirely of his own making.

 

[Hudo]

and the debt passes down to your childern

Does it? I thought this isn't thing even in America. The only way for someone else to "inherit" a debt is if they were co-signees on a contract or co-account owners.

 

[FoxMcChief]

 

[SCB3]

Piracy isn't a good thing, let's just say that upfront. But this seems cruel and fucked up. I get companies getting into fights with each other, or punishing an individual to make a broader point. But at the end of the day, he didn't hurts an individual, he hurt stock values and numbers.

And having to pay back not only in his lifetime, but also in the lifetimes of his children after he is gone, and the debt is inherited by his children, or even their grandchildren, who have nothing to do with the situation, is very frightening and dystopian.

Debt doesn't carry on with decedents though

 

[HL3.exe]

Does it? I thought this isn't thing even in America. The only way for someone else to "inherit" a debt is if they were co-signees on a contract or co-account owners.

Not sure if its the case here as It's an international case.

But Japans ruling is definitely based on debt inheritance

Grey matters: Will your children pick up the debt?

In Japan when people die, their children inherit their debts. There is a three-month period after the death, according to the Japanese Embassy, in which the children can walk away from these liabilities - but, if they do so, they also have to wave goodbye to any assets.

www.theguardian.com

"In Japan when people die, their children inherit their debts. There is a three-month period after the death, according to the Japanese Embassy, in which the children can walk away from these liabilities - but, if they do so, they also have to wave goodbye to any assets."

In Inheritance in Japan, the Heirs Must Directly Assume the Debts of the Deceased!

Do you assume that the decedent's debts are irrelevant to you as an heir? If so, you may be mis

kobelp.com

"Under Japanese law, when a person dies, the heirs inherit all the rights and obligations of the deceased. Simply put, “obligations” means “debts”, and therefore can also be inherited."

 

[Kenpachii]

just declare yourself bankrupt sit the 3 years or whatever out and reboot life.

 

[Bojji]

Piracy isn't a good thing, let's just say that upfront. But this seems cruel and fucked up. I get companies getting into fights with each other, or punishing an individual to make a broader point. But at the end of the day, he didn't hurts an individual, he hurt stock values and numbers.

And having to pay back not only in his lifetime, but also in the lifetimes of his children after he is gone, and the debt is inherited by his children, or even their grandchildren, who have nothing to do with the situation, is very frightening and dystopian.

Exactly. 14m is peanuts for Nintendo but for single individual it's something that he won't be able to pay in his lifetime.

People actually hurting others sometimes have less life altering sentences.

"My favorite multi bilion dollar corporation got hurt and they have some imaginary loses!"

Ughhh...

 

[HL3.exe]

Debt doesn't carry on with decedents though

In Japan law it does most definitely. But seeing as it's an international case I don't know for sure if it's the case here. It as a Japanese company sueing and winning though.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Does it? I thought this isn't thing even in America. The only way for someone else to "inherit" a debt is if they were co-signees on a contract or co-account owners.

No, his kids wouldn’t have to pay Nintendo anything.

 

[Majormaxxx]

Debt doesn't carry on with decedents though

It does if they choose to inherit your property

 

[Sleepwalker]

Nintendo really should have just settled for the prison time. I doubt any pirate out there is scared of paying them $25 a month or whatever but no one wants to go to prison.

In what respects to me, he did his time and should be left alone. The civil suit is not of my interest.

 

[Astral Dog]

A bunch of Bowsers associated with Nintendo

 

[Majormaxxx]

In Japan law it does most definitely. But seeing as it's an international case I don't know for sure if it's the case here. It as a Japanese company sueing and winning though.

Inheritance is a right, not an obligation. If you choose to inherit your parent, you are liable for their debts up to the amount of the inherited property. If Bowser is broke, there is nothing to inherit and no debt obviously.

 

[Dis]

To all the people cheering this on.

Dont act like you payed for WinRAR.

 

[Kilau]

He should counter sue Nintendo for appropriating his family name.

Also, nothing says “justice” like a punishment used to “send a message”.

 

[SJRB]

40-month jailtime and 14 million dollar fine is absolute insanity and it blows my mind how many of you think this is a suitable punishment.

40 months jail is already quite hefty, but crippling someone financially for the rest of their lives with a completely unrealistic 14 million dollar fine is just brutal. This is piracy of a videogame we're talking about. The man is kneecapped for the rest of his life. Extremely cruel and excessive punishment that does not befit the crime in any way.

Imagine siding with the billion dollar conglomerate and cheering for this. Sociopathic behavior.

 

[Deerock71]

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

 

[FoxMcChief]

Vincent Gilligan needs to write a show around this guy. Maybe then I’d care.

 

[The Skull]

 

[nush]

Dont act like you payed for WinRAR.

Every bit of digital content you've consumed.

 

[LordOcidax]

To all the people cheering this on.

Dont act like you payed for WinRAR.

The winrar trial never ends

 

[Sojiro]

The prison time I think was more than enough, he fucked up, there has to be punishment for it. The debt he has to pay back is definitely just a big fuck you to the guy from Nintendo and that part doesn't feel justified imo.

 

[skit_data]

Wow, I didn't expect him to look like that.

Don't know what I expected tbh, but it wasn't that.

 

[StereoVsn]

40-month jailtime and 14 million dollar fine is absolute insanity and it blows my mind how many of you think this is a suitable punishment.

40 months jail is already quite hefty, but crippling someone financially for the rest of their lives with a completely unrealistic 14 million dollar fine is just brutal. This is piracy of a videogame we're talking about. The man is kneecapped for the rest of his life. Extremely cruel and excessive punishment that does not befit the crime in any way.

Imagine siding with the billion dollar conglomerate and cheering for this. Sociopathic behavior.

Yep, and consider what the hell Wall Street and other insiders keep getting away, the punishment here is insane.

Yes, dude broke the law “technically”. He probably should have gotten a slap on the wrist and community service. The punishment does not fit the crime here.

 

[acm2000]

thank god nintendo sending this message has halted all piracy in the world.... oh wait

 

[SHA]

Piracy isn't a good thing, let's just say that upfront. But this seems cruel and fucked up. I get companies getting into fights with each other, or punishing an individual to make a broader point. But at the end of the day, he didn't hurts an individual, he hurt stock values and numbers.

And having to pay back not only in his lifetime, but also in the lifetimes of his children after he is gone, and the debt is inherited by his children, or even their grandchildren, who have nothing to do with the situation, is very frightening and dystopian.

It makes me think Nintendo isn't gonna be around at that time, I don't wanna encourage piracy but I understand piracy is a lot harder and miserable than what companies like Nintendo is doing.

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

$14.5 million in damages is absurd. It might as well be a billion dollars for all the chance Nintendo has of ever receiving it back from this guy. Prison and perhaps a minimum sentence would have sufficed. Leaving people with no hope of ever paying such a huge sum back is sadism... not justice.

 

[delfrickintree]

Would he really drive 12 hours to cross the Dominican island? What a weird guy!

Would the nintendo feds still have raided him at 4am if he was holed up in a haitian bunker instead? Nintendo should have brought the national news to livestream it, if they wanted to make an example of him.

 

[IAmNotFromDelaware]

Exactly. 14m is peanuts for Nintendo but for single individual it's something that he won't be able to pay in his lifetime.

People actually hurting others sometimes have less life altering sentences.

"My favorite multi bilion dollar corporation got hurt and they have some imaginary loses!"

Ughhh...

It really shows the extremism of fanboys when some here are happy the guy is suffering. He spent time in jail for this and they have zero sympathy with his illness and that he will forever be in debt.

The jail time should have been more than enough. Being happy that your favorite billionaire company is making this guy suffer is absolutely pathetic and really shows how extreme fanboys can be.

 

[Punished Miku]

$14.5 million in damages is absurd. It might as well be a billion dollars for all the chance Nintendo has of ever receiving it back from this guy. Prison and perhaps a minimum sentence would have sufficed. Leaving people with no hope of ever paying such a huge sum back is sadism... not justice.

It's pretty logical. You do a large amount of monetary damage. You are allowed to just pay an income based method. Same shit as student loans really.

People that promote mass piracy don't realize how scalable the damages are. This is one kindness to this man after another. Nintendo will never get the money back. They are likely not even getting enough money to pay for their legal team on this case. And this guy is still out of jail.

Maybe he shouldn't sell pirated shit to people. I have zero fear of Nintendo putting me in prison because I don't steal their shit and then try and sell it repeatedly. Real simple.

What you guys want is to keep doing the crime and then get no punishment. This is why I love stories like this.

 

[angrod14]

Dude's last name is "Bowser".

Spoiler: Spoiler

I would've counter-sued N for commercially exploiting my last name. Every single dime they made out of Bowser, bring it on. Joke's on them.

 

[Bojji]

It's pretty logical. You do a large amount of monetary damage. You are allowed to just pay an income based method. Same shit as student loans really.

People that promote mass piracy don't realize how scalable the damages are. This is one kindness to this man after another. Nintendo will never get the money back. They are likely not even getting enough money to pay for their legal team on this case. And this guy is still out of jail.

Maybe he shouldn't sell pirated shit to people. I have zero fear of Nintendo putting me in prison because I don't steal their shit and then try and sell it repeatedly. Real simple.

What you guys want is to keep doing the crime and then get no punishment. This is why I love stories like this.

Show me the "damage" he has done to them.

 

[Punished Miku]

Show me the "damage" he has done to them.

You can read up on the case yourself if you want.

 

[Bojji]

You can read up on the case yourself if you want.

He caused them to lose actual money or they calculated their speculated loses?

 

[angrod14]

Nintendo basically gets no justice while this guy gets sob stories about his rent.

As a lawyer, I would never, ever, dare to use the word "justice". There's no such thing in this world. It's merely a social construct. This world is all about people taking as much as they can from others while protecting their own. The legal system is the same jungle we've always used to live, don't fool yourself because you see the monkeys wearing suits.

All these companies care about is making as much profit out of people as they can. If N could get the death penalty for this guy, they would probably do so. Just to send the message not to fuck with their property.

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

It's pretty logical. You do a large amount of monetary damage. You are allowed to just pay an income based method. Same shit as student loans really.

People that promote mass piracy don't realize how scalable the damages are. This is one kindness to this man after another. Nintendo will never get the money back. They are likely not even getting enough money to pay for their legal team on this case. And this guy is still out of jail.

Maybe he shouldn't sell pirated shit to people. I have zero fear of Nintendo putting me in prison because I don't steal their shit and then try and sell it repeatedly. Real simple.

What you guys want is to keep doing the crime and then get no punishment. This is why I love stories like this.

No punishment? Most of the people that take issue with this have mentioned prison and a minimum sentence for the crime. Expecting someone to repay a sum of money they will never be able to repay in their lifetime is sadism. Whatever you think of this guy, he served his time; he should be able to re-join society with a blank slate.

 

[Punished Miku]

No punishment? Most of the people that take issue with this have mentioned prison and a minimum sentence for the crime. Expecting someone to repay a sum of money they will never be able to repay in their lifetime is sadism. Whatever you think of this guy, he served his time; he should be able to re-join society with a blank slate.

The large fine is the kind alternative to prison. He is out and has student loans basically.

 

[Filben]

the debt is inherited by his children

Is this mandatory in the US? In my country you can refuse inheritance, being debts or possessions/positive assets. Even if you did not refuse and realised only later you inherited more debts than assets you can initiate insolvency proceedings so the debts are only paid with assets from the inheritance and not your own capital (you had before the inheritance).

 

[winjer]

Seems like they made him pay for the crimes of all the gang at Team Xecutor.
Since Nintendo nor the Courts could catch any of the others, they pinned everything on this guy.

Of course he has to pay for his crimes. But this seems too much for what he did.
There are bankers running people's lives, corrupt politicians that steal millions, that don't have sentences anywhere as harsh as this.

 

[marjo]

Also, nothing says “justice” like a punishment used to “send a message”.

Well said! I guess sometimes, justice isn't as blind as we're led to believe.

 

[ReBurn]

So how they calculated this number?

I think the calculation was "how big of a number can we come up with to prevent anyone else from trying to ever do this again."

 

[YOU PC BRO?!]

The large fine is the kind alternative to prison. He is out and has student loans basically.

The large fine was in addition to prison. Its mentioned he served his sentence.

 

[Sentenza]

Mandatory:

 

[CuteFaceJay]

Not sure if its the case here as It's an international case.

But Japans ruling is definitely based on debt inheritance

Grey matters: Will your children pick up the debt?

In Japan when people die, their children inherit their debts. There is a three-month period after the death, according to the Japanese Embassy, in which the children can walk away from these liabilities - but, if they do so, they also have to wave goodbye to any assets.

www.theguardian.com

In Inheritance in Japan, the Heirs Must Directly Assume the Debts of the Deceased!

Do you assume that the decedent's debts are irrelevant to you as an heir? If so, you may be mis

kobelp.com

I do wonder if this is one of the factors as to why their population issue is the way it is. Imagine trying to save to get somewhere to live and your parents die and you end up finding out they were in major credit card debt LOL.