This article was an interesting read. It goes into detail about Gary Bowser’s life growing up, his role in Team Xecuter, what his life is like today, and his thoughts about his $14.5m fine to Nintendo.
Some choice quotes:
“I started becoming a middleman in between the people doing the development work, and the people actually owning the mod chips, playing the games,” [Gary Bowser] 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.”
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.
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.
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Downright bizarre that corporations can demand such an extent of a lifetime punishment for non-violent crimes. Truly the law only serves the rich…
It’s friggin sad that most fingers are pointing to either side accusing each other of all sorts of shit, when they should be instead pointed towards about 100 people, and a system. The government is just a distraction, and a subterfuge, while the 1% absolutely raids everything else. Trump vs Biden isn’t the thing we should be focused on right now. It’s the population vs the Corporate West.
The state is a tool, and currently in most of the world it’s a tool of the 1%… people really forget about the French, American, Dutch etc. revolutions? Where the capitalist class violently overtook the state from the aristocracy and rebuilt it to serve them?
Not surprising when corporations and special interest groups practically run the U.S. Government.
Yeah, I might be an idiot on this, but imo Nintendo and whoever judged this case have committed a far more egregious crime. Nothing Bowser did hurt a single soul anywhere near as much as Nintendo and that judge has decided to hurt him in retaliation. Some numbers were slightly less high as some people might speculate they could have been. That’s it. Fuck Nintendo. Fuck their inhumanity and the same of their judge.
Sounds like cruel and unusual punishment to me. I wonder if he could still fight it. Sure doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that it’s literally only to make an example out of someine while ruining his entire life for a crime with no victim.
Yeah like, in one section it says they’re only supposed to take out of what’s left once necessities are covered, and in another it says he gets help from friends and family for food and clothes. Those are necessities!
I value the quality of a human life more than the profit of a corporation.
I will not buy Nintendo ever again. I’m glad they have sullied their own name.
Anyone interested in diving deep into the rabbit hole on Team Xecuter and Gary, I highly recommend the Darknet Diaries episode in which Jack interviews Gary and goes through the history.
Wow that was fascinating, thanks. For those who prefer to read, there was a full transcript!
Glad you enjoyed it, there’s some wild stories he has covered. Another favourite of a similar vein is the multipart episode on the early Xbox hacking scene: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/45/
Thanks for pointing out the transcript! I do love when that’s available.
he will likely die before it’s paid off (especially if interest accumulates). the real ‘sentence’ is being reminded each paycheck.
I mean that’s exactly the point, he’s never supposed to pay it off. It’s Nintendo proving they can use the wheels of the government to ruin an individuals life.
I have always been a nintendo fan, but I haven’t bought a single thing from them since news of his sentencing came out. Until Gary is freed I’m buying used, pirating, or doing without. I can’t support the company anymore. I need a new controller for my switch (because all four of my existing controllers have broken in some way), and rather than buying an official or licensed controller, I just bought an adapter that let me use other controllers like the dualsense.
Side note, I know he’s “freed” as in not in prison, but he’s still basically owned by nintendo for life. It’s slavery.
he possibly went back into doing piracy business as his business domain was found in the chain related to mig switch (which is not the first time the company has changed its name and “announced” itself on some reletively unknown twitter page)
Nintendo is this century’s Disney.
He should just move to Canada or Mexico.
In the Darknet Diaries episode linked below, Bowser shares his experience living in the Dominican Republic and how that all came to an abrupt and unpleasant end.
Not that easy moving to another country when you have a criminal record.
I might be wrong, but isn’t it a civil suit? Might be easier to go to another country with that.
Nintendo’s lawsuit was a civil suit, but he spent time in prison for fraud.
Ohhh that makes sense.
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
Not sure if lying or extremely naive. He acted as the public face of a DRM breaking ring? Either he was running it and profiting much more than he says, or he asked for the tar and feathers on top of already being a scapegoat figurehead.
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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.
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.
“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.”
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.
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I think the fine is way too high for someone like him that didn’t actually make millions of the modchips involved. He’s really a fall guy, not a figurehead. It’s pretty unfair of the US court system to make an example of him like this. Yeah he did a bad thing but no, he should not be fucked for life just because the real leaders are out of their grasp.
It this kind of thing that’s the reason I’ll never consider moving to the US (and I don’t even like visiting). Its society is just too harsh for me.
PS: I do have to say his name is super funny, sorry 🤭
This reads so distopian. Like nintendo laid the guardian for pointing out the amount of shit youre in for messing with them.
The judges and lawyers should be thrown into jail for life. Way to ruin a mans life for a couple hundred dollars a month.