The man who owes Nintendo $14m: Gary Bowser and gaming’s most infamous piracy case
The man who owes Nintendo $14m: Gary Bowser and gaming’s most infamous piracy case
by hnraja21
19 Comments
ShadowDurza
He sold jailbroken Switches loaded with pirated software and received tons of warnings but defied them all.
Edit: He’s a piece of crap that only vindicates Nintendo’s approach to Emulation and Fan Games, especially in court.
You guys are about as nuance-challenged as Anime and Manga fans. Just because some loser acts against an institution you don’t like doesn’t make them decent.
BenderDeLorean
I remember the old good days when you could ask for mod chip installations in shady little shops in shady areas of big cities.
He did not think it through. And he should also know how Nintendo is ticking.
DarkKirby14
he fucked around and found out
TacticalTobi
that’s honestly insane. but i do think what he did was a crime, so yeah.
Arky_Lynx
Pirating games and modding consoles just for your own enjoyment, wanting to try them out but no demos available or literally any other reason, is more than debatable, as long as there’s no idea of a profit involved at all.
What this guy did was literally SELLING modded consoles ready to read pirated copies, he was making a clear profit from it, and that’s well over the line. I don’t feel any pity for this dude, he’s just an idiot.
SorakaMyWaifu
Are we not going to talk about his name ironically being Bowser
FlamezOfGamez
I heard about this guy from the YouTube channel Moon Channel. As sympathetic as you may be to someone who clearly won’t be able to pay off such a debt to a massive corporation (with a name like Bowser, to boot), it really seemed more like he was the scapegoat for a larger piracy operation.
Even after hearing more about the group he was a part of, and coming to the conclusion that they really weren’t a group I had support for, I do still feel sorry for the guy. It’s like they caught the PR guy instead of someone who actually mattered.
Since when was Bowser such a common last name for people connected to Nintendo
your_evil_ex
Maybe instead of pirating he should have asked his brother Doug if he could get the family discount
SensualEnema
Don’t worry, Gary Mario is on the case
alejiososa
So long Ga(r)y Bowser
myjumboeggs
So long, ~~gay~~ Gary Bowser
rube
It’s funny, I’ve seen plenty of headlines and articles about him in the last year or more, but I always pictured him as someone in their teens or 20’s. I guess when you hear about people getting in trouble for hacking and stuff, you think they’re “young punks”.
franky3987
The worst part about this case, is he was pretty much the scapegoat, not only for piracy itself, but of the operation. He was like the logistics dude of the whole thing. 14 million, some jail time, and basically the end of the rest of his life in regards to not living close to the poverty line. There are people who have killed, that have walked away with less of a punishment . Yea, what he did was illegal, but it was no where near the punishment he got.
Shanadarx1
Cruel and unusual punishment
PocketTornado
Disclaimer: I own every single console/portable success and misfire Nintendo has ever released along with a collection of thousands of games I’ve kept since the mid 80’s.
To the people in this sub saying ‘he’s a terrible person…” give your head a shake. Daddy Nintendo doesn’t care about your pathetic fawning.
He’s a single individual that was a small part of a much bigger system. Nintendo’s lawyers just felt they needed to destroy his life to make an example. He’s now a *head on a spike* to all those who would cross the mighty Nintendo.
Maybe some of you are too young to even understand the bigger picture. Nintendo claims this guy cost them 14 million… Let’s say he did. Guilty as charged. Ok, but how many millions worth of content will be lost to paying consumers come the April 2024 online shutdown? People say you will still be able to get your downloads from their servers for an undisclosed time after the shutdown but what happens after that?
All those Wii, Wii U, 3DS games to the tune of hundreds of millions we’ve bought fair and square will be gone. I have a massive Virtual Console library that I can’t carry over to any modern hardware. Yet Nintendo sees it fit to charge me a perpetual rental fee to access a fraction of that content via the Nintendo Switch Online service.
Do you guys remember when Nintendo was charging us $1 to simply move a VC game from the Virtual Wii to the Wii U menu? Think about this, $1 for the privilege to launch your game from another menu on the same hardware. I remember fanboys defending Nintendo at the time with every tooth and nail… “Do you know how many resources it takes for Nintendo to pull off the miracle of moving a game from one menu to the other!?!” Yet, I’m here playing PC games on my Steam Deck that were never meant to run on Linux and it’s not costing me an extra dime.
We need a digital content revolution across the entire industry that protects paying consumers from losing access to thousands of dollars of content each of us might have spent during each of those console’s life cycles. Why should Nintendo not be charged with some sort of digital theft if they choose to cut us off from our legitimately purchased content only to push new ‘rental’ options for things we already own? It’s one thing to drop support for certain physical hardware but these are just files that could be run via emulation on any of their new hardware. I know they can run Super Mario World on the Switch because it’s on there right now. If I was to hack my Switch just to play the exact ROM from my Wii VC library instead of renting something I’ve already purchased… should I go to jail? What if I had missed the limited run of Super Mario 3D All Stars (I didn’t) and had instead hacked my switch and used backups of my physical versions because paying over $200 for after market is insane… Should I go to jail?
We can’t even legitimately backup our own saved games on the Switch without being forced to pay. Sony lets us backup our saves to USB, MS does as well. Steam gives you free cloud backups that sync across all your devices. What Nintendo is trying to normalize is not normal. They are by far the least consumer friendly game company out there. They are not your friends or on your side.
If you think it’s normal to have to rebuy the same games over and over at full price because your are using the exact same ROMs on refreshed hardware, Nintendo has already won. You’ll be their cash cow until the day you die.
19 Comments
He sold jailbroken Switches loaded with pirated software and received tons of warnings but defied them all.
Edit: He’s a piece of crap that only vindicates Nintendo’s approach to Emulation and Fan Games, especially in court.
You guys are about as nuance-challenged as Anime and Manga fans. Just because some loser acts against an institution you don’t like doesn’t make them decent.
I remember the old good days when you could ask for mod chip installations in shady little shops in shady areas of big cities.
He did not think it through. And he should also know how Nintendo is ticking.
he fucked around and found out
that’s honestly insane. but i do think what he did was a crime, so yeah.
Pirating games and modding consoles just for your own enjoyment, wanting to try them out but no demos available or literally any other reason, is more than debatable, as long as there’s no idea of a profit involved at all.
What this guy did was literally SELLING modded consoles ready to read pirated copies, he was making a clear profit from it, and that’s well over the line. I don’t feel any pity for this dude, he’s just an idiot.
Are we not going to talk about his name ironically being Bowser
I heard about this guy from the YouTube channel Moon Channel. As sympathetic as you may be to someone who clearly won’t be able to pay off such a debt to a massive corporation (with a name like Bowser, to boot), it really seemed more like he was the scapegoat for a larger piracy operation.
Even after hearing more about the group he was a part of, and coming to the conclusion that they really weren’t a group I had support for, I do still feel sorry for the guy. It’s like they caught the PR guy instead of someone who actually mattered.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j9_1Wl9pjLU&pp=ygUTTW9vbiBjaGFubmVsIGJvd3Nlcg%3D%3D
Since when was Bowser such a common last name for people connected to Nintendo
Maybe instead of pirating he should have asked his brother Doug if he could get the family discount
Don’t worry, Gary Mario is on the case
So long Ga(r)y Bowser
So long, ~~gay~~ Gary Bowser
It’s funny, I’ve seen plenty of headlines and articles about him in the last year or more, but I always pictured him as someone in their teens or 20’s. I guess when you hear about people getting in trouble for hacking and stuff, you think they’re “young punks”.
The worst part about this case, is he was pretty much the scapegoat, not only for piracy itself, but of the operation. He was like the logistics dude of the whole thing. 14 million, some jail time, and basically the end of the rest of his life in regards to not living close to the poverty line. There are people who have killed, that have walked away with less of a punishment . Yea, what he did was illegal, but it was no where near the punishment he got.
Cruel and unusual punishment
Disclaimer: I own every single console/portable success and misfire Nintendo has ever released along with a collection of thousands of games I’ve kept since the mid 80’s.
To the people in this sub saying ‘he’s a terrible person…” give your head a shake. Daddy Nintendo doesn’t care about your pathetic fawning.
He’s a single individual that was a small part of a much bigger system. Nintendo’s lawyers just felt they needed to destroy his life to make an example. He’s now a *head on a spike* to all those who would cross the mighty Nintendo.
Maybe some of you are too young to even understand the bigger picture. Nintendo claims this guy cost them 14 million… Let’s say he did. Guilty as charged. Ok, but how many millions worth of content will be lost to paying consumers come the April 2024 online shutdown? People say you will still be able to get your downloads from their servers for an undisclosed time after the shutdown but what happens after that?
All those Wii, Wii U, 3DS games to the tune of hundreds of millions we’ve bought fair and square will be gone. I have a massive Virtual Console library that I can’t carry over to any modern hardware. Yet Nintendo sees it fit to charge me a perpetual rental fee to access a fraction of that content via the Nintendo Switch Online service.
Do you guys remember when Nintendo was charging us $1 to simply move a VC game from the Virtual Wii to the Wii U menu? Think about this, $1 for the privilege to launch your game from another menu on the same hardware. I remember fanboys defending Nintendo at the time with every tooth and nail… “Do you know how many resources it takes for Nintendo to pull off the miracle of moving a game from one menu to the other!?!” Yet, I’m here playing PC games on my Steam Deck that were never meant to run on Linux and it’s not costing me an extra dime.
We need a digital content revolution across the entire industry that protects paying consumers from losing access to thousands of dollars of content each of us might have spent during each of those console’s life cycles. Why should Nintendo not be charged with some sort of digital theft if they choose to cut us off from our legitimately purchased content only to push new ‘rental’ options for things we already own? It’s one thing to drop support for certain physical hardware but these are just files that could be run via emulation on any of their new hardware. I know they can run Super Mario World on the Switch because it’s on there right now. If I was to hack my Switch just to play the exact ROM from my Wii VC library instead of renting something I’ve already purchased… should I go to jail? What if I had missed the limited run of Super Mario 3D All Stars (I didn’t) and had instead hacked my switch and used backups of my physical versions because paying over $200 for after market is insane… Should I go to jail?
We can’t even legitimately backup our own saved games on the Switch without being forced to pay. Sony lets us backup our saves to USB, MS does as well. Steam gives you free cloud backups that sync across all your devices. What Nintendo is trying to normalize is not normal. They are by far the least consumer friendly game company out there. They are not your friends or on your side.
If you think it’s normal to have to rebuy the same games over and over at full price because your are using the exact same ROMs on refreshed hardware, Nintendo has already won. You’ll be their cash cow until the day you die.
Bowser.. what the hell.
[deleted]
So long, Gary Bowser!