Canadian programmer Gary Bowser sued Nintendo in 2020, accusing him of distributing pirated software and was eventually sentenced to two years in prison and a huge fine. He was a member of the Team-Xecuter hacking team and has been distributing various pirated ROMs since 2013.
According to a new Guardian interview, he has had a terrible year after being released from a two-year prison sentence. In addition to having to pay "25-30%" of his income to one of the world's largest gaming companies, the report reads: "Bowser has now managed to find housing and believes he will have a few hundred dollars left over for food and other necessities after rent. He believes he will need to apply for food assistance."
The report also noted that he often couldn't pay his electric bill, so his refrigerator and stove sometimes went completely without power. "I'll pay them as much as I can, but it's certainly not going to be a lot of money," he said.
Although life is terrible, he is relatively optimistic because "it could be worse."
He also suffered from chronic pain, and because he had no money for treatment, he said, "For a while, I couldn't even wear shoes on my left foot and could only walk barefoot."
He also described the scene of his arrest: "On the day it happened, I was sleeping in bed. It was 4 o'clock in the morning. I had been drinking all night... When I woke up, I saw three people surrounding my bed, aiming their rifles at my head."
While incarcerated, he found a job counseling prisoners. Bowser described: "A lot of other people are crazy, banging on the door, screaming, and hurting themselves." To run this kind of studio, he also needs to pay Nintendo $25 a month.
He still argued that his role in Team-Xecuter was more about maintenance than direct distribution of pirated games. He said his sentence was a "message to other people (pirate distributors)" from Nintendo and the courts.
In fact, in the court transcript, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik also publicly stated that the case verdict "can play the role of information." The judge also asked Nintendo lawyer Ajay Singh: "What else can we do to make people believe that this kind of hacking/piracy behavior has no honor at all?"
The lawyer responded by clarifying Nintendo's motives, saying: "It's the purchase of video games that sustains Nintendo and the Nintendo ecosystem. It's the games that make people smile... That's why we will do everything we can to prevent games on Nintendo systems from being stolen."