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After decades of terrorizing the Mushroom Kingdom, Bowser is pleading guilty to his crimes against Nintendo. Or, rather, a man named Gary Bowser who participated in a hacking enterprise to unlock Nintendo Switch systems is pleading guilty to his crimes. As part of his plea deal, Bowser agrees to pay Nintendo $4.5 million, and he is still facing potentially multiple years imprisonment.
The plea agreement, outlined in a court filing in Nintendo’s own Western District of Washington obtained by TorrentFreak, states that Bowser was a member of a “cybercriminals enterprise” that created, sold, and distributed circumvention devices capable of allowing game consoles to play ROMs, thereby inflicting monetary harm on the game developers and publishers who sold the legal versions of these games. In addition to the criminal charges, Bowser was also sued by Nintendo.
The group developed hacks for a variety of game systems, including the Nintendo Switch as well as the 3DS, dating back all the way to 2013 and running until August 19, 2020.
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“The enterprise generated at least tens of millions of dollars of proceeds from the sale of its circumvention devices,” the filing reads. It estimates losses for those affected to be somewhere between $65 million and $150 million. Bowser says he only got between $500 and $1000 a month to participate but additional advertising revenue brought his own total gains to about $320,000.
“Mr. Bowser understood that his participation in the illegal enterprise harmed copyright and trademark holders, console manufacturers, and others who were entitled to the revenue from not only the use of the circumvented consoles, but also from the purchase and playing of copyrighted video games,” the filing continues.
The US Department of Justice agrees to dismiss other counts of indictment against Bowser as part of the plea deal, but the penalties for the crimes for which he is pleading guilty already include two potential five-year prison sentences. We could be saying “So long” to Gary Bowser for some time.
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