Have you heard of Gary Bowser? No, he’s not the man who runs Nintendo of America. That’s Doug Bowser. Gary Bowser is a Canadian citizen who faced intense prison time, legal fines, and a Nintendo civil case over his role aiding the piracy group Team Xecuter.
Bowser’s life was essentially upended by Nintendo and the U.S. government, and now that he’s served 14 months in prison, he’s gotten his chance to share his story thanks to a report by Patricia Hernandez in The Guardian.
And WOW. Games Twitter is quickly coming to the conclusion that Nintendo effectively ruined this guy’s life, completely obliterating his finances and quality of life through payments to the video game company. “Arrested by armed police and put into lifetime debt over game piracy,” TheGamer’s Rhia Bevan tweeted. “We live in hell.”
Here’s what you need to know about Bowser, and how things became so dire.
Gary Bowser and Nintendo, explained
According to Hernandez, Gary Bowser began working with Team Xecuter toward the tail end of the 2000s. The group would create “dongles used to bypass anti-piracy measures on Nintendo Switch and other consoles,” the reporter noted, essentially allowing players to pirate video games on these devices.
Bowser wasn’t the brains behind the operation, nor did he play a significant role, per Hernandez’s report. If anything, he was more of an auxiliary support man, helping out as necessary. He ran Team Xecuter’s website for relatively modest pay, and he would help make sure the anti-piracy workaround techniques actually functioned as intended.
“I started becoming a middleman in between the people doing the development work, and the people actually owning the mod chips, playing the games. I would get feedback from the testers, and then I would send it to the developers.” Bowser told The Guardian. “I can handle people, and that’s why I ended up getting more involved.”
Things turned sour for Bowser in fall 2020, after he was arrested in the middle of the night. He told The Guardian that three law enforcement officials “[surrounded] my bed with rifles aimed at my head.” From there, they “dragged me out of my place, put me in the back of a pickup truck and drove me to the Interpol office.” Bowser spent significant time isolated from others while in jail, given his arrest was at the height of the pandemic. At one point, he became so ill with COVID that “a priest would come over once a day to read him a prayer.”
There’s much more to Bowser’s story—we recommend reading Hernandez’s full report for more information—but Bowser’s problems took a turn for the worst after he was hit with 13 charges and a lawsuit from Nintendo, resulting in $14.5 million in payments owed. Ultimately, Bowser ended up cooperating instead of fighting the charges, even though he was just a minor part of Team Xecuter’s operation. “It was easier, he claims, to plead guilty and only deal with a couple of the charges,” The Guardian reported. “As a part of that agreement, Bowser now has to send Nintendo 20 to 30 percent of any money left over after he pays for necessities such as rent.”
Payments already started to Nintendo during Bowser’s time in prison, when he was sending $25 every month to Nintendo while working as a suicide counselor. The work sounded grueling and traumatic, per Hernandez’s report.
Gary Bowser’s GoFundMe, and why he needs it
It should go without saying, but life is hard for a man struck with $14.5 million in fines. Bowser is disabled and requires physical therapy, which is taxing on his finances. He’s actively looking for work, but in the meantime, he “assumes he’ll be turning to food support services” just to survive, as he only “has a couple of hundred dollars leftover for food and other necessities” every month once rent is paid. Ultimately, Bowser needs a GoFundMe in order to afford clothes and food, and he relies on his friends for support, but his fundraiser only had “a few dozen donations” at the time of The Guardian’s report.
“Hello everyone, my name is Gary Bowser aka GaryOPA as many of you know I am restarting my life after a couple of years of fighting the legal system,” Bowser writes on his GoFundMe. “Anyway I am now back in Toronto, Canada and rebuilding my life, and it is not easy as I have been out of Canada since 2010.”
Hernandez shared Bowser’s GoFundMe on Twitter, where she says the money “is going toward necessities, like the weekly physical therapy he has to get for his leg condition — which he says got worse while imprisoned.” The GoFundMe has since received a plethora of support since Hernandez’s article, with donations coming in since The Guardian article’s publication.
Indeed, there’s the possibility that Hernandez’s article will do a lot of good for Bowser and his employment, with a reader at a tech company potentially taking sympathy on his plight and hiring him as a programmer or consultant. Hernandez hints at just as much, suggesting “a cybersecurity company might welcome his tech expertise, regardless of how he got it.” Until then, the best way to support a man struggling for basic life essentials is to send him a few bucks his way. It’s the least you can do when a fair chunk of his money ultimately goes to Nintendo.
(featured image: Nintendo, YouTuber NickMoses05. Remix by Ana Valens)
