After being indicted in 2020, Gary Bowser's trial is finally over, and he has been sentenced to 3+ years in prison. Bowser was facing eleven felony charges as the public face of Team Xexuter, estimated by the U.S. government to have cost the videogame industry between $65 million and $150 million by facilitating piracy. Bowser pled guilty to charges of trafficking in circumvention devices and conspiracy to circumvent technological measures in November, agreeing to pay $4.5 million in fines, but was also ordered to pay another $10 million to Nintendo in a civil case.
"This is not a victimless crime. The leaders of this multimillion-dollar scheme are responsible for diverting money from creative professionals who have worked hard to provide unique products and experiences,” said Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Robert Hammer. Another Special Agent in Charge, Donald M. Voiret, is quoted saying "he also wasted the efforts of legitimate companies as they attempted to build protections for their products.”
Last week, the prosecution announced they were seeking a five-year sentence, while the defense only wanted nineteen months. Bowser has been detained since October 2020 as he was not able to secure pretrial release, so, assuming he serves his full 3+ year sentence, he will have actually been detained for closer to four and a half years.
Good. Not so much for any monetary damage they caused Nintendo or other developers but because of their piggybacking off of work from open source developers without so much as giving credit, the latter of which get nothing but shit from "wonderful" communities because they don't prioritize piracy. As far as I'm concerned, this is karma.
Also, not every prison is maximum security. Amazing how many people don't get that but judging from some of these posts I'm guessing the average age here is in the mid-teens.
Edit: As for pirates saying they'll continue to pirate, I'm reminded of this
Casual reminder that, in light of this, it's not only ethical, but morally mandated to pirate the fuck out of Nintendo hardware and software, to correct this grievous error.
Fuck NoA. Fuck NoJ especially. Fuck Miyamoto's temper tantrums screwing over third parties. Fuck their xenophobia.
To everyone throwing shades at Nintendo: Poor little Gary is known in the homebrew scene as someone who steals other people's code (As found in SXOS) and promotes his modchips for piracy, along with the aforementioned crimes I talked about in my first message. You should really go find more info on Twitter and stop reading Kotaku's headlines. I know, it's difficult, but please try for once
As a Nintendo lover: fuck Nintendo.
I hacked and will keep hacking my consoles any chance I get. Fuck them and their greedy minds. The dude already got a multimillionaire fine and will also serve +3 years, way more than actual cops killing people.
Fuck the US too.
@Cris1997XX do you really think this is just about Gary? I don't give a crap about how he steals code or not, and even if he did do you really think he deserves +10m in fines AND 3 years in jail? I give a crap about the precedent that this shit creates in a system that works like the US'. This is BAD for EVERYONE but Nintendo. Let's hope they don't start going after people downloading ROMs.
at this rate idc if russia nukes the USA the corrupt government deserves it maybe after ww3 and the near extinction of human life who survives might (keyword might) repent for their mistakes being run by corperate shitheads who's companies aren't USA based even we are basicly outsourcinng our government and people are too stupid to realize this
And criminals want to steal from who do the actual work (read as big companies). Which side you on again? And by the way, the big companies don't decide prison time. That's not how it works. I would have thought that was obvious.
What work i bought my console i will damn well please do with it whatever i wish. Just because some idiot makes a law about it i have to now abide by it or i go to prison. Thats why the world is totally screwed up today because this stuff is now worse than murder and other high grade crimes. Its a stupid law some greedy guy invented making it his/hers intelectual property when the tax payers funded that SOB to go school and give him free means to learn the basics and the same tax payers that looked after his family which gave him means to work as they got older. If your sfuff gets copyrighted dont make it... Ask the guys at wall street how much money they loose you dont see them making laws except the big fish like Goldman sachs or whatever these guys are called.
Here is the logic ..... So we should never invent cars right because the 4 wheels was someones idea long long time ago so the rest of the world benefits from that as it was not copyright. Copyright is a simple thing that people make it their property forgetting how things orignated in the first place. Infact dont use wheels because that was someone elses idea.
Coding was always free as well as alot of the core mechanics used to make the very industry as it is. Lets not play around here its these compnaies got big money and some guy found a way around that cooperate BS system. that money these giants have or shall i say greed pretty much gives them infinte rights as long as they have the money.
Please stop the crap i know how this world works it what someone wants to think and then push a law thats basically it and in this case they paid enough money to do it.
Criminal because someone makes this dumb law, then stealing what exactly. All these big comapnies take ideas and make it their own and then copyright it what garbage. I dont care for this dumb law at all its stupid just like the people running the country. Whats worse is this get looked like as though some guy murdered someone.
at this rate idc if russia nukes the USA the corrupt government deserves it maybe after ww3 and the near extinction of human life who survives might (keyword might) repent for their mistakes being run by corperate shitheads who's companies aren't USA based even we are basicly outsourcinng our government and people are too stupid to realize this
This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get on a watch-list.
Like, for real though, I know it was either a moment of anger or a joke, but don't make posts online talking about the potential death of people, nowadays more than ever. Whether you mean it or not, it's the kind of shit that can ruin or damage your life if anyone connects the dots to your online persona. Not exactly worth it for some internet points, is it?
This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you get on a watch-list.
Like, for real though, I know it was either a moment of anger or a joke, but don't make posts online talking about the potential death of people, nowadays more than ever. Whether you mean it or not, it's the kind of shit that can ruin or damage your life if anyone connects the dots to your online persona. Not exactly worth it for some internet points, is it?
oh well i probably already was/am because of a previous religion choice,,,,,emphasis on previous i could care less about any religion now besides if wishful thinking can get you arested and having no means or way to do it that scares me on itself like i have no car no hacking skills no guns none of that I'm harmless besides i'm so weak people can easily overpower me and besides it was more of a psychotic moment caue well just sick of all the corruption in the world anyways's I'll stop there
oh well i probably already was/am because of a previous religion choice,,,,,emphasis on previous i could care less about any religion now besides if wishful thinking can get you arested and having no means or way to do it that scares me on itself like i have no car no hacking skills no guns none of that I'm harmless besides i'm so weak people can easily overpower me and besides it was more of a psychotic moment caue well just sick of all the corruption in the world anyways's I'll stop there
Well if people die I just hope it's the damn idiots who went to war. But I can bet its going to be the innocent that's going to get the short end of the stick. Let's not fail to mention the troops that get politically dragged into this because they are on a pay check. This makes me sick to my being.... greedy messed up government scum. Just proves that no matter whatever political group war is on their list.
I can bet when it comes to this kind of thing its not criminal right???? for those stupid people out their this is one of those things. Like copyright why don't they make a law to make war illegal better yet let's copyright it as someone else has already done it... all the weapons and intelligence is someone's intellectual property. Let's not profit from it now and make it against the law. What a joke of a system.
at this rate idc if russia nukes the USA the corrupt government deserves it maybe after ww3 and the near extinction of human life who survives might (keyword might) repent for their mistakes being run by corperate shitheads who's companies aren't USA based even we are basicly outsourcinng our government and people are too stupid to realize this
Going a little far there bud? I know you're in that "everyone is sinner, everyone must die" phase that every 14 year old goes through, but wanting everyone to die because Nintendo sued a pirate? Kinda far man.
at this rate idc if russia nukes the USA the corrupt government deserves it maybe after ww3 and the near extinction of human life who survives might (keyword might) repent for their mistakes being run by corperate shitheads who's companies aren't USA based even we are basicly outsourcinng our government and people are too stupid to realize this
My god man you need to calm down, you really want the death of 300 million+ people for 1-5 fucked up laws, go outside, take a walk, Russian is no better heck they are worse.
Seriously, tell me with a straight face that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a port of a Wii U game that released in 2014 (8 YEARS AGO!!), should be worth $90. This shit NEVER goes on sale, either.
Add the $35 +tax on top (so $40) and you've got yourself a nice $130 gaming experience that you can only reduce by $10 if you buy the base game second hand (because yes, people still charge $80 for the base game). Maybe take another $10 off if you get lucky and the person's willing to go down to $70 for you. Assuming of course they don't delete/block you for making such an offer in the first place.
No one cares that you can't afford 90 bucks for Mario Kart lmao and if that's your go-to for out of control piracy then you really need to meet some people who are developers for a living.
I don't remember Android gaming starting off with paid games, the whole hype I saw about it was about there were so many free games on it.
If you're going to make one of the main draws of your platform the free games, you're obviously gonna attract way more people that will be willing to pirate the ones that end up being paid. Consoles are the opposite: everyone knows the majority of games are paid, and the free ones are the minority, so a big part of the userbase is fine with paying for the games.
"Monument Valley joins a short list composed of Minecraft and The Room for premium-priced games that are performing well on smartphones and tablets.
So while pay rates of 5 percent and 40 percent seem depressing, it’s not something that is bothering Ustwo.
“We’re not complaining at all,” the developer went on to write on Twitter. “It’s to be expected. It’s just interesting data.”
Ustwo announced this morning that its whole development team is back in the office for the first time since October. So clearly, it is ready to get back to work despite piracy eating into its earning potential."
It does suck for any games that try to be paid-only on Android, but like your own article points out, the devs were already expecting an outcome like this.
Even after this, they're going back to work on games that I assume will be released on mobile as well, so that just looks to me that even with this much piracy on Android, they still consider their profits high enough that they'll keep making games.
Now if you tell me that Android should get its shit together and find some way to help developers make games / apps harder to pirate, I'll agree with you. But we know that's probably, so if devs are really getting burned by all the mobile piracy, they should just move on and make paid games for console and PC instead, or just join the dark side and make free games to try to find their own whales.
Imagine if Nintendo lowered the prices of games after a year or two instead of keeping them full price until they stop making them. Some more people would probably be willing to buy them instead of waiting for piracy or second hand sales (which also "hurt" companies, according to some).
Android games all started as paid, then people were like "wait, I can just download the .apk" and developers quickly found out that they shouldn't include mobile phones in their multiplatform support because they'd lose a fuckton of money due to piracy.
Also, imagine making asinine comparisons like Nintendo games and indie games and wanting all indie devs to go bankrupt because evil Nintendo won't give me a 90% discount on some mario games no one cares about anymore.
And yet it's still the most thorough study that we have, even according to that article you link. Also, a few paragraphs after the one that points out the margin of error:
"Displacement rates for games have been little analysed in previous literature, but it is interesting that a study of Bastard et al. (2012) also indicate significant positive effects, suggesting that games have succeeded in turning illegal online transactions to their advantage by hooking up gamers and offering more levels / bonuses that are available only after paying."
I had a bit of a skim through the study for a few hours these last few days (at least until the initial interest faded and I got way too bored lol), and here are some things I noticed:
"In general, the results do not show robust statistical evidence of displacement of sales by online copyright infringements. That does not necessarily mean that piracy has no effect but only that the statistical analysis does not prove with sufficient reliability that there is an effect."
"For games, the estimated effect of illegal online transactions on sales is positive – implying that illegal consumption leads to increased legal consumption. This positive effect of illegal downloads and streams on the sales of games may be explained by the industry being successful in converting illegal users to paying users. Tactics used by the industry include, for example, offering gameplay with extra bonuses or extra levels if consumers pay."
Don't feel like copying a bunch of different tables for 1 spoiler, so go check it out if you want. The gist of it is that between 2009 and 2013 (the years they studied for this specific bit), physical game sales have generally gone down, but digital sales went up. Doesn't really say much about piracy in itself, but from all the whining from Nintendo and others, you'd think that digital sales would be stagnated or even going down because of piracy.
Section titled "Survey based results – Games", so basically the second half of the page. Basically, it mentions how previous studies concluded that game piracy isn't as harmful as it is for music, since games often find ways to make legal purchases worth it. They don't mention this, but I'm guessing they mean stuff like the ability to play multiplayer or, in the case of consoles, availability of stuff like updates/DLCs (sometimes games will be dumped, but updates/DLCs won't)
Sections "6.3 Use of creative content" and "6.4 Proportion of illegal downloaders / streamers".
These compare the percentage of people that used legal services, and how many of those also pirated stuff.
Do note, it doesn't make the distinction between people that just pirated, or that pirated but later bought the thing. In the case of gaming, I think it'd even be interesting to know how many pirated then bought a game, and how many pirated but didn't buy because they didn't like the game (so they'd end up not buying it if demos existed, or if they tried a friend's copy, etc).
Image
Shows the percent of people that got games through various means. Note again, it doesn't indicate how many are "repeated" between different options - as in, it's possible that a portion of the respondents pirated certain games, but also bought others.
"Most games played in the EU are free games and legal streams (including online consoles), on average close to 4 each in a year, followed closely by 3.4 games bought on a CD or other physical carrier. Slightly fewer games are played after a legal downloads, illegal downloads or streams or on a chipped console. On average people play only one cloud games such as one from Gaikai, Onlive or games directly from the server of the games developer in a year." Image
Again, grain of salt and all that, but still, the amount of pirated stuff doesn't seem as large as companies want people to think.
Explains the system they used to reduce the chance of pirates replying untruthfully about their pirating. Like mentioned in earlier bits of the study, it resulted in a higher rate of piracy reports compared to other studies.
They do say it's not 100% guaranteed that none of the respondents lied, but it's still positive enough to believe they have a decent amount of truthful responses.
"(...)for books and games these percentages [of illegal online users] are between 14 and 18 per cent for illegal downloads, streams and gamers playing on a chipped console."
"The high self-reported piracy rates in this study compared to previous literature indicate that untruthful replies to illegal behaviour are no more a problem in this study than in previous studies. To test the truthfulness of replies one must make assumptions about who would deny piracy. A hypothesis about cognitive dissonance and moral attitudes does not give conclusive results. However, assuming that people speak the truth about their knowledge of piracy terms, and that true pirates are more familiar with piracy terms than true legal buyers, the discrepancy in knowledge of piracy terms of 20 percent point between self-confessed pirates and self-reporting legal buyers indicates that one must assume strong ignorance of piracy terms among true legal buyers to claim that the sample of self-reporting legal buyers is contaminated with denying pirates. A further comparison of knowledge of non-piracy related internet savvy terms indicates that both legal buyers and pirates respond truthfully about their knowledge of piracy terms, unless denying pirates also lie about their knowledge of non-piracy related internet terms. Under these neutrally formulated assumptions, the proportions of self-confessed pirates and self-reporting legal buyers knowing piracy and non-piracy related internet savvy terms imply that the latter group is not contaminated with denying pirates, and hence that all respondents speak the truth about their behaviour."
Sort of a summary of the stuff from pg 110-113
"For games, illegal downloads and streams were grouped together and a separate question was asked about the number of games played on chipped consoles. For games, the OLS estimates suggest that every 100 games played illegally induce an extra 28 to 41 legal transactions of games. However, since many people use both legal and illegal channels, these OLS estimates may still be biased due to the endogeneity problem discussed above despite controlling for e.g. interest in creative content and the use of internet to search information on creative content(...)"
Note we don't know how many of those pirated copies were actually played to the end of the game and which were from people that just tried out the game for a few hours then stopped playing because they weren't interested enough (so they likely would have not bought the games anyway if there were demos, or other non-piracy ways to try them out before purchase).
Still, even with margins of error and all other grains of salt, I think we can't deny that certain cases of piracy do help sell SOME legit copies.
"For games the reason for the positive effects may be that players may get hooked to a game and access a game legally to play the game with all bonuses, at higher levels or whatever makes playing the game legally more interesting."
This is similar to the bit on page 84.
"Despite the large uncertainty of the estimates, the most likely effects are:
• Games: out of every 100 online copyright infringements, 24 induce an extra legal transaction."
And that's that, I didn't read much more past page 150 (from the first spoiler).
I'm not saying piracy is completely harmless. I'll even admit that I thought it was less of an issue because I hadn't given this study any actual look, so I was going off results of previous, less accurate ones.
Either way, my point is that piracy also isn't as cataclysmic as companies make it out to be. This study isn't perfect, but it's the best attempt so far that's been done to figure this out.
Besides, the fact that it took so long for it to go public still makes me lean towards the chance that the big companies are BSing a bit about their "losses because of piracy", but that's just my opinion
Android games all started as paid, then people were like "wait, I can just download the .apk" and developers quickly found out that they shouldn't include mobile phones in their multiplatform support because they'd lose a fuckton of money due to piracy.
And two or so years later, Angry Birds kicked off the "trend" of In-App Purchases. They even ended up removing the base game's price tag because they realised they'd get more money that way.
And like I mentioned earlier, if devs KNOW that piracy is so easy on Android but still keep making games without any sort of attempt at stopping it (either have an online check when you first install the game, or some other form of making sure the game was bought other than just having the apk), then it's on them.
Also, pretty sure devs also found out that mobile ports of games they originally released for console/pc got less attention because the controls are often ass compared to how they were originally meant to be played (controller or KB+Mouse) because not many people will lug around those accessories to play on a phone, and touchscreen controls are often way clumsier.
If they want to take it up with Google so they make Android more piracy resistant, I'm all for it. Google has more than enough money to try to improve Android, if only they stop focusing on other dumb crap.
Also, imagine making asinine comparisons like Nintendo games and indie games and wanting all indie devs to go bankrupt because evil Nintendo won't give me a 90% discount on some mario games no one cares about anymore.
Can you quote the post where I said that instead of pulling it out of your sore ass? Because if you're right, then I have a weird way of wanting indie devs to go bankrupt. Like, real weird.
And that's not even close to showing my full 415 game Steam library, which is probably not even that impressive compared to other people.
I hope you know how easy it is to turn that into a "if they don't care about me being unable to pay for their game, why should I care about their feelings if I pirate?"
It's idiots like you that make others pirate out of spite.
I do remember when the TX Licenses came out they were bragging about 1+million sold 1st week @$20+ each thats over 20 million just on licenses in week 1. Not including the Pro dongles/Their paid freeshop and later on the Core/Lite. Max and Chen ran with it.
SO YEAH THEY DID DAMAGE> How it converts to actual piracy #s I dunno.
To everyone throwing shades at Nintendo: Poor little Gary is known in the homebrew scene as someone who steals other people's code (As found in SXOS) and promotes his modchips for piracy, along with the aforementioned crimes I talked about in my first message. You should really go find more info on Twitter and stop reading Kotaku's headlines. I know, it's difficult, but please try for once
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only ps5 updated to latest firmware can go on psn, jailbroken ones just don't use psn or they risk getting flagged or banned, altho spouting profanity in online play alredy does that
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