After pleading guilty to federal piracy charges back in October, hacker Gary “GaryOPA” Bowser has now reached a settlement with Nintendo, agreeing to pay the gaming giant $10 million USD.
As a member of Team Xecuter, Bowser was responsible for designing and subsequently selling devices that allowed users to play pirated games through a modchip on the Nintendo Switch. He was indicted in September of 2020 on federal charges at a U.S. District Court and could be subject to jail time after pleading guilty despite coming to a settlement with the Japanese video game company in a separate civil lawsuit. On top of the $10 million USD payment, he’ll also be subject to a global injunction, prohibiting him from infringing on Nintendo’s copyrights ever again no matter where he is in the world.
As the settlement states: “This permanent injunction is binding against Defendant worldwide, without regard to the territorial scope of the specific intellectual property rights asserted in the Complaint of the above-captioned case, and may be enforced in any court of competent jurisdiction wherever Defendant or his assets may be found.”
The judge responsible for the case will now need to sign the settlement for it to come into effect.
Elsewhere in the gaming industry, 100 Thieves has raised $60 million USD in its Series C funding.
