Nintendo described the sentencing of a hacker earlier this year as a “unique opportunity” to send a message to all gamers about video game piracy.

Why it matters: A newly released transcript of the Feb. 10 sentencing of Gary Bowser provides rare insight, directly from Nintendo, about the company’s grievances.

• Bowser, a Canadian national, pled guilty last year to U.S. government cybercrime charges over his role as a top member of Team Xecuter. The group sold tech that circumvented copyright protections and enabled the Nintendo Switch and other systems to play pirated games.
• Authorities estimated the piracy cost Nintendo upward of $65 million over nearly a decade and even compelled the company to spend resources releasing a more secure model of the Switch.

What they’re saying: “This is a very significant moment for us,” Nintendo lawyer Ajay Singh told the court at the time, as he laid out the company’s case against piracy and awaited the sentencing.

• “It’s the purchase of video games that sustains Nintendo and the Nintendo ecosystem, and it is the games that make the people smile,” Singh said. “It’s for that reason that we do all we can to prevent games on Nintendo systems from being stolen.”
• He noted Nintendo’s losses from Team Xecuter’s piracy and sounded a note of sympathy for smaller non-Nintendo game makers whose works are also pirated.
• And he wove in a complaint about cheating, which he said Team Xecuter’s hacks enabled. Cheating could scare off honest players and upset families: “Parents should not be forced to explain to their children why people cheat and why sometimes games are not fair, just because one person wants an unfair advantage.”

Sympathetic audience: At the hearing, U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik noted that TV and movies glorify hackers as “sticking it to the man,” suggesting that “big companies are reaping tremendous profits and it’s good for the little guy to have this.”

• “What do you think?” Lasnik asked Nintendo’s lawyer at one point. “What else can we do to convince people that there’s no glory in this hacking/piracy?”
• “There would be a large benefit to further education of the public,” Singh replied.

The hacker’s side: In brief remarks directly to Lasnik, Bowser said longer prison time wouldn’t scare off hackers. “There’s so much money to be made from piracy that it’s insignificant,” he said.

Bowser was sentenced to 40 months, compared to the 19 sought by Bowser’s lawyer, who said the hacker had already served much of that time while awaiting trial. Bowser’s lawyer said that nearly six months of it was spent alone in a cell for 23 hours a day, due to COVID-19 and other health concerns.

• “I think there is a role to be played here in terms of a message,” said Lasnik, who said in normal times he’d have given the full 60 months requested by federal officials.

Later that day, Nintendo issued a press release thanking the authorities for prosecuting Bowser.

Ubisoft says its carbon footprint per employee dropped by 14% from 2020 to 2021, though it attributes much of that to temporary factors.

Why it matters: Ubisoft is among the game companies pledging a greener approach to its business — and is one of the most transparent about its success and struggles — but it’s not clear how the biggest improvements will be achieved.

What they’re saying: “[T]his reduction was mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lower marketing expenses,” the company’s environmental sustainability director, Nicolas Hunsinger, wrote in a detailed company blog post.

• “As circumstances were extraordinary, we cannot consider these achievements to be permanent, and it is essential that we move forward with our decarbonization initiatives to meet our overall goals.”

The numbers:

• The company said its overall carbon footprint in 2021 was 148 kilotons C02e, down from 158 in 2020 (A big asterisk: A year ago, the company said the 2020 footprint was 142 kilotons but issued the new number after “a methodology update.”)
• The most energy-intensive category remains “purchases,” encompassing 58% of Ubisoft’s carbon footprint, up from 53% the year before. That category covers marketing, subcontracting and advertising.
• Despite a switch to renewable energy sources, data centers also occupied a bigger percentage this year, at 11%, up from 8%. That’s a potential red flag as Ubisoft and its industry peers adopt more server-heavy approaches to game development and playing.
• Smaller categories, including business travel and IT, showed reductions.

What’s next: Ubisoft said it is researching its biggest emissions category, “purchases,” to figure out how to improve it.

• The company hopes to improve energy efficiency in its data centers by extending the lifecycles of its internal hardware and improving efforts to effectively recycle hardware it no longer uses.

🤔 Epic will allow Gala Games’ NFT-supported game Grit to be sold in its online store, Gala announced today. That's a contrast with dominant PC gaming marketplace Steam, which prohibits NFT-based games.

🤖 Fortnite’s latest season ended Saturday with a massive mech battle, and a new “Vibin’” season has begun. Darth Vader and Indiana Jones are the new season’s featured crossover characters.

📉 Gaming hypeman Geoff Keighley is seeking to de-hype people a little regarding Thursday’s Summer Game Fest showcase, saying it will be “primarily focused” on announced games, not big surprises, VGC reports.

🎮 Escape from Tarkov development studio Battlestate Games has announced a spinoff game, Escape from Tarkov Arena.

👩🏻‍⚖️ The Communication Workers of America have filed a new unfair labor practices complaint against Activision with the National Labor Relations Board, saying the game publisher discriminated against quality assurance workers at its Raven Studio when it, among other claims, withheld raises after QA staffers said they wanted to unionize.

• The allegations are “wrong,” an Activision rep told Axios in a statement, saying the law prevented it from offering raises to employees preparing to vote on whether to form a union.

Today’s reader question will be answered by Axios tech editor Peter Allen Clark, who really likes his Steam Deck.

• Once you’re done reading, send me some new questions by replying to this email — that is, assuming you’re reading this over email and not on the World Wide Web.

Q: Thoughts on the Steam Deck supply projection, in the context of the supply issues that Nintendo and Sony are projecting? Any other Steam Deck thoughts, especially in light of the variable screen refresh rate/optimized fan update?

A: Steam Deck’s very slow rollout has probably worked in Valve’s favor.

• It has multiple cash-printing operations chugging along. Without the immediate need for Steam Deck revenue, it’s probably far more in its interest to set achievable shipping goals, continually iterate on the Deck’s software and steadily build excitement for what is a pretty robust device.
• Every update has stabilized performance, and the quieter fan is a blessing. As I dive deeper into what the Steam Deck can do, its future looks all the more exciting.
• I recently put Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming on the Deck, which has really impressed me with how well it streams games, saves on battery life and fills out my game library.
• Continuing supply chain issues will keep the Deck scarce. But Valve’s vigorous software updates mean that when people finally do get their devices, they’ll probably have a better experience than those who received them early.