Nintendo has issued a subpoena request in order to discern the identity of the so-called Pokemon “Teraleak” user’s identity, potentially with a view to pursuing a legal case against said user.
As reported by Polygon, Nintendo wants a California court to “force Discord to give up the identity” of the leaker, who posted an absolute treasure trove of data pertaining to Pokemon online last year as part of what became known as the “Teraleak”.
Information contained within the leak included the existence of a new online co-op Pokemon battling game, as well as early and scrapped designs for a number of creatures and the fact that the next mainline Pokemon game will be developed for the upcoming Switch 2 (which isn’t much of a surprise, really).
In documents obtained by Polygon, it’s revealed that Nintendo wants the leaker’s name, as well as their address, phone number, and email address.
Nintendo says the leaks originated from a user called GameFreakOUT, and that they were originally posted to a specific Discord server. From there, Nintendo tried to put out the leak fire with DMCA requests, but these efforts were unsuccessful.
As Polygon points out, this doesn’t necessarily mean Nintendo is intending to sue GameFreakOUT (or whatever their real name is), but it’s unlikely the company will simply rest on its laurels if and when it obtains the information it wants.
If there’s one thing we know about Nintendo, it’s that the company’s legal department isn’t exactly inactive when it comes to pursuing its goals, so I’d be a little nervous if I were GameFreakOUT right now.
We’ll have to wait and see what happens with regards to Nintendo’s subpoena for the identity of GameFreakOUT, but I’m not sure things are looking great for the leaker.
In other Pokemon news, the series is getting its first Lego sets next year, and on top of that, a book based on Pokemon ecology and behavioral science has just been announced (although it’s for Japan only right now, sadly).
