Pokemon games tend to be an incredibly popular topic of discussion, no matter what, but with the dawn of a new generation, where information and unannounced Pokemon are slowly trickled out over months, or even kept secret until launch, fans were going wild with anticipation. This was especially true for Sword and Shield, which had a very contentious pre-release fervor to them. When images of the strategy guide for Pokemon Sword and Shield appeared on the internet, weeks prior to the games' official release, which was on November 15th, they went viral, as users posted them to every nook and cranny of social media and message board. Nintendo themselves even tried to get many sites to take those pictures down, citing the DMCA, to mild success. But by then, everyone had already saved the images and had distributed them even further across the internet.

To mitigate damage caused by the Defendants' leaks, TPCi submitted hundreds of takedown requests to platforms to remove the leaked images.

The content of the leaked strategy guide, which was slated to release a week after Sword and Shield themselves, on November 22nd, included pictures of Gigantamax Pokemon, the entirety of the Galar region's Pokedex (and all of its cuts, which turned into a dramatic hashtag campaign on Twitter), all of the new Pokemon and their Galarian forms, and more.

The Pokemon Company International believes that this leak of information has caused "irreparable damages", and by sharing stolen trade secrets, they threatened the value of both major Pokemon titles. A lawsuit has been filed with Perkins Coie LLP, where TPCi is looking to seek compensation for "wrongful conduct", and monetary relief for the damages caused by said leaks. The legal document shows posts from anonymous individuals on 4chan and Discord sharing dozens of screenshots from the guidebook, and though TPCi currently does not know who these four John/Jane Does are, they're actively searching to find out who was behind the Discord account providing the screenshots. Currently, TPCi is looking to issue a subpoena to Discord, in order to get more information on the accounts.

TPCi seeks leave to subpoena Discord, 4chan, and the individual who used the [specified] Discord handle, for identifying information associated with the users that posted the leaked images. TPCi will seek identifying information associated with the images, IP address, email address, secondary or recovery email address, records of session times and duration, and any other identifying information.

Source

Tags: [GAME=/game/pok-mon-sword.37382]Pokémon Sword[/GAME] [GAME=/game/pok-mon-shield.115653]Pokémon Shield[/GAME] [COMPANY=/company/the-pokemon-company-international]The Pokémon Company International[/COMPANY]

 

[Deleted User]

Although I enjoyed sword and shield, this is a pretty big dick move on TPC's part. Don't really think I want to support that in the future.

 

[Deleted User]

GameFreak (or whoever the fuck owns it, whatever) needs to sell the IP to someone else. They're done with Pokemon it seems.

it's owned by 3 companies and I think they should outsource it.

 

[whateverg1012]

The leaks ruined the launch for me. I was trying hard to avoid them but people kept posting them everywhere.
I hope people will learn from this not to ruin game launches.

Leaks will always be a thing for major releases so you have to take the appropriate precautions unfortunately.

I completely avoided spoilers, really not that hard to avoid them, don't go on any gaming related websites before launch. If you go on reddit, ign, etc. you're just asking to be spoiled, and that's on you.

 

[Jayro]

Maybe this will be a lesson to them my losing a few million sales before they pull some bullshit like this again. The fact that they're going after the leakers is just a sad and pathetic retaliation tactic because they're angry, when they should only be angry at themselves for putting out a product they know is going to be sub-par. The Dex being cut doesn't bother me because I'm not a competitive player, but I still feel the sting from it. They did us dirty, and someone exposed it before the release. Nothing wrong with that.

GameFreak and The Pokemon Company could totally patch in the rest of the Dex, by the way... All it would take is an update to be pushed out, since the damage is already done.

 

[gameboy]

i assume sales arent doing too good...

 

[Lodad]

This isn't protecting their IP. It's them striking against their own fans, believing the fans ruined their image more than they did.

How do we know this?

"Irreparable damages".....

Exactly! They knew they were creating a product that was inferior to their previous releases and wouldn't live up to them. They were hoping to move as many units as they could as quietly as possible before the backlash so they could say "F you, got mine," and split the scene. They're blaming these leaks for people being fairly warned ahead of time.

They were hoping to make more of a killing than ever before by pushing as many as, or more copies, than previous generations at a 50% price hike at the console game price and this leak ruined that for them. They got their highest-grossing release to date according to a previous article posted here, but I'm sure they're upset it didn't eclipse unit sales records and this lawsuit says to me they're not happy making the most money they've ever got out of a new release despite half-assing it.

GameFreak and The Pokemon Company could totally patch in the rest of the Dex, by the way... All it would take is an update to be pushed out, since the damage is already done.

EDIT: Of course they could, but I'm calling it ahead of time that they're going to release them, along with other half-ass, incomplete past-game regions as paid DLC within 6 to 9 months.

 

[Hern4ndeZzz]

The game probably didn't meet their projections

The game is selling at an alarming rate. I find that a little hard to believe.

 

[osaka35]

I mean, didn't they do the same thing when ruby and sapphire came out? Cut half the pokemon, no way to transfer from the old games? I'm guessing these games will be remembered fondly, especially when they release remixed version with the full pokedex and loads more after-game content in a few years.

As far as the leaks are concerned, they've probably had more than one leak when it comes to these things. This was probably the final straw. I quite appreciate the surprise, though I know some enjoy the leaks.

 

[wurstpistole]

Probably one reason why hbg discord is down and nothing new on the shop since 22nd

 

[Olmectron]

I mean, didn't they do the same thing when ruby and sapphire came out? Cut half the pokemon, no way to transfer from the old games? I'm guessing these games will be remembered fondly, especially when they release remixed version with the full pokedex and loads more after-game content in a few years.

As far as the leaks are concerned, they've probably had more than one leak when it comes to these things. This was probably the final straw. I quite appreciate the surprise, though I know some enjoy the leaks.

You were actually able to complete the Pokédex in those games after they released LeafGreen and FireRed. And this was because all the 386 Pokémon (by then) were already programmed into Ruby and Sapphire.

Here, they removed them from the game. No info, no data, no models nor textures. No way to transfer Pokémon even from future games which could be remakes from older entries.

 

[IcedOutBart]

I could have sworn this was the fastest selling pokemon game this year or im a tripping???Glad i didnt but this garbage in the first place

 

[chrisrlink]

whats next group all who pirate the game and sue them too?

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[Pandaxclone2]

I mean, didn't they do the same thing when ruby and sapphire came out? Cut half the pokemon, no way to transfer from the old games?

It might have been the same from a layman's perspective, but at least all National Dex Pokemon were coded in the games to get later on with the other Gen III titles. Sword and Shield does not do this. (unless you count their Pikachu placeholder 0-base stat entries.)

 

[VartioArtel]

I mean, didn't they do the same thing when ruby and sapphire came out? Cut half the pokemon, no way to transfer from the old games? I'm guessing these games will be remembered fondly, especially when they release remixed version with the full pokedex and loads more after-game content in a few years.

As far as the leaks are concerned, they've probably had more than one leak when it comes to these things. This was probably the final straw. I quite appreciate the surprise, though I know some enjoy the leaks.

As I remember, the issue in Gen 3 was simply a difficulty bringing Pokemon forwards. They did eventually let you, but all the same, it wasn't as big a loss (TO MY MEMORY).

Gen 5 had/was the real problem because of the attempted 'hard reboot' that fell so flat they necessitated B2W2.

 

[ChaosEternal]

You were actually able to complete the Pokédex in those games after they released LeafGreen and FireRed. And this was because all the 386 Pokémon (by then) were already programmed into Ruby and Sapphire.

Here, they removed them from the game. No info, no data, no models nor textures. No way to transfer Pokémon even from future games which could be remakes from older entries.

You still pretty much needed access to 5 separate games to complete the Pokedex. FireRed, LeafGreen, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald. Add in Colloseum and XD if you want Lugia and Ho-Oh as well. Not exactly consumer friendly.

As for the lawsuit, I can't complain all that much. I was furious at the people who leaked KH3 six weeks in advance. This is way less egregious, but it still fucks over the people who are trying to avoid spoilers.

 

[Olmectron]

You still pretty much needed access to 7 separate games to complete the Pokedex. FireRed, LeafGreen, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, Colosseum, XD. Not exactly consumer friendly.

It was still possible to catch them all.

Now, if I want to do this in Sword and Shield, how long should I wait? Until Masuda actually has a change of mind and starts releasing updates with the removed Pokémon? Or whenever they decide to release Pokémon Knife, Pokémon Rod and Pokémon Lance? And this last way of them releasing more games, would still need them to update Sword and Shield, since there's not data of those Pokémon in the game.

I would be alright with them saying they would release Season Passes with the missing Pokémon, and update in a 6 month or so basis. But they didn't do anything like that. They basically stated "The switch entry was a good place to start cutting out Pokémon, since this was already getting out of hand for us, and the complete Pokémon dex won't be in any other Pokémon. Every game will balance out and remove Pokémon depending on gameplay, plot or whatever we decide."

 

[RivenMain]

i assume sales arent doing too good...

Sales have been pretty great actually. The lawsuit focuses groups releasing the image before the game was out. It has nothing to do with bad sales or the releases of the rom after its launch.
I approve of it. Nobody who buys things they want should have to watch someone play a game before its even released gloating that they didn't pay for it and your a pleb for spending money.
I can condone the idea of piracy when it matters on something no longer obtainable by normal means to gather, but on something not even released to position yourself as better than others be it pkhexing shiny's to say your better than those who dedicate time because you don't like to be rewarded with time spent. Its an important statement for Nintendo to commit too.

They've done this before my thoughts go to smash youtubers having their channels deleted after leaking music files. People will do whatever they can for content.

 

[Kurt91]

I mean, didn't they do the same thing when ruby and sapphire came out? Cut half the pokemon, no way to transfer from the old games? I'm guessing these games will be remembered fondly, especially when they release remixed version with the full pokedex and loads more after-game content in a few years.

No, it's not the same at all. When Ruby and Sapphire came out, it was impossible to port your collection from the older games because of hardware differences. They could not figure out how to link a Game Boy game to a Game Boy Advance game like that. However, they did have all of the Pokemon coded into the game, and immediately released Pokemon LeafGreen/FireRed, Pokemon Colosseum, and Pokemon XD all to cover their bases. Every single one of those games could have their Pokemon traded/ported directly to Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald. So, while they couldn't transfer teams from the older games, they did the best they could to work around it and make sure that everyone was still available in some way. (Plus, casual playing of all of the different games would add up to damn near the entire roster anyways, so you could play to enjoy the games instead of mindless grinding and hunting to scrape them all together.)

In Sword/Shield, not only are not all of the Pokemon not available, they are not coded into the game at all. People have tried modding the game to force their Pokemon in, to see what would happen, and they got a generic placeholder designed to prevent crashing.

Keep in mind, this is after getting everybody to pay for Pokemon Home, for a one-way transfer that can't send the Pokemon back to the 3DS, and a vast majority of their collection now being imprisoned in Home with no way to use them at all. Meaning not only can you not bring them into Sword/Shield at all, you can't take them back out to continue playing on the older games, and since Pokemon Home is subscription-based, your Pokemon are essentially held hostage and will all be deleted if you ever decide to stop paying for Home.

 

[ChaosEternal]

It was still possible to catch them all.

Now, if I want to do this in Sword and Shield, how long should I wait? Until Masuda actually has a change of mind and starts releasing updates with the removed Pokémon? Or whenever they decide to release Pokémon Knife, Pokémon Rod and Pokémon Lance?

At least two years, considering that was how long it took them to release Emerald.

 

[Olmectron]

At least two years, considering that was how long it took them to release Emerald.

So, did Masuda lie and they will update the games with the missing Pokémon data? That would be great. Let's hope all the (actually tiny) backlash they received actually does something.