Pokemon Company continues to pursue Sword/Shield guidebook leakers, court allows for subpoena

Enryx25 · Dec 14, 2019

Why is everyone talking about Nintendo??

Pokemon Company is the one who is suing.

Ev1l0rd · Dec 14, 2019

Couple of things that need to be cleared up here I guess:

Developers are (typically) not lawyers! Just because TPC is suing here doesn't mean the developers or the executives are spending all their time going after a bunch of leakers. This is probably a lawyer office that is representing them.
This is a case of NDA breach (see previous reporting on this case if you need it). This is not about the leaked game, this is about a leaked copy of the official guidebook.
Terminology stuff: "Irreparable damages" and "wrongful conduct" are a specific type of legalese, they don't care about your opinion of the quality of the game or anything. It's simple: the guidebooks were under an NDA, they are considered a trade secret until they come out. Someone who was under the range of that NDA (the original case clarifies that they also put the publishers and printers of these guidebooks under their NDA) then opted to share pictures of that, therefore breaking his NDA. TPC pursuing charges against them for doing so is entirely expected and has no bearing on the quality of the product, because revealing trade secrets is inherently considered irreparable damages.

All in all, this is just the risk you get for wanting to be popular on the internet by leaking shit while under an NDA. It's not the first time it's happened, NDAs are no joke. You will get sued if there's a realistic indication that you've broken them and you can expect to pound sand in terms of legal defense. Hope these nincompoops get the punishment they deserve.

HarveyHouston · Dec 14, 2019

What have the leakers done? How dare they?!? This is going to make people stop buying Pokemon... oh wait. No it will not!

In some cases, I think leaking actually benefits a company. If people are so eager to find out secrets of a company, then the company shouldn't worry so much about sales. In the Pokemon Company's case, this lawsuit is really not necessary, but whatevs. One thing's for certain: I dislike Pokemon too much to even care about looking at leaks, much less distributing them!

orangy57 · Dec 14, 2019

They're blowing more money trying to sue poor people that'll never be able to pay them back than they spent making the game

Joom · Dec 14, 2019

raxadian said:
They should use IRC for that, been working like charm for that since decades ago.

The only reason to still be using IRC., heh.

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dAVID_ said:
Not really. You can also be tracked using JavaScript.

Just disable WebRTC. Easy. You can also install DNSCrypt to prevent DNS leaks.

ken28 · Dec 14, 2019

Jayro said:
I don't think the leakers should be sued. They should countersue if anything. This whole thing is fucking absurd. Some people get things before the official release. Now if they had STOLEN the guide, I could understand having grounds to sue them. But I don't think that's the case here. Nintendo is just sue-happy.

Well it seems like the worked at a company that printed the guides. Thus they did break the nda they more then likely had to sign when starting there.

AkikoKumagara · Dec 14, 2019

I don't know why people are assuming these leakers are some random kids who got their hands on stuff early, lmao.

Joom · Dec 14, 2019

Sophie-bear said:
I don't know why people are assuming these leakers are some random kids who got their hands on stuff early, lmao.

Because they're kids, too, and don't think adults use the internet because every adult they're in contact with is technologically ignorant. It's arrogance at its finest.

EJW · Dec 14, 2019

the_randomizer said:
Shows how lazy developers can be.

Lazy? I'd say that's one of the smartest things devs can do. How GF does it notwithstanding.

Joom · Dec 14, 2019

EJW said:
Lazy? I'd say that's one of the smartest things devs can do. How GF does it notwithstanding.

Pay him no mind. He never knows what he's talking about and just follows crowd mentality. "Oh, this is bad? Guess I'll think that, too!"

the_randomizer · Dec 14, 2019

Joom said:
Pay him no mind. He never knows what he's talking about and just follows crowd mentality. "Oh, this is bad? Guess I'll think that, too!"

Oh shut your gob.

Jayro · Dec 15, 2019

ken28 said:
Well it seems like the worked at a company that printed the guides. Thus they did break the nda they more then likely had to sign when starting there.

Oh, well then yeah, that's worth their time to sue the person over then.

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Jayro said:
Oh, well then yeah, that's worth their time to sue the person over then.

I thought that someone just bought the guide early and started leaking shitty blurry pics from online.

anhminh · Dec 15, 2019

From what I see in this topic, there is some different kind of misunderstanding:

- Some people think this is for the leaked game: read the fucking title. See the "guidebook" there? Yeah, this have nothing to do with the rom leaker. So rest assure fellow pirate, the leaker is safe. For now anyway.

- Some people think Game Freak stop all their project and send their developer after those guy: Are you idiot? It is Pokemon Company who have nothing to do with the game pursuit there guy and they have lawyer to do it for them. Above all, Nintendo-sama even have his own army of ninja waiting at they headquarter, why would they even have to stop making game to go after someone?

- Some think there guy are Robinhood that rob from big bad Game Freak and distributed it to the poor: First of all, Game Freak really have no concern over the guidebook since they don't make it and don't sell it. Pokemon Company handle all the merchandise. Second of all, those guy are still robbing someone. And finally, nobody deserve to be robbed of their work.

- Some even think there guidebook have something to do with the game quality: There are book, written by completely different group, selling completely separated with the game. Why would it affect the game quality?

- And no, there guidebook leak doesn't affect the game sale: They are talking about the guidebook sale. Who want to buy a guidebook that already leaked online before it come out? And no, it have nothing to do with Game Freak hiding Dexit since they already come clean way before that.

- Some think this is exceptional case and Pokemon Company are being unreasonable: Except they not. Japan have really strict law of fighting pirate expressly against printed book since their manga industry suffer greatly from it. Many leaker had been arrest for distribute raw manga online (very sadden day for manga lover on Internet). It isn't rare for leaker to be arrest for leaking book over there.

graeme122 · Dec 15, 2019

Newwaverap said:
Lol at the “shitty game” comments. Best Pokémon game hands down and that’s the vast majority opinion. The small amount of people who say this game is “crap” are probably also in the flat earth movement, anything to go against the flow and be different and “woke”. If you spent time effort and money to put something together for fans of your work and tried to keep things under wraps to surprise your fans and some asshole leaked all your work NOT in the way you intended to do it you would sue as well. What’s bad about this game? The fact that they upgraded the mechanics to make it way easier to get competitive Pokémon? That they spent the bulk of the time making the battle animations smooth and vibrant? That they gave you minor changes that helped in the adventure like 2 nurseries with ample room to walk, access to your Pokémon boxes from anywhere? Raid battles you can do online or with friends locally? OMG they didn’t include the other 500 Pokémon who the hell manages 1000 creatures in one game? This “hurt” their sales dues to the fact that they did not intend for all this stuff to leak before people got a chance to actually play the game, for pictures to be leaked and for people to start saying what a shit game this was due to a few leaked images and a 400 mon dex is ridiculous. And yet here they are, the people who “hate” this game, on every thread expressing their disdain for it lol, I didn’t watch or click on a single leak before release and played the game for 30 minutes and was absolutely hooked. So to the 37 of you that absolutely hate the game, why aren’t you spending more time playing something else and less time replying to threads on the game you have no interest in?? Lol, this is hilarious, it’s like vegans spending all this time making things that look and feel like meat...out of vegetables lololol. If you don’t like or want to eat meat then eat vegetables and stfu, you don’t see meat eaters grinding meat and making it in the shape of broccoli and carrots. Epstein didn’t kill himself.

I've found Verli... never mind.

XBzombieMan1337 · Dec 15, 2019

They have ALL the right to hunt down the leakers. If your a company wants to create a unique and surprising experience for a new upcoming title, you want any excess information that's NOT official to not be spoken or released. That's exactly what those foolish idiots did, leak out information from a guide book (which was likely obtained wrongly) to the internet just so they could get attention for it. There's many others ways you can get your selfish attention by not ruining an experience that MUCH more intelligent people spent months on end to create for others enjoy. Point is, it's very shameful now-a-days that people have the will to ruin other players experiences with video games cause they simply can keep there foolish mouths (and minds) quiet just to gain attention that only last for so long.

YukidaruPunch · Dec 15, 2019

One of the things about information is that, be it actual information or misinformation, once it's out there it's very hard to stop it. Uncurated information or information that may be perceived the wrong way can actually do irreversible damages. I'm not saying they did here - I'm saying they can do.

I don't play Pokémon but I know it's a billion-dollar franchise and I do believe most of the decisions surrounding it are done by individuals who are well aware of the product they are trying to put out, and this includes any shortcomings it might carry. So many of the decisions people think it's up to the devs might actually have been done by committee, and considered whatever reasons or basis they had to do so.

(For instance: perhaps they knew very well that if they put everything they could in the game, they wouldn't have the game ready for the holiday season. So they decided to have cuts in order to have a game. I'm not saying it's what happened here - I'm saying it might be a reason, and if it was, it's probably something that was decided by people who were way higher up in the company, rather than, say, the devs.)

That being said, those leaks did damage some of the brand's reputation, specially regarding to Game Freak, the somewhat small studio responsible for making the game. The devs actually received death threats. Sending out a death threat over a video game is absurd. No matter how you look at it, no matter how you think they didn't mean it (and they probably didn't) - this is some real shit. This damages morale, damages a brand, and honestly, damages people. This may create a perception which may not leave away and may follow the developers and creators on future projects. This is fucked up. This is the type of shit uncurated information can lead do. It can do harm.

And if anyone thinks this is a joking matter, just remember: this very year we had an arson attack at an animation studio that killed dozens. Whilst absolutely unrelated, I think this goes to show how perception of something may lead to real consequences and how unexpected these consequences could be, even to seemingly irrelevant things. We live in tense times. I do believe they're trying to protect their brand first and foremost, but I do understand why they would try to protect it in the first place.

I don't endorse the seeking of financial compensation as a means of seeking damages but I do understand where they're coming from.

RedBlueGreen · Dec 15, 2019

nero99 said:
before people get all pissy over this. These people deserve this 10000000%. Don't want to risk getting in trouble? don't leak stuff. And for all of you who will have some smart comment to say.. just think if this was your work that you put a lot of time into only to have some idiot leaked your stuff that had a strict release date. I bet you would sue aas well.

I guarantee that the reason they say it damaged the company's reputation is that they can't find a legitimate reason to sue. What's damaging GameFreak and the Pokémon Company's reputation is them being lazy and making underwhelming games. I'll be amazed if the suit actually sticks, given that the damage to their reputation is because of the low quality of Sword and Shield and bad reviews. They might as well try to sue for copyright infringement, but I don't think that would stick either since AFAIK it was only pictures of the Pokémon uploaded and the actual guidebook wasn't made available illegally.

There's nothing wrong with leaking details about something as long as you don't make the product available illegally. GF and TPC are just mad because the game sucked and they don't want to accept responsibility for it.

SkittleDash said:
To be honest, I don't think this is going to go anywhere. A smart leaker would use a VPN with a throwaway account. Then again, there are dumb people

I don't think they'll get anywhere because they don't have a case.

Lumstar · Dec 15, 2019

I doubt this is about merely buying a guidebook that a retailer sold early. They're not suing a store, as far as I can tell.

More likely a reviewer or someone connected to the guidebook who was under oath to keep the book's contents secret.

Ev1l0rd · Dec 15, 2019

Lumstar said:
More likely a reviewer or someone connected to the guidebook who was under oath to keep the book's contents secret.

The lawsuit explicitly identifies the only possible source being their publishers who are under an NDA. No copies were being distributed at the time the guidebook was leaked to reviewers or otherwise, meaning that that is the only potential source (or someone within TPC themselves).

PatrickD85 · Dec 15, 2019

You poke the bear then be prepared to get mauled.
Simple as that.

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