It was through leaks that we first found out that almost 500 Pokemon won’t be in Sword and Shield. While its understandable that The Pokemon Company is not happy about it, the company isn’t leaving it at that. It looks like the company is filing lawsuits against the leakers.
Specifically, its US subsidiary Pokemon Company International is going after as of yet unidentified individuals for the leaks. The company is going after those who have leaked other details that originated from the games’ strategy guide. The suit also claims that the developer found 300 web pages on “dozens of platforms that linked to websites containing the leaked Strategy Guide pictures”.
Pokemon Company International has identified the leakers as four Discord users. This was done with the help of outside forensic experts, named as “John/Jane Does” for now. The company intends to serve subpoenas on Discord and 4chan to identify the users. One of them is believed to be the one who supplied the leaked images. The others are responsible for posting or helping to post them online.
It’s interesting that The Pokemon Company is going as far as to sue leakers, claiming “irreparable injury”, for two reasons. For one, the 8th generation game is not only the highest earning Pokemon title, but also among the fastest selling games on the Nintendo Switch. The leaks also happen to be accurate, so it’s not like the leakers are spreading lies to damage the potential sales of the games either.
(Source: Forbes [1], [2], Business Wire)
