After the massive leak that shook the Pokémon world last year, Nintendo has finally taken legal action to find the person responsible. The company has applied to a California court to identify the person known as “Teraleak” who caused hundreds of confidential documents and images to be spread on the internet. Nintendo is requesting the court to obtain the identity, address and contact information of the person who shares on Discord under the username “GameFreakOUT”. While the effects of this massive leak are still ongoing, this decisive step taken by Nintendo indicates that the legal dimension of the incident will grow even bigger.
Nintendo Pushes the Boundaries: In Search of Secret Information
Nintendo’s official filing document, submitted to the US District Court for the Northern District of California on April 18, clearly demonstrates the company’s seriousness on the issue. According to the statements in the document, a Discord user named “GameFreakOUT” shared non-public and strictly confidential materials belonging to Nintendo and Game Freak on a private server known as “FreakLeak” without permission. The leaked sensitive content includes source code fragments for the highly anticipated Pokémon Legends: ZA game, files from the production phase of old and unreleased Pokémon games, early conceptual drawings, and detailed lore (story and background information) documents about the game’s universe. Despite Nintendo’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) applications, these confidential materials spread rapidly on the internet and escaped the company’s control.
The “Enjoy It” Message and the First Step of the Legal Process
In the official statement submitted to the court by James D. Berkley, one of the company's lawyers, it is clearly stated that the main purpose of this information request is to determine the real identity of the Discord user named "GameFreakOUT". In the screenshot attached to the application, it is also noteworthy that the user in question shares a leaked file and sarcastically says "enjoy". Although this document requested from the court does not directly mean a lawsuit, it is a known fact that Nintendo has taken legal action after similar major leaks in the past. Therefore, this information request is considered as the first step in Nintendo's potential lawsuit against the person responsible for the leak.
Cyber Attack Claim and the Dimension of the Truth
Just two days before the leaks were made public, on October 10, 2024, Pokémon game developer Game Freak made an official statement stating that the company had been subject to a cyberattack. At the time, the statement stated that only some employees' personal information had been leaked as a result of the cyberattack. However, these new details that have now emerged show that the scale of the cyberattack was actually much larger and included the company's secret game development processes. The leaked source code and production files stand out as the most concrete evidence of this situation.
Past Lawsuits and Intolerance to Leaks
Nintendo’s sensitivity to such information leaks is evident in the legal actions it has taken in similar cases in the past. The company has previously taken legal action after the Pokémon Sword & Shield guidebooks were leaked online before they were officially released, and has cooperated with the courts to identify those responsible for the leak. The recent leak of early-stage files and critical information about future games suggests that Nintendo is likely to initiate a similarly determined legal process. These developments once again highlight Nintendo’s zero-tolerance policy against such unauthorized sharing of intellectual property and confidential information.
