After being accused of causing "irreparable injury" to The Pokemon Company, by leaking pictures of a Pokemon Sword and Shield strategy guide prior to release, two defendants have been ordered to pay for damages and legal fee costs to TPCI, following a recently settled lawsuit. Bryan Cruz and David Maisonave, the two defendants, were responsible for taking pictures of a Pokemon guidebook, which featured images of at-the-time unrevealed Pokemon featured in the upcoming Pokemon Sword and Shield games. One of them had worked at a company responsible for creating the strategy guide, and The Pokemon Company International team's lawyers accused the employee of stealing trade secrets and distributing them over Discord.

The incident occurred in late 2019, with the lawsuit initially filed in November of that same year. Now, the case has been settled, and according to the presiding judge, the verdict can not be appealed; both Maisonave and Cruz will have to pay $150,000 to The Pokemon Company International.

Source

 

[Deleted member 532471]

people should reply with a picture of this article ( and similar ones ) every time someone goes "BUT GAME FREAK IS POOR, THEY'RE INDIES!!!11!!1! ;A;
MAKING GEAMS IS EXPENSIVE, THEY'RE DOINGT HE BEST THEY CAN!!!"
while pokemon in 25 years made much more money than mickey made in almost 100

the ppl leaking the sword and shield stuff before release were fucking heroes because gamefreak was going out of their way to get ppl to buy these games blindly, showing the bare minimum of information while on previous games they'd overshare and ruin the expeirence ( afterwards too. there were like a billion trailers for pokemon snap... and some people still didn't understand it was a photography game. ppl these days amaze me. )

 

[seany1990]

On the subject of irreparable damage...
Who did they sue for Dexit?

 

[raxadian]

They are getting very lawyer happy with Pokemon in recent years, haven't they?

 

[subcon959]

Always leak anonymously. The temporary e-fame was probably not worth $150k.

 

[driverdis]

The two being sued will just file bankruptcy or not pay. This kind of lawsuit is stupid but the reason they filed it has more to do with one of them working at the company making them and breaking street date and showing off what was cut.

Also the damages are from all the people who passed on the game due to the cut Pokémon since their plan to have people stuck already having purchased game fell through. That is all theoretical income as it has been proven time and time again on the piracy front that piracy does not equal a lost sale. Leaked images does not guarantee a lost sale since other factors were in play as well.

 

[Something whatever]

Didnt these soulless games sell like crazy? WHY do they care?

 

[MikaDubbz]

If ya leak new media before its official release, you're just asking for trouble.

And while I agree that the move didn't hurt Nintendo's bottom line in any meaningful way, I still totally get why they'd want to make an example of any kind of leaker, anyone that intends to leak any Nintendo content in the future may think twice knowing they could easily be facing $150k in charges, that's what Nintendo really wanted to accomplish with this lawsuit.

 

[iialaq01]

Damn Nintendo! It became like Saddam Hussein. Anyone go near its name will lose everything!

 

[WG481]

I would like to remind you all that this is how light Nintendo is with their security. If leaks can happen this fast, they need to up some stuff on their end.

Although, I wouldn't mind if they didn't... Some leaks are a good thing.

 

[Spider_Man]

The way I see it is they think that those reveals would be sort of like spoilers and ruin the experience for the players who would otherwise have clean first hand impressions. They might think that such reveals would change players impressions of the game, cause some to not buy the game due to disappointing new Pokemon, that kind of stuff.

pokemon got shit after the originals on the gbc, now theres no design to them at all, its as if a computer random generator does them and they just slap a name to it.

spoilers usually drive interest, but hey ho this is nintendo after all, no damage caused as the game was still a massive pile of shit.

nintendo just love to find any excuse to sue people, maybe gamers should sue them for constantly promising better support and all we end up with is old shit we already own.

 

[chrisrlink]

they technicly can't sue me as disability funds from the US government can't be collected via a lawsuit (I looked it up) and since that's my ONLY NICOME good luck squeezing green from me fu**kers

 

[BraveDragonWolf]

Sick of hearing about Pokemon this, Pokemon that...
Not into it...I kinda used to be years ago but now Ehhh...

 

[Kilim]

thanks nintendo for making me feel even better for pirating your shit games

 

[Ishzark]

irreparable damage? who damaged them, the 3 people reading the guide beforehand?

what they gonna do next, suing the guy who leaks data in Pokemon GO?

 

[MarkDarkness]

I've solved this problem by having stopped buying Nintendo products 2 years ago. More people should follow.

 

[Lycan911]

I doubt Pokemon company would ever won this very case where I live. Maybe this heavy judge hand is lobby on US territory.

I'm not lawyer but, maybe you should use proxy guys...

I remember one of them had accidentally left their Discord username visible in one of the photos on 4chan, I guess that's how they tracked them down

 

[chrisrlink]

I remember one of them had accidentally left their Discord username visible in one of the photos on 4chan, I guess that's how they tracked them down

could be worse they (TPC) could go after people wit Pokemon display pics or even forum names if they really want to be dicks about it

 

[WG481]

pokemon got shit after the originals on the gbc, now theres no design to them at all, its as if a computer random generator does them and they just slap a name to it.

spoilers usually drive interest, but hey ho this is nintendo after all, no damage caused as the game was still a massive pile of shit.

nintendo just love to find any excuse to sue people, maybe gamers should sue them for constantly promising better support and all we end up with is old shit we already own.

It got bad after Unova. X and Y was the beginning of the downfall. Have you played Diamond and Pearl? The games Pre-Kalos are all insanely good.

 

[codezer0]

It got bad after Unova. X and Y was the beginning of the downfall. Have you played Diamond and Pearl? The games Pre-Kalos are all insanely good.

Weird you say that. The DS generations of games utterly broke me. I was ready to swear off the series after those games, ESPECIALLY after B/W2.

X&Y was the first generation since gen 1 where I could feasibly complete the main game with my favorites.
Gen 7 (sun/moon and the Ultra sequels) were wonderful upgrades; I appreciated that the gym challenges were finally something more than just bash your team against theirs to win. But apparently because Japanese players can't handle that, we'll never again see that level of innovation in a core game.

And Gen 8? Well, the less said about that, the better, IMO. Dexit and literally ransoming the dex behind paid DLC episodes that cost as much as an entire core game did before, is a sin.

Game Freak (to my knowledge) still hasn't fixed the absolute mess, that the GTS has been since launch.

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could be worse they (TPC) could go after people wit Pokemon display pics or even forum names if they really want to be dicks about it

> Implying that Nintendo Legal hasn't already considered doing that

 

[Xzi]

> Highest grossing IP/franchise of all time
> "Irreparably damaged"

Pick one Nintendo.