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

 

[WG481]

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

Pick one Nintendo.

They'll go with what makes people feel sorry for them.

 

[Hells Malice]

Dumb fucks like this deserve to be punished. How stupid do you have to be to do this and not cover your ass? It's the internet it's really not that difficult.

 

[Little_Anonymous_Hacker]

"Irreparable injury" makes it sound like TPCI is going out of business...

 

[machomuu]

...people still use strategy guides?

 

[codezer0]

...people still use strategy guides?

They are often more fully featured than most any given online guide on a site like game FAQs could be.

Granted, for pokemon, I'm peeved about how guide authors arbitrarily split them up. One being a guide for the main (and maybe post) game and the other is just a database of the pokemon possible to be in it, with moves/locations/et cetera.

 

[machomuu]

They are often more fully featured than most any given online guide on a site like game FAQs could be.

Granted, for pokemon, I'm peeved about how guide authors arbitrarily split them up. One being a guide for the main (and maybe post) game and the other is just a database of the pokemon possible to be in it, with moves/locations/et cetera.

I definitely felt that way in the past but I dunno...I feel like the dripfeed of information in 2021 is so prevalent, alongside the absolute teardown of the games thanks to hacking and whatnot, that players could probably do a better job than the strat guide writers on average, especially with a popular game like Pokemon, y'know?

Though I guess in the case of guides it is centralized and that helps a lot. You can just kinda find everything you'd probably wanna know all in one place.

 

[Jackson Ferrell]

You guys do realise it's the Pokemon Company International that's suing them, not Nintendo, right?

 

[chrisrlink]

Dumb fucks like this deserve to be punished. How stupid do you have to be to do this and not cover your ass? It's the internet it's really not that difficult.

where the hell is the dislike button Costelo should add one....oh sorry misread your post yeah even (most) rom leakers do better at covering their asses

 

[Dezmond]

Irreparable injury to the Pokémon Company. They should sue Gamefreak then. Games could be so much more being developed by more experienced console game developers in my opinion.

 

[Deleted User]

While I think that $150,000 is excessive and it was actually GameFreak which damaged The Pokemon Company by releasing a low quality product; the leakers should still know the consequences are severe to the point that it is not worth the risk.

 

[Perspact]

Well, Nintendo gonna Nintendo I guess.

Or as they used to say back in the old days:
"SEGA does what Nintendon't!"

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I dunno how I feel about this. It's a strategy guide, jeez. What sort of injury could a strategy guide possibly cause?
Not that I disagree with the ruling. I am sure they were under an NDA and knew full well they were breaking it. They're not innocent.
It's more the wording that seems asinine to me.

 

[gamer765]

It's funny how Nintendo is getting the blame in this thread when it's actually TPCI that filed the lawsuit. Nintendo has nothing to do with this. While TPCI is owned by Nintendo, TPCI is acting independently on it's own behalf in this case.

 

[JFizDaWiz]

[redacted]

 

[regnad]

So what’s the logic here? They lost $150k they would have made from preorders from people who saw the guide and said “Who wants this pile of dog crap? I’m cancelling my order!”

 

[Esdeath]

Sword and Shield were "Irreparable damage"to the mainline Pokemon games, even sun and moon were better.

 

[Deleted member 514389]

I don't get what leaks achieve anyhow...
Are peoples lifes so mundane that they need 2000 'Switch Prö' rumors to fill the void that is their soul ?
WTFlip.

IMO leaks might only make sense if it concerns lost files that were never gonna release to public otherwise eitherhow
(Like these GBA Pocketeers, Raylight and Graphic-State demos...)

Sword and Shield were "Irreparable damage"to the mainline Pokemon games, even sun and moon were better.

It depends... If they *somehow* fix things and bring the -mons back in ACL...

Otherwise count me out, this is GF's last chance.

 

[Purple_Shyguy]

It's not even Nintendo. It's the Pokémon company.

 

[codezer0]

It's not even Nintendo. It's the Pokémon company.

They're literally one and the same? If they somehow weren't, why would TPC even consider continuing to be exclusive to them? And why would anyone at Nintendo want them to exist any where else?

 

[Subtle Demise]

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...

Tor->VPN->Proxy

Also, what harm are they claiming leaking portions of a strategy guide can cause? This is dystopian as fuck