Update - Sat 14th Dec, 2019 03:30 GMT: The Pokémon Company has been given the green light to take further action against the leakers. The following update is via the PokéJungle Twitter account:
The @Pokemon Company has been granted the ability to subpoena Discord and 4chan to unmask the identities of the leakers
You can view the full document on Court Listener.
Original Story - Tue 26th Nov, 2019 05:30 GMT: Following in the footsteps of Epic Games, The Pokémon Company International has filed a lawsuit in Seattle to take action against unidentified individuals who were responsible for the Pokémon Sword and Shield game leaks earlier this month.
The legal team at Perkins Coie, which has previously worked with tech companies such as Google, said the leaks caused "irreparable injury" to brand and undermined the carefully cultivated excitement and interest in the new games. It's now seeking compensatory damages, monetary relief, punitive and exemplary damages, and injunctive relief.
The leaks were allegedly taken from the Sword and Shield strategy guide. These pictures were then shared on a website and a social platform, resulting in "300 URLs on dozen of [other] platforms" linking to the Strategy Guide pictures ahead of release.
While The Pokémon Company hasn't named any individuals yet, it has used outside forensic experts to track down four Discord users it believes are responsible. One is said to have supplied the images to the others, who then shared the photos online. Once these individuals been named, the court should be able to lay down the law. You can read the full lawsuit here.
[source forbes.com, via polygon.com]
Comments 87
I wonder how online piracy circles will have to adjust following any release of public information from Discord. Lots of such groups use that service, so a vulnerability there might spook a lot of them.
"Irreparable injury," ha! Ha! It wouldn't have been "injury" in the first place if they'd just made a satisfactory game. May the judge "cut" about half or more of your awarded amount.
Good. Never liked leakers, I prefer honest speculation based on previously officially released information. That said, "irreparable injury" was a great choice of words.
"said the leaks caused "irreparable injury" to brand and undermined the carefully cultivated excitement and interest in the new games"
What a BS statement.
Selling a Pokemon game for $60 and not sharing any details so people have no clue what "irreparable injury" Gamefreak caused to the game. If anything the leaks caused potential buyers to be informed of the product they were about to buy.
I honestly hope this won't hold up in court, TPC themselves are responsible for the trainwreck of a marketing campaign for Sword and Shield.
They're suing everyone who looked at the leaked info, which is almost the whole world. When they come knocking on my door I will say, I closed my eyes because I wanted it to be a surprise. They will believe me and I will go back to posting comments on this website.
On a serious note, I believe all leakers should go to jail and be fined a lot. There are leakers who sell this stuff for money and they didn't create it. They're in the same category as cheaters, in my book.
Remember all here. TOS, NDA those have strict meaning and there no bones about those two meaning. And receiving something your not entitled to get or disseminate is also a Violation.
@Xylnox No, they are suing four people who initially leaked the info, at least they will once they figure out their names.
@Xylnox not exactly sure if a bunch of discord clowns exactly are doing this for money, if anything go after whoever broke street date
Imagine losing your life savings and being locked in a cage for a while because of Pokémon.
@noutBr you weren’t around for Sun and Moon I guess, where almost all pokemon were revealed prior release and there were no surprises.
Some of us want to discover games for ourselves
@Galenmereth
Yust wondering what was the last game jou liked on the switch?
Most of the time your negative about the games
@Galenmereth "they can only pull this stunt once after all" You want to put money on that?
So the games have their own issues, GameFreak didn't share the right info about the games before their release (probably because of the issues) but the games still sell like hotcakes, because 6mln sales in under a week is nuts.
What "injury"?
"They're scared that people will notice the lack of quality in the game being leaked."
Does anyone here seriously believe the quality or lack thereof factors into this? Nintendo and its affiliates have always, always taken a hard line toward people who broke street date. Games like Super Smash Bros. 4 and Ultimate, Super Mario Odyssey, Fire Emblem Awakening/Fates/Three Houses, and even Kirby Star Allies are littered with the corpses of YouTube accounts from people who got the games early and showed themselves playing them.
@Rayquaza2510
This is proxy revenge plain and simple, they can’t really sue the people behind hashtags, YouTubers comparing models and animations or dataminers so they have to settle on this.
There always seems to be a lot of corporate sycophants who defend this kind of thing but it seems like most of us can agree that the developer did most of the damage this time.
@KingBowser86 They did make a satisfactory game though. Sword/Shield are great
First of all, you really, really shouldn't pre-order games.
Doing so means you have nothing but the publisher's marketing team to go by on if a game is good, and it's a salesmen job to sell you a product no matter what, regardless of how honest they are being.
Second, this lawsuit is essentially advocating the right of companies to dishonestly advertise and sell their products.
I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy Sword/Shield if you like it, but there was a very much intentional lack of information shared about Sword/Shield because Pokemon Company knew it might lose them some sales.
Did it tank sales? Of course not, it's Pokemon, it's pulling in money by the truckload like usual.
But things like how many Pokemon were cut, the reused models and animations, the popping, the performance issues, poor online, and the general lack of polish the game has is something customers have a right to know, and trying to use lawsuits to silence people who want to tell people about these problems is scummy as heck.
I think Nintendo is kind of blowing this out of proportion. They're essentially suing these people because the leaks supposedly "undermined the carefully cultivated excitement and interest in the new games." Nevermind the controversy around there being no international dex and thus leading to less interest from the hardcore community.
As many said, despite how much right there could be in suing the leakers, it sounds kinda funny.
I bought Shield, I played, beated and really enjoyed it, but if there is one thing that made me worry and almost not buy the game wasn't the leaks, it was the terrible "uncarefully badly cultivated and almost destroyed excitement and interest" they caused with their own planned PR.
I don't know what was wrong with Masuda, Ohmori and the Pokémon Company with those interview, but if they want to sue the cause of the damage in the excitement and interest around the games, then I'm sorry if this sound harsh, but they should probably consider to sue themselves then...
@Galenmereth Technically if the product was misrepresented enough you could try, though it would most likely fail and you'd just get your money back.
@Silly_G Guy 1: "What you in fo?"
Guy 2: "Oh, you know, whistleblowing. I'm the hero here. You?"
Guy 1: "Murder. What did you whisteblow about?"
Guy 2: "Well, errr, classified information on... The mistreatment of your favourite childhood memories... It was Pokèmon, ok, it was Pokèmon..."
The Pokémon Company fall further and further in my estimation with each passing day. S'just a greedy, heartless machine pumping out generation of nonsense after generation of nonsense in an effort to suck up parents' money and strings the older folks who love it along for the ride. Pokémon's starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Good. Illegal activities should be judged according to it. Hopefully they can set an example of what you shouldn't do.
I'm surprised though that people sanctify them as freedom fighters and ignore how they broke the law. "The purpose justifies the means" my butt! That's just ignorance, and a dangerous tendency in other aspects
You people still using every pokemon story to have a moan, BORING!!
@DarkKirby
Preorders are more akin to layaway. You can put money towards the product to purchase but are free to change your mind and have your money returned. Preloading on the other hand is what you are saying. You can't change your mind and ask for a refund.
It's Gamefreaks own fault really. Had it been one of their employees who took insider info and sent it in the web that would be one thing. Having copies of the game and strategy guides out where some dishonest person can procure is another. Gamestop usually has games in store for at least a week or two prior to release date. When I was working at another retail chain they would regularly break street dates and have games out. I would bring this to the managements attention and they immediately pulled the games marked to sell from the shelves.
Now we know where the budget to this game went towards!
@Blizzia Not enough, it would seem!
I think what made most "irreparable injury" to these games was the lack of technical innovation, the extreme cut in pokémon amount and rolling back features that were already functional in the franchise.
@Galenmereth Relax man, thing’s are not always going to be to your taste.
You need to realise many people, myself included are having a blast with Pokemon sword and shield. Rather than getting your panties in a twist over a child’s game. Get over it and move on ffs,
haha to some people
@YozenFroghurt I don’t know who the leakers are or how they got access to the data to be able to leak it, but if they signed an NDA and then broke it, it seems pretty cut and dry. If you don’t enforce broken agreements, they won’t hold much weight going forward. This isn’t really comparable to something like speeding unless you are looking at people speeding in company vehicles. Then it directly affects the company, and per contract, they will usually have the right to protect their interests.
This comment section is quite ironic. People are demonstrating the very concept they are mocking: "irreparable damage." The games are irrefutably excellent. The Internet's complaints of the new Pokemon games have without a doubt warped everyone's perception of the games in a negative way, almost certainly having some effect (whether detrimental or negligible) on sales. The people who complain are Pokemon fans and will buy the games either way. But when enough people complain about it on every social media, it really starts to spread and pushes non-Pokemon fans and parents from purchasing these games, thinking they aren't any good.
And when it comes to this comment section, the "irreparable damage" is the view that people here have that "The Pokemon Company is lazy" for at least the new few years.
@Obito_Sigma not sure what parent really cares that much about their 7 year old or whatever playing a game with pop-in; the general assumption is they'll see it's getting good reviews and be done with it
and most non-poke fans ive seen have bought it out of spite for all the complaining
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
Criminals?
Gotta catch 'em all.
"Looks like leak crock is landing sots in debt...!" twinkle
It's telling that they are citing irreparable damages while simultaneously lauding Sword and Shield as being the most successful entries in the series, breaking sales records in Japan, the United States, and Europe. You would think that the strategy guide leak was not even marginally as damaging as they're claiming, as it was limited in scope and only showed blurry photographs of the artwork for some Dynamax forms and some Gym Leaders. It's doubtful that potential buyers of the guide and/or accompanying software decided not to purchase it based on seeing 20% or less of just some of the artwork it contains; usually if I were to purchase a strategy guide, I would be purchasing it for the strategies and hints it contains, not for the artwork specifically, which is aesthetic at most. Although I probably wouldn't purchase this particular strategy guide despite being a big Pokemon fan and a Nintendo collector who normally might make such a purchase, as the storyline tends to follow roughly the same outline with every game and the series tends to become aggressively easier with each new entry, making the purchase of a strategy guide unnecessary.
For a company with a customer base they state is comprised primarily of children according to their company branding, marketing tactic, and company literature, I somehow doubt a major number of potential customers were affected by a low quality leak of a percentage of the content within an accessory product on sites like 4chan and services like Discord. I didn't realise children 10 and younger had a habit of regularly browsing 4chan. I also didn't realise children 10 and younger were the primary purchasing decision makers of their households. I assumed their parents, many of whom skew millennial and up, would be the ones to make purchasing decisions. Perhaps The Pokemon Company is marketing their products to the wrong age group?
I would argue that the itemized leak of the entirety of the 400 Pokemon Galar region Pokedex complete with screenshots, names, typings, some movesets, and story spoilers a week and a half before release date was more immediately impactful than any potential "damage" the strategy guide leak did. It's also telling that the Pokemon Company believes they may have lost customers who saw the contents of their game in advance of purchasing it. Bit of a Nancy Pelosi-ism, a la "You have to pass the bill to see what's in it." Somehow I can't help but imagine that even more people would have purchased Zelda's Breath Of The Wild had they seen more of the game prior to its release date. Perhaps The Pokemon Company has a quality issue rather than a leak issue.
I'm thinking/hoping that this doesn't hold up and doesn't actually go anywhere. Unless the discord users were employees under an NDA... even then it seems to me like TPC is attacking this from a copyright infringement angle and trying to say that caused damage to the company.
Leaks wouldn't have caused "irreparable injury" if there wasn't so much negative news to leak.
I understand how people wanted to be surprised by the new pokemon after being shown everything in sun/moon but when you give us a 24 hour live stream just to reveal a different looking ponyta...well...leaks will happen.
The Pokémon Co. doesn’t play around with leakers.
@KingBowser86 Except the sales and reviews tell you otherwise.
Regardless of your personal feelings, they made satisfactory games, and there's nothing you can do about it.
The court case will be a Pokemon battle with attourneychu!
@Blizzia Except see a ton of people showoff issues on YouTube and watch staff get hammered by morale issues?
@KingBowser86 None of that matters when the sales are top notch and reviews are favourable.
See, for companies, those things are a faint buzzing in the background.
When they print money, they think they're doing well.
Which they usually are.
They're printing money with Sword/Shield.
Games are great.
They made satisfactory games.
It's pretty simple, really.
@Blizzia Until they don't. MMBN4 looked like it had done so well. In reality, 3 was such an excellent game that people thought 4 was going to be just as good, got burned, and 5 and 6 tanked to the point that the franchise was cancelled. Do I think this will be the case with the next Pokémon games? No, because Gamefreak is holding the concept of Pokémon and the game quality/features hostage behind a major multimedia sales bonanza that won't stop. And, frankly, that's what the gaming population deserves since qualitative and experiential factors in arguments would never be given any weight compared to sales.
I would know this after being personally ridiculed for warning about Star Fox Zero and 3DS Paper Mario games' quality and subsequently watching sales tanking. AlphaDream is now defunct. I don't know if NatDex even crosses that line, or what Pokémon's line to cross is, but you and Gamefreak would be well-served not to let history repeat itself.
@KingBowser86 You're just mad because they took your lollipop and said you'd have to wait until later to get it.
Games are great, and that's that.
@Blizzia I haven't even bought a game since Emerald. No, you're being petty and myopic, dismissing anyone who doesn't share your world-view.
@KingBowser86 HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, good one man. You haven't bought a game since Emerald.
That's gen 3 man. Petty? Look who is being petty. Wew. Doesn't buy or play the games, gets opinions forced down his throat by Youtube videos and adopts them as his own, then actually goes onto articles regarding a franchise he doesn't deal with at all and pulls several rabbits out of his behind.
And I'm the petty one?
Sure are. You're the one seeing disappearing models, shoddy textures, half-arsed implementations left and right, and you're still dismissing those facts in favor of holding up this game for whatever purpose WHILE posting condescending bullsnot. I don't need to have played the game to see with my own eyes what you're too blinded by your own fandom to see. And don't go dismissing their viewpoints as they have played the game - that's how they have direct-feed footage to show.
@KingBowser86 Subpar technical details are disconcerting, but I think the most egregious issue here is not being able to transfer every Pokemon in the series history into Sword & Shield, whereas it was possible up through Ultra Sun & Moon. There are people paying money for a storage service that allows said transfers, yet some Pokemon will not be transferable to Sword & Shield, because they're not in the Galar region Dex, and may not have even been coded into Sword & Shield.
Furthermore, customers will have to buy into yet another storage service, Pokemon Home, which can receive transfers from Pokemon Bank. But that won't be available until 2020. Let's Go players will not be able to directly transfer Pokemon into Sword & Shield, they must wait for Pokemon Home to be released, then pay into that service. No local transfers, it's all cloud-based.
So what we have here with Sword & Shield is a more restricted ecosystem for transferring Pokemon from past entries than ever before. The sheer number of Pokemon is no excuse, given the improved hardware of the Switch compared to New/3DS. Even though it's been 2 years and 8 months since the Switch released, Sword & Shield still somehow has a feeling of being rushed...
@PlywoodStick Personally, I agree. But, I am open to arguments that "It was only a matter of time" before not all Pokémon made it into given games going forward from a certain point. That still seems inevitable or at least possible (even if the gigantic cut in this game seems egregious). So that's why I point at very glaring technical flaws that cannot be argued.
@KingBowser86 I can see your point. Although, it's nonetheless very odd that Pokemon like Absol/Mega Absol (which uses a blade-like appendage to attack) and Shieldon/Bastiodon (which is literally the Shield Pokemon) are missing from Sword & Shield. Why are Pokemon whose function is akin to the namesakes of this generation left out?
Also, they left out the Jigglypuff line. That's like... okay, maybe I'm biased. But that just seems inexcusable. How can they leave out one of the Pokemon that has been a mainstay in the Smash Bros series?
And that's not all. Charmander was the only previous starter to make it in. That's right. No Bulbasaur, no Squirtle, no Gen 2-7 starters. This is just... why???
@KingBowser86 To give a greater sense of these omissions, if you don't mind being spoiled, here's the Galar Dex:
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_by_Galar_Pok%C3%A9dex_number#Foreign_Pok.C3.A9mon
That's right. Only 400 Pokemon are currently available in Sword & Shield. (Junichi Masuda himself said only Pokemon in the Galar Dex can be transferred.) Any Pokemon not on this list cannot be transferred at all (or at least not for the time being), and Pokemon and forms that are foreign to Galar must be transferred from the Pokemon Home service, which won't be available until 2020. The only foreign Pokemon known to be transferable at some point is Mew. Also, no Mega Evolutions.
@noutBr thank you I’m glad someone said it. This all could’ve been avoided if Gamefreak wasn’t so arrogant and share more about the game before release
Subpoena this 🖕
I read hardly anything about the game before it came out. Then I read a review and decided to think about it. Then I bought it. Now I’m enjoying it. I’m not a lawyer or moral pillar, but this seems silly to me. The folks that were leaking and reading leaks already likely made up their minds before the info.
It is because those who obtained the copy of the strategy guide would have already signed an NDA in the first place. They are absolutely within within rights to do so even with their statement.
own your mistake.
Im still playing through the game ... up to my 7th gym ....
To be honest, I wasn’t a hater before and was looking up to it.... but it’s a really mediocre game.... specially the wild area. It’s an uninspired barren land with Pokémon I already have. I’m riding my bike avoiding all the creatures like they are poops in the ground.
@dacangri12 Last time, people were pretty vocal, complaining GameFreak showed too much and left nothing to surprise. If there’s one thing they listened to, it was that.
Leakers suck and should not be respected. That being said, there has never been a pokemon game that hasnt been leaked
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. I hope these people get what they deserve.
@Obito_Sigma Corporations can pound sand. The Pokémon company is no different. Game Freak are the ones who caused damages to the brand, not leakers.
now watch as they still don't find any of the actually leakers and end up taking a bunch of people who just shared the information after it was leaked to court. all a leaker has to do is spread the information is steal a device, then spread it on the stolen device that has none of their own information on it over some public wifi service in the middle of a city, then destroy the it afterwards. the leaker will get off clean, though the one who had their device stolen might end up incarcerated.
alternatively someone could file a false report of their device being stolen before leaking stuff.
in both cases you'd have to find evidence of the first crime actually being committed, to get to the culprit, but tcp isn't going to care about who actually did it so long as they can legally set people up to be an example & deterrent,
honestly gamefreaks pulling this stunt after dexit already pissed off a huge portion of the fan base hurts them more then it helps.
Who necroed this article? You are hearby banished to playstations home page for 3 months.
Hadn't heard about this, but I find it highly questionable. Regardless about what you think of the ethics of leakers that get inside info (I personally hate leakers), unless they signed an NDA the leakers really did nothing illegal. Given how long it has taken Pokemon to find them, it probably isn't an insider they're targeting, but I dunno.
Unless I'm mistaken, the only people Pokemon can rightfully take action against is anyone under NDA who leaked it, or some situation where laws were broken via theft of documents or hacking into their system to steal trade secrets.
If this is just a group of people who received some info from an inside source that leaked it, then I really hope those people aren't wrongfully targeted for it. Target the inside source instead, don't go using corporate intimidation tactics to scare people without an actual legal standing. If this is successful, the precedent that this would all set is a scary one.
@Xylnox NintendoLife did when they updated it. It was either that or put up an entirely new article I guess.
So after being in the game industry 40 years, I find this rather disturbing. Why? Because leaking anything ahead of the release of any product only stirs buyer INTEREST unless the product is exceedingly bad, which in this case, it is NOT. Despite the howling fanboys saying this game is a mess, it’s actually a well crafted game, that is progressive and yet still on point for the Pokémon series. I’ve played through a significant part of Shield and I have enjoyed it thoroughly. I’ve been playing Pokémon games all the way back to the beginning of the series, and this one has actually been my favorite of all. I never saw these “leaks” they mention, but I always wait till a game is released and I can see a large amount of gameplay info and hands on videos before I will buy it, and in my opinion that’s leaps and bounds more information than “leaks” from a strategy guide. 🤨
Man, the corporate bootlickers in here are something else.
"Oh noes, my favorite mediocre rpg got leaked! Go, Pokemon Company/GF, ruin their lives over it!"
This case will hopefully get thrown out if the judge/jury/etc has any sense.
GameFreak and The Pokémon Company have reached insane levels of arrogance. Pokémon is the most profitable entertainment franchise in the world and they're claiming "injuries" for information leaks that happened a few weeks before release? I will never again buy a game from these once-great companies (they have enough sheep giving them billions).
As one of the people who had the dual pack preordered, and then saw certain things very shortly before release that made me cancel my preorder... this is utter bull. The games are selling like hotcakes, the reviews are (imo way too) positive, and they're making a heck ton of money just for the games being Pokémon.
Leakers suck but in this case I'm honestly thankful for them for having warned me about the quality of these games. I've played every Pokémon game before Sword and Shield and enjoyed all up to generation 5, then starting with X and Y the series started to really disappoint me. I was going to give Sword and Shield a chance to see if I would enjoy those again but the leaks allowed me to see that, no, I would not.
I was admittedly secretly hoping the sales WOULD bomb so that Gamefreak would stop rushing Pokémon games out the door but now they received the note that "hey, rushing is okay", and the quality of the series will probably never improve.
Of course I'd love to be proven wrong. I still love Pokémon. I want to be able to enjoy the games again. If a new future entry in the series looks to be fun again then I'll happily dip right back in. But until then, the series is dead to me.
I really believe TPC is being incredibly petty here with this "irreparable damage". Lmao no, they are the ones who caused any "irreparable damage", not the leakers. And again, the games are selling like hotcakes. There is hardly any damage here to speak of other than my Pokémon loving heart being broken by their low quality product. Can I sue TPC for that?
Smoke the rats out.
I don't understand how you can prove the leak damages sales of the game. Pokémon Sword and Shield have sold really well.
@PBandSmelly Yeah, funny how now of all times they suddenly kick up such a huge fuss over it, isn't it?
I'm sure the leakers broke either a NDA or street date (Some form of formal agreement anyway), but if they were half as enthusiastic about making the games as they are about prosecuting the leakers, we'd have far better games.
Lesson we must take from this: DO NOT PRE-ORDER POKEMON EVER AGAIN untill we learn Game Freak learned their lesson and actually deliver what's promised.
I think Game Freak does all the "irreparable injury" just fine by themselves.
I'm glad I'm tired of people ruining games and surprises from leaking
Besides all the hate the game got some real big numbers besides that it's a fantastic game
I still haven’t bought it and don’t plan on it. I’m just going to get B/W and B/W2 and play some good Pokémon games instead. I can hold out for the “Eternal” versions of Sw/Sh next year or whenever. Gens 6-8 have been awful (in my opinion and based on watching footage of Gen8). I wish they’d go back to pixel art as the move to 3D has been very rough. Also, bring back Megas. They’re the only gimmick that’s worked well and was actually exciting.
The leakers helped me avoid this turd and saved me money and heartache. I appreciate them.
I'm largely unfamiliar with Discord, but I'm fairly certain 4chan wouldn't be able to provide them with that information. Posting is anonymous and threads are auto-deleted once they reach the bottom of page 15, either from lack of posts or the post limit being reached. There are other sites and services that archive some threads, but they aren't operated by 4chan.
Even if they don't end up pressing charges, it's likely they at least want the identities of the leakers to see if they're people who broke an NDA
If it wasn’t for the leaks, I never would’ve bought sword and shield.
Sorry TPC but no, not going to spend 60 dollars to find out if anything new you added I like, nor am I for the first time of the franchise going to spend 60 dollars to find out if anything I like even returned. It was due to the guidebook leaker revealing interesting new mons like centiskorch that gave me a little hype and dex leakers revealing mons like runerigus and frosmoth as well as returning ninjask line that made me preorder.
Good, good, keep damaging your reputation so it’s easier for us long term veterans to leave.
@Nintyfan This article's a bit old, but I'm talking about information leaks, not piracy.
@Galenmereth consumers can vote with their wallets. Suing a company for releasing a product that you won't even buy is called an entitlement at its finest. Thank goodness lots of people disagree with internet sentiment judging by the sales records. Gamefreak just released their best gen, and y'all are complaining to this day about a game that y'all claim that you won't buy.
@liam_doolan
As this article originally was released at the end November and was only updated now, why is this not reflected in the headline on the main page?
@those who thank the leakers for leaking info and helping avoiding/making a decision on buying or not.
If the leaked information were gathered in illegal ways TPC has the law on their side. like it or not.
And when it comes to deciding whether to buy or not...
Maybe, just maybe, some of you are smart enough to wait until a game's release and the then upcoming reviews, be it written or in video format, and then decide on getting a game or not.
If you think preordering is the way to go and then mourning that a game is mediocre (or worse) then it's just your impatience.
And some people out there may be old enough to remember those days when reviews and magazine articles were the only way to get information about a title and thus waited until those reviews/articles were out and could be read and then made up their mind and decision.
Just because people don't want to wait until a company has released its latest title really does not legitimate leaking information gathered by breaking arrangements made.
And to be honest, though I like it, too, to hear about a new interesting title being in the works, these leaks just destroy a lot of surprise effects such a title would otherwise offer when being played for the first time.
Unfortunately games developers and distribution companies themselves aren't any better when announcing games one, two or even more years in advanvce of the planned release and afterwards drop information only peu à peu. These developers/companies really should wait until around six months before release when there really isn't more to do then the last testing phase, when the beta phase has been left.
A mega-corp financially crippling essentially innocent workers for sharing pictures from a video game - this is evil.
This is a witch hunt.
"irreparable injury". The same we could say about their development of the game
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