Sword And Shield Leakers Required To Pay The Pokémon Company $150K Each

Should've been $151k.

Meowth uses Pay Day.
Its Super Effective!

@Eel Love it!

Don’t steal/leak info unless you are prepared to pay up.

Hope that 15 mins of fame was worth it.

@Eel
And 50cent. Nintendo lost 50cent 🤣

Take that!

Justice prevails!

''Irreparable injury?'' I really don't see how to be honest. Also, that amount of money seems incredibly steep. They're probably putting these individuals into a big big dept here over some dumb leaks that probably didn't do damage even anywhere near what they claim here.

@Yosher i think you’re right in a way, since the games still sold incredibly well (ugh). I guess they are treating this more as setting them as an example to everyone else who tries to leak something.

Boo that’s rough

Who cares, the next one will leak as well... That's the thing people dont know about these leaks... they often come from journalists themselves looking for a quick 15 seconds of fame.

The irreparable injury came from them making a half-baked game. That's not the leaker's fault.

The game injured itself due to Gamefreak straight up lying to their fanbase and not fine tuning their game.

That’s a crazy amount of money to expect two people to pay. That’s life ruining.

Im going to take an unpopular stance it seems. I think that Game Freak, by hiding and blatantly lying in regards to certain information, owes the public a form of reparation. I also do not think that the amount of damages done by these people is anywhere close to the money being demanded, nor do I think they can reasonably pay such fines without losing everything. Such measures seem outright spiteful, perhaps because they acted as whistleblowers. This did not happen to such a degree and with such viciousness to past leakers.

As Christ himself said “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” and “blessed are the merciful, for they will be show mercy”. This is not to say the courts do not have the authority to rule in favor of Game Freak/TPC, or that damage was not done. This is simply to say that The Pokémon Company looks incredibly greedy in this instance.

I see no good done here, only different levels of evil.

While the "irreparable injury" is a bit daft, I can understand the desire to be the gatekeeper of your own product. The leakers got their just desserts in this case. An expensive mistake, to say the least.

@-Juice- Game Freak, the game dev, is not part of the Pokemon Company. The Pokemon Company is a company founded by Satoshi Tajiri that own the Pokemon brand and license and are the one suing the two culprits for illegally leaking Pokemon brand product that they agree not to do when they work for the print company that is partner with the Pokemon Company (which is not Game Freak btw, Game Freak made other games outside of Pokemon and Nintendo).

@BloodNinja I agree, leaks happen all the time, And unless you needed a big ass public stunt like fortnight, it shouldn't matter if it gets leaked or not as long as the game is in joyed, cuz lets say if it leaked with a full dex, just think what a positive response people would have had, but no, not only did they lie, but they well, Made crappy looking trees!

Play stupid games: win stupid prizes!

A beautiful example of.

Serves them right and it's about time someone goes after leakers in general. People are so quick to dismiss these leaks because they have an agenda against GameFreak but breaking a NDA is breaking the law and it needs to have consequences if you want the legal system to work. You can't just make exceptions based on personal bias.

@Eel Nice one

Can't say I feel sorry for them.

@Ghost_of_Hasashi I already know about these differences. TPC is owned jointly by Nintendo, Game Freak, and Creatures Inc. it was formed specifically because Game Freak was ill-equipped to deal with the booming merchandise scene.

I simply included them because of how muddy the waters get when it comes to the dealings within TPC, especially since these leakers were connected more to the game aspect of company info rather than the larger brand product endeavors.

So now everyone supports leakers around here? You want to give them a 100$-fine and tell them: "please do not do it again."? They knowingly stole data from a company and published it. Yes, Gamefreak is a rich company but that doesn‘t give anyone the right to leak information about their upcoming products. And I know I sound old, but If you‘re an adult you need to know that your actions have consequences and hopefully this case will show other leakers that the practice is not a trivial offense.

I’m pretty sure the leakers signed an NDA and it was part of their business relation. They would not have had the opportunity to write the strategy guide if these conditions weren’t met in the first place.

They deliberately breached that contract for personal “profit” (internet fame?). If you take the mediocre game out of the picture, this is a serious violation.

If you sat on a million dollar IP and carried the responsibility of your employees and their families, you would have done the same to protect what's yours.

It would make sense if the printing company was punished somehow for breaking the contract with Gamefreak, and then the people at the company should probably be fired for not doing their job properly? Suing the people directly sounds unfair.

"irreparable injury" and "damages"

Leaking in this case was a bad thing, and that they had to be punished somehow made sense.

But it is BS they had damages, the games sold like hotcakes and that after the huge backlash being a thing.

Good laugh...

The amount seems, even though justified because of a contract breach, a bit unreasonable.
I can't even remember the leaks, but I do remember the mediocre storyline, lack of effort (Gen7 sprites, nothing to explore really) and dumbed down gameplay. The punishment should be a hard lesson and not ruin their lives and threaten their existence.

Even still, no one can cause irreparable damage to the Pokemon brand like Game Freak.

@-Juice- Whistleblowers? If you believe they were leaking photos for anything other than internet clout then I have a bridge to sell you.

@Spiders I guess the solution would have been to not deliberately break an NDA for something so stupid and expose yourself to legal ramifications

Meanwhile, Nintendo is still getting away with their Joycon Drift fiasco

"For damages and attorney fees"
That's prob just about all fees — with some high priced lawyers representing Nintendo, which I'm sure is all Nintendo was going for. The "big" number (to us commoners) is a deterrent to others from doing similar in the future.

People are forgetting this wasn't just some random data miner that spilled the beans on something in the data, or someone that saw a document on a coffee table and ran to Reddit. These are employees of a contractor that took pictures of the copyrighted, NDA'd private content from the company they work for and posted it on the internet. These guys were in for criminal theft of IP, and various breach of contract suits even without TPCs suit.

What a roundabout way od saying that their product looked bad outside of carefully doctored trailers and adverts.

@Yosher It seems steep until you consider Sw/Sh grossed over $1billion. A series can only be so valuable through careful management. They'll hate leaks because it allows information to bypass whatever plans they had for advertising or what they planned to be a surprise in the game itself.

Considering how effective their advertising is pre-release Pokemon information is probably worth millions to TPC. So even $150k is getting off quite easy for breaking NDA and taking photos of the strategy guide to leak info early. (Since $150k in damages amounts to only 25,000 sales).

Really the leakers have to be incredibly stupid to try and interfere with a multi-billion dollar franchise that way and think they wouldn't try and get them for it.

People here saying the fine is too harsh and is life ruining... Smh. Should we have to make sure that people can comfortably break the law without it running their life?

Should have used a vpn

@Duffman92 or maybe people feel it’s possible to be unhappy with the practice of leaking but not feel it’s an offence that warrants ruining someone’s life over?

Yeah right, piling crushing debt on them for leaking a few pictures, "Irreperable damage" my ass, the games sold great, any damage done to the Pokemon brand was after people played them.

I know NDAs are such a very big deal, but piling $150K fines on individuals is rather extreme, they'll be stuck in debt for years, possibly for life, nobody deserves that over a few blurry photos of video game characters...

@Graspee you’re right- ruined lives for all offences. Proportionate response is for suckers!

“Justice has finally been served”
So a company worth 90 billion dollars successfully suing two individuals is justice served?
This is not justice. Just a mega corporation flexing its muscle on somebody smaller.

Damages my arse.
That’s extremely excessive and the only way I can see these two individuals from paying that amount of debt is by going bankrupt. What they did was naughty but they didn’t kill anyone or hurt anyone.

On one hand, that sounds excessive. On the other hand, if you ever sign an NDA for any reason you should know what you're risking if you break it. Chances are these people knew they would be in big trouble if caught and risked it anyway just for some internet fame.

Nintendo is a fantastic company if you have a financial stake in it, otherwise it is just pain majority of the time.

@CactusMan people enjoy leaks. It didn’t hurt the company, it didn’t cause injury. I’d say losing their jobs was fair enough. Putting two people in that amount of debt for the rest of their lives is however very damaging.

In fairness, they got off incredibly lightly. There are so many fields where such a leak would carry a mandatory prison sentence on top of a fine.

@NEStalgia @Duffman92

You are absolutly right.
There is no "only a Picture" .
A single Leak has the Possibility to kill a whole Company and kill also houndred of Jobs.

There are Laws in many Countries for something as this and most Companies let you firm Contracts espacially for such Cases (also if you change the Company).

Even if it is only a couple of Pictures, it is Espionage.

What would have a smaller Company done if somebody would have leaked their Products and Strategy?

Another Company with more Capacity would have thrown them out of the Market.

Look how Sony back than made a big Hit against Sega with saying "299".
It is not based by a Leak, but a good Example how the small Information of knowing the Price of the other can bring you a big Advance.

Thats also the reason Why you are not allowed to take Pictures when you visit the Factories of Car Manufractors.
As an Employee you even have to kill the Camera of the Phone you want to have with you inside.
Intelligent People can read much out of single Pictures and they do.

At the same Point.
I would prefer if Company would make Things more transparent AFTER the Release of the Products, when it does not longer hurt them.
As ID Software for Example did in the Past with releasing the Source Codes for their Engines.
This Serves the Perservation and Community much more.

A very beautiful example of justice being served.

Don't leak. It's simple and very easy to avoid leaking things. You just... don't.

Everybody stays excited and happy, and things are revealed when they're ready to be.

@Strumpan the printing company may have lost the Pokémon contract and other contracts with various companies because these two staff members stupidity. NDA's are not a joke piece of paper. Yes the punishment was harsh but the two individuals knew the risk they were taking.

There actions may have caused other people to lose jobs if the printing company has had there reputation damaged.

@BiscuitCrumbsInMyBed well none of us know for sure what damage they have done to the company they were representing. Stating they haven't hurt anyone is not a fair statement.

@Mr-Fuggles777 Are you trying to compare the act of attempting to escape the (probably) bad living conditions in their own country in order to get a better chance at life to someone breaking a NDA in order to get some internet points? That's a very weird comparison. These guys didn't break the NDA for some noble cause and depsite what some peple claim in the comments they are not the victims that get bullied by some rich company. But yeah, if there are laws that regulate the immigration to a country then those should be upheld. We don't have any walls in Germany though, well not anymore anyway

I also don't like the way you say "simply breaking a NDA". You don't "simply" break contracts. Contracts are a very important part of businesses and society in general. Of course, if someone hates the idea of working under NDA they are free to pursue a different career though they will find that NDA are present for the majority of jobs. They are in fact a big deal that you don't "simply" break.

@Kid_Sickarus I didn't say ruined lives for all offences but it's up to people to consider the consequences before breaking the law. Punishments are designed to deter people from committing the offence, they aren't some kind of manageable cost.

@MajinSoul you stated that "If you want the legal system to work, you can't make exceptions based on personal bias".

Are you now saying that it's OK to break the law in some circumstances - if that's the case who gets to decide what laws are ok to break and for what reason?
I'm not getting into a social political debate here, but ultimately if someone enters a country illegally they are a criminal and should be held to account - the same as someone who steals because they are hungry.

@Dr_Lugae I agree that it's stupid but these are still only a few individuals who have lived of their own. I know it's their own fault and everything but this puts them in a serious debt for a long while probably. Unlike the company with the billion dollar franchise, I doubt think they have that 150k ready to just cough up like that. This could be potentially life ruining for something that is essentially only a small drip in a bucket for the pokémon company. That's something that I think should be waged in here as well. I mean, it's not like the guys committed a murder here.

Sure, don't do the crime if you can't do the time, and everything. But this really really seems incredibly excessive to me. If this happened to me I know for a fact it would put me into a severe depression because I'd constantly be worrying about having to pay off this massive debt.

@Mr-Fuggles777 this is one of those more complex things that has never had an easy answer and right and wrong tends to depend more on individual morality...
or lack there of.

on one had it tends to be wrong to break laws as their supposed to be their for everyone's sake, safety and stability.
on the other hand, humans are flawed creatures so we end up with laws that should not exist and more than a few of which make things worse rather than better.

Can anybody please tell me what where the leaked images?

Thanks.

Thanks to leakers I have saved money by not buying trash or half baked games like this one so I truly support leakers to expose companies that love to lie to their fan base like Game Freak did

Definitely feeling some schadenfreude due to the smug and self serving nature of leakers. I've no sympathy for people who do such silly things chasing worthless internet clout instead of contributing something worthwhile to the world. Also Sword and Shield was the same rickety mess that Pokemon has been since Gen 1. My kids and the kids at the bus stop loved it. The game is a thin vessel to deliver a kids show, that people insist on making more epic and deep. The games are awful, the company is no different than any other kids entertainment corporation, and they aren't going to suddenly change or repent for the egregious crime of making vapid content for the less discerning audience.

I wish Nintendo could pay all of us who suffered from joy con drift back

@GKO900 never looked at it from that perspective before. You got a good point there

What did they expect to get for leaking the games? A medal?

@MajinSoul Actually, NDAs fall under civil law, which is different than criminal law. In civil law, you actually can make exceptions on an individual basis, because it’s up to the individual to seek payment for damages. Nobody can do that for the victim other than the victim themselves. If the victim chooses not to seek payment for alleged damages, then that’s that. I dont know how it is in other countries, but that’s generally how that works in the US.

@Yosher Ofcourse it's a massive amount of money but they're not going to be expected to pay it all off at once if they're not able.

Obviously TPC will want the money but as you said it's a drop in the bucket. They're not going to chasing them down for it.

They'll probably be an arrangement by the court to set-up a direct debit or payment plan to paying it off for years or decades out of their income. It's like tax for their poor judgement or a student loan.

But yeah if I had over £100k debt for something stupid like that I'd regret it every day of my life. But at the same time messing about a multi-billion dollar company NDA's is like sticking your arm in a Crocodiles mouth.

You reap what you sow.

@BloodNinja I want to believe you, but this one wasn't NINJA APPROVED.

Kidding aside, everyone's acting like these are just some poor innocent individuals. They were hired by TPC to make a strategy guide. Information and images were provided to them and they turned around and posted those images. It was a messed up thing to do. And holy hell, the quality of the game has absolutely nothing to do with it, so all of you coming from that angle need to back up and take another look at this.

Good, I hope that 5 minutes of internet fame was worth it. They were working for a client that most likely signed a NDA to not share any information. As per the legal documents, this was basically stolen trade secrets. TPC at least went after the leakers and not the company they worked for.

@Bret I don’t think whistleblowing is messed up. Big corporations need to be more truthful, and outright lying about the quality of a game should qualify as false advertising and is more than enough reason to whistleblow. The only outcome here is that Nintendo gets more money; I have no compassion for their situation.

I’m gonna ninja jump out of this conversation, but before I go, I think it’s worth noting that Sword and Shield were falsely advertised, and the “leakers” were whistleblowers, in that regard. Sad that they got bullied by a multimillion dollar company. Sword and Shield sold just fine, so this awful company gets to ruin another persons life, suing people that they literally can just walk away from and still reap millions.

The leaker didn’t want 5 minutes of fame; they wanted to blow the whistle on false advertising.

NINJA OUT

"irreparable damages"

Yeah, sure...
It's not that these leaks hurt the reputation of someone of a Company...

On the plus side it's only $300k. Could have been a lot worse.

@Graspee “Should we have to make sure that people can comfortably break the law without it running their life?”
Should have included some nuance in your statement then because that reads as pretty absolute.

@BloodNinja The leakers leaked Gigantamax before it was officially announced. They weren't whistleblowing anything, they just ruined the surprise for everyone.

These are the leaks: it's gigantamax forms , the starter evolutions, various characters

https://m.imgur.com/a/YIQw43W

@Dr_Lugae Yeah of course it's an incredibly stupid act by the leakers and they could definitely have known there would be some heavy repercussion, but I still think putting someone in dept like this for years is an incredibly low blow that I simply cannot have respect for. It sucks big time when leakers.. well.. leak things they don't want known yet, but this is truly absurd.

Of course that isn't exclusive to just this case. Honestly, if you ask me, unless someone has ACTUALLY caused irreparable injury to a company or an individual (or several individuals), THEN they can think about suing for this amount (or more) money. But considering the circumstances, I really do not think it's anywhere close to fair in this case.

That's just my two cents on the matter of course. Everyone is free to have their own opinion on the matter. And unfortunately for the leakers, TPC is of the opinion that they should pay for the 'damage' caused. Regardless of what we think of that, we can't do anything about that anyway.

Both parties here suck. The leakers breached their NDA and TPC is trying to bully individuals with BS claims like "irreparable injury to the brand".
Just by actively pursuing this lawsuit they did more damage to their own brand than the leakers ever did.

Honestly stupid. I mean, leakers should know what could happen by now, but defending The Pokemon Company is also super gross. What's the argument? The leakers cost them money by showing prospective buyers... what the game is? Some advice: if you make a good game, you won't have to hide how bad it is.

What did they even leak? I completely missed it.

Also, yes, they broke and NDA, but I think there's a difference in fining them with $5000 or $150.000. Might as well lock them up for live or put them on the street with that amount of debt.

Oh alright. Maybe they can put the money they earned into a new and better Pokémon game.

…Like that will ever happen

@Strumpan Why? So that low lives who do things like this get to hide behind the company? No. You go after the parties directly responsible so they can learn some personal accountability.

lol images of the game they themselves developed damaged the brand.

@tsdenizen By spoiling stuff like Gigantamax and the Starter evolutions. It'd be like if a printing company took a photos of the lots of pivotal pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and leaked them.

Would you go "Why is JK Rowling so angry? All they did was show buyers what the story was"

@Dr_Lugae Are you serious? Pokemon Sword and Shield isn't a novel, it's a video game. Not even one focused on narrative, it's more or less just a gym challenge. Forms aren't major plot points and historically the crucial ones have been shown before release. They hid them this time because they didn't have confidence in the quality of those designs. They even falsely advertised other aspects of the game (that whole thing about cutting Pokemon to work on models and animations only to not do anything and sell the Pokemon they cut as DLC). This isn't a TLOU Part II situation.

@Octane if I remember correctly, people already knew a lot about the game before it released. Character and location names, gym order, new Pokémon, gigantamax forms, story details, etc. Perhaps it’s that.

Only an idiot would break their contract to leak stuff.
Secondly the 150k is mostly because punitive damages is a thing in the USA. Everyone tries to get as much punitive damages as posible and will use whatever sob story they can to do so.

Did the two peopel deserve punishment? Yes. Do not break your contract - that is dumb.
Was 150k a fair settlement? Arguably no because the brand as not damaged by their actions as The Pokemon Company alleged. I would argue they are false allegations.

The Pokemon Company damaged their own reputation more by the poor effort they put into sword and shield.

In short two idiots broke their contract and the pokemon company saw it as an opportunity to make more $$ via a higher punishment figure. Sure 150k is peanut money to the Pokemon Company but still is corporate greed.

@BloodNinja this lawsuit isn’t about the games quality. It’s about theft.

@BloodNinja Ah yes, brave whistleblowers who shined a light on... (checks notes) at that point unrevealed starter evolutions and Gigantimax Pokemon.

Those specific leaks truly showed Nintendo up for their 'false advertising' and totally wasn't a play for internet kudos. Only to be the 'good guys'. Yup, 100% believe that.

@tsdenizen There are people who don't want to see the pokemon new in the game. With the internet the way it is, if you get the 'EXCLUSIVE LOOK AT THE FINAL FORMS' it will be plastared everywhere for clicks.

What’s the current exchange rate with Pokedollars?

I see a reoccurring theme in these posts that gamefreak lied and the leaker helped expose it, but what did gamefreak lie about exactly? Weren't they rather forthcoming with the pokedex? I could have sworn during the e3 treehouse they confirmed the dex cut was happening. As for the visuals, its not like they pulled a ubisoft/insomniac move and showed gameplay not running on native hardware. Those crappy looking trees were shown front and center in the early promotional material.

@SuperSpreader I played Sword, where's my stupid price?

@Chowdaire They lied not about the cut, but the reason behind the cut.

So my comment got deleted even tho I blocked the words Like this *** and I didn't even but all the amount of Dots that made up the word, so I even shorten'd it, So idk why I have did that any other time but now its a issue, Whatever man, This site some times.

150k each damn... Maybe they can start a gofundme so people that hate sword and shield can help them get out of this mess.

I can't say I'm surprised by the lack of logic on some comments here. I've been critical about the last Pokemon entries (you can search my posts about it) since a long time ago but this doesn't have to do with that. It's simply the law doing his job. It's not a matter of the little guy against the big company, it's just about stolen property and breaking constracts and yes, big companies deserve justice when the situation demands it too. People need to stop seeing stuff in black and white and just from a gamer/customer perspective. It simply isn't pleasant to have something stolen from you and that includes information and I can guarantee that you'd want justice too, at least if you have common sense.

People that are saying this aren't "protecting" Gamefreak, it's just a matter of looking at it objectively.

And not a single tear was shed.

@icomma They can't destroy my life, I didn't go out there leaking images I was under contract not to. Yes, $150,000 is overkill for these two guys. But they could have easily, you know, not posted the damn images.

@Graspee Yea, people should be able to break the law without it ruining their life. The punishment should fit the crime. You can literally kill someone with a car and not have to pay out that much money.

People leak and spread rumors all the time, and we all participate in the industry around it on sites like this and giving clicks to games media outlets. We shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

Serves those leakers right. If you do something that us against regulation, you need to get punished. Rules are there for a reason.

That is bull**** of the highest order. A $150,000 USD fine each for leaking some images of a game from a strategy guide. There's people commiting murder who probably get lesser punishments. I exagerrate but you get the point; there's nothing right about this.

@Devlind Still not sure what that has to do with people leaking stuff. Did they leak an internal memo that I didn't hear about that pointed out why the cut happened?

Spare me the "How dare the big bad multi-billion dollar company sue the poor small innocent leakers!?" nonsense. Take off the "Pokemon bad, GameFreak sux" shades and look at things objectively.

NDAs - which are a binding legal agreements - were violated. These 2 guys should be glad they weren't sued for a lot more than $150K each.

I think the ruling is fair, except I think the bigger victim is probably the book's publisher. The Pokemon Company has good reason to be upset that a company the trusted leaked images from the game. But the publisher is the one who's reputation was really trashed by these two rouge employees.

That's exactly what they get for trying to leak Nintendo games

They could probably opt for jail time insted, probably cheaper than paying that lol.

@Ulanda Rules that protect overzealous corporations are not good rules, especially when you do the research and corporations have more rights than individual humans which is ass backwards.

@Jokerwolf especially places like America which has some crazy labour laws compared to Europe.

@Spiders it's not like they signed the NDA with a gun to there heads or didn't understand what they were signing. They will have known how dangerous it would be to leak images but still did it. The punishment was probably so harsh because the judge will have seen that the two leakers were experienced in there jobs and knew all the risks etc etc but still did the crime.

@kobashi100 Things get leaked all the time, and things much more damaging to people and brands. I’ve never heard of a penalty this harsh.
You guys are cold blooded man!

@westman98 You can get a NDA agreement off the internet and a ton of other legal documents. They are about as legally binding as the legal team you can afford. You guys are treating this like these guys stole the crown jewels. Did they even profit off of this?

@Spiders
If this was actually the crown jewel, these guys would be paying millions, not $150K.

Their "profit" was their 15 min of fame.

@Spiders Pokemon is worth $92 billion dollars and the entire UK royal family estate and assets are worth $88 billion dollars.

Pokemon is literally worth more than the crown Jewels and I'd bet if you lightly damaged or dented any crown Jewels you'd end up with as just a big of a fine as trying to break NDA for Pokemon.

I think people vastly underestimate just how valuable Pokemon is that in less than 30 years it's managed to accrue more value than the fortune of a family who enjoyed the spoils of one of the globes largest empires.

@icomma Spot on. Way too much support.

Well the games s**t with no minimal effort put into development anyway.

If the company wants to be lazy and serve out low quality products I don't care how much it gets leaked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTpFoZje88o

Why are people pulling out the torches and pitchforks for this? What damage did leaking two images really do to the Pokemon Company? A minor stratch. How can people say that this serves them right? They probably earn minimum wage and did it not realizing these consequences. I 100% feel bad for them, not a scratch to PC. Plus, their games are s*hit this generation and last.

@Jokerwolf laws are laws. Don't like it, do something instead of complaining.

what carefully cultivated excitement? all gamefreak did was end up annoying a lot of people.

I understand that it's their right legally, before anyone jumps my butt.

@Ulanda The fact that you don't understand that life isn't black and white and is generally more in the grey means you don't understand the world and have a narrow understanding of morality. That being said in North America you can opt for jail time instead of paying unrealistic amounts of money lol.

@Dr_Lugae The point I was trying to make was that 2 people’s live are likely ruined over sharing pictures of a video game. They didn’t “steal” Pokemon, and saying the damaged it is ridiculous. Put that into perspective with the hundreds of more severe crimes you can commit that won’t ruin your life. This isn’t justice to me - this is a huge company that can wield the law in ways that ordinary people cannot.

@Aliteralturnip It'll be hard to top how bad gen 1 was but I believe they can do it.

@Yosher - It's literally one of the best-selling Pokémon games to date despite the dexit drama. If Nintendo wants to keep leaks from happening, they need to keep a tighter ship. They are just salty that their blatant dishonesty was cracked open. Ffs, people were able to Crack open Sun and Moon's pokedex from the 3ds demo!

@BongoBongo123 and what about the damage to the company they worked for. You forgot about them

@Zeivu It's probably not always as easy as you make it out to be. Especially for a demo. If you start removing things from a demo, it can start having such effects on the game's code that it starts breaking and becomes unplayable. Though then you could argue for them to simply not have done a demo in the first place.

That's awful. That sucks for those poor people. Big companies are terrible

@-Juice- you had me until you started quoting mythical creatures

@Jokerwolf the simplest thing to say is "you don't understand", "you don't get it" or "that' not how it work it". And please don"t throw your "the world isn't black or white" at me, because if people wouldn't intervene or protest, we would be still in the stone ages.

These are nothing but excuses for doing nothing but fuddling your thumbs and crying around how bad the world is. No one went to jail for protesting unless it goes peacefully.

And this option for jail is not only for America, but everywhere in fact.

@Spiders This is not like people casually spreading things by talking to each other on social media, this is employees at a company entrusted with creating official products for upcoming games deliberately photographing and leaking sensitive, secret stuff about the unreleased game. They had to sign NDAs they knew this was both serious and illegal.

Non-disclosure agreements are legal, binding contracts. Break an NDA, get burned. The actual quality or lack thereof in the product is not a factor in this equation.

@Narrator1 NDAs are as enforceable as the legal team you can afford. Breaking NDAs are not cut and dry crimes like everyone here seems to think.
Go get an NDA off the internet, get your buddy to sign an agreement they won’t post about your anime body pillow or whatever, and see what you can do about it. You’ll find the laws around it have little to do with the law and more about how much money they have for lawyers.

@Graspee Unless this article is misleading, these people are being held personally responsible, not their company. If this was company v. company I wouldn’t care very much, as companies have ways shielding individuals from this kind of liability.

I don't feel bad for leakers. Especially hackers and those who break NDAs for childish reasons. If they were whistleblowers, this would be an entirely different situation. They were just crappy people that wanted to ruin the surprise.

declares bankruptcy
Yeah I ain't paying anything. The only thing that hurt Nintendo's brand was the game itself. Take responsibility for your terrible choices, Gamefreak.

"At the time, The Pokémon Company's legal representation said it caused "irreparable injury" to the brand and undermined the carefully cultivated excitement and interest in the new games."

Sure, but the problem in general with the Sw/Sh leaks was the game itself, and those leaks weren't from a strategy guide. It sounds like they're essentially trying to make an example of these people to discourage other leakers, the ones that leaked things that actually mattered, and that they couldn't catch.

And truth be told, while I'm sure sales were lost, it's not like Sw/Sh was anything less than amazing sales wise. Pokemon games will sell in huge numbers regardless of the game as long as you call it a "main" line game.

Similar incident with leaker of images of Xiaomi phone. Same punishment

https://www.gizchina.com/2021/06/24/blogger-to-pay-xiaomi-over-150000-for-leaking-the-xiaomi-mi-10-ultra/

They could simply declare insolvency so probably won’t have to pay a penny of it

Most games are leaked online days before the official presentation nowadays, so it's no surprise they make an example out of all the leakers they catch.

@Deviant-Dork What do you mean? If you are talking about Jesus, historical documents from the Jewish/Roman historian Josephus have made it pretty clear that Jesus did in fact live. Furthermore it would be illogical for one to die for a lie (being flayed alive, boiled, beheaded, crucified upside down). The apostles seemed to truly believe in what they taught, because they willingly died horrible deaths and endured immense torture.

Furthermore, there was no wealth to be had, and most of them lived in poverty. Compare that to the lavish lives many of them lived before meeting this Jesus of Nazareth. The consensus among historians, even agnostic/atheists like Bart Ehrman, is that Jesus was at the very least a real person who was crucified.

Applying what we then know of the people who knew him and followed those who knew him in the first century, it is pretty clear that they at least believed they had seen him afterwards. To also paraphrase C.S. Lewis from Mere Christianity, he has to either be a lunatic, a liar, or lord. There are no other reasonable options.

I would encourage further scholarly research into this topic, rather than relying on whatever catchy atheist/Christian catch phrases and quips you will find on the internet. I say this as someone who once took a position like yours on the subject.

@-Juice- there is no historical documentary evidence for Jesus at all. Josephus was born a few years after Jesus' "death", so what he would know is hearsay? And no one that wrote about Jesus "life" knew him personally. Did you not know that? It's all very easy to do research on. Believing in mythology is pathetic and funny. I know the bible very well having read it over 20 times. I've done my research, but you obviously haven't. Thanks for the laughs.

@Deviant-Dork I have done much historical and theological research. Most historians would hardly entertain your claims, especially with the attitude you have. We have even less documentation on individuals like Julius Caesar, yet we know that they had existed. What I see is a bias and an unwillingness to be open to scholarly consensus in an effort to dominate others through name calling and using negative word framing. Regardless, peace to you all the same. I hope that you will be more open to scholarly voices rather than listening to conspiracy theories.

I will say that I would be more than happy to check out any scholarly sources you have on the matter.

@-Juice- But I'm not wrong. There's no evidence for a Jesus, at all. You think anecdotal evidence is evidence, or someone else agrees with you is evidence? Yikes, Thanks for playing. Mythology believers are a strange folk (and gross), they are always trying to convince themselves they are right by getting other people to say they are correct. Hahaha...

P.S. I don't need sources to prove a negative, the burden is not on me.

@Ghost_of_Hasashi I agree that contracts and agreements shouldn't be broken. But they aren't suing the leakers for breaking agreement and contract, now are they? They are suing for damages. This suit should not have succeeded, simply because the Pokemon company isn't suing for the right thing and no monetary damages were directly caused by the leaks and leakers.

@Deviant-Dork So virtually every scholar is wrong? The burden of proof is on you, because scholars have consistently shown and affirmed that Jesus was a real person. Note, this is a separate question compared to whether he was divine or not. This is simply about whether the man named Yeshua was crucified.

I would recommend Bart Erhman if you want a secular scholarly perspective.

As for your earlier remarks of Josephus, he was a historian, and the crucifixion of Jesus was a recent event that had historical staying power. What concerns me is that you do not apply the same criteria you have for Jesus to The Roman emperors, the Canaanites, and many other historical figures who have LESS accounts of their deeds in the same time period. Many of them do not have accounts until centuries later.

@Ryu_Niiyama

Yay, two normal people are having their lives destroyed by a multi-million corporation for daring to be overenthusiastic and show something they thought was cool. Seriously, they showed some harmless stuff that didn't even make a dent in sales, why are we celebrating them having their lives ruined for something so small? It's just needlessly petty and cruel.

@smolsauce So it’s ok to steal because the thieves are broke and the victim is a company? Theft is Theft. Don’t want consequences? Don’t steal. And yes leaking info is theft. NDAs exist for a reason. I stand by what I said. Morality shouldn’t waver based upon how much money the victim has.

@Ryu_Niiyama It's not theft, it's showing a few pictures from a strategy guide because they thought it was a little fun. No one's stealing anything and even if they were, boo hoo, a company gets few fewer dollars that last night. Sorry, I'm never siding with a massive corporation for normal people who didn't do anything wrong other than piss off folks with more money than they ever should've had in the first place.

@-Juice- Wow hahaha, your OPINIONS are funny and have no basis in reality. Since you still haven't given any proof of this magic man you speak of I'll just assume you don't have any. Ohh well.... This happens all the time to me, someone goes ramble about things that have nothing to do with proof and that is very boring. You assume a lot, not only about me too.

@Deviant-Dork Do you believe Alexander the Great existed?

Also, note that you are bringing up two separate points of discussion. We are discussing whether Yeshua bar Joseph existed, not whether he is God (or even the existence of God). If you wish to discuss whether there is a God or not, I am of course happy to, but please stop merging the two different points of contention. Your objection was against the historicity of the man named Yeshua, not the existence of God or whether Christ was God incarnate.

@-Juice- you really should stop arguing against yourself since you haven't given evidence. It's funny but probably not healthy for you mind. Why do people take fairy tales as facts? Heck people think Robin Hood and Sherlock Holmes were real too... Ohhh myyyyyy (George Takei)

@Ryu_Niiyama hahaha

@Deviant-Dork Stop dodging the question. Do you accept Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar were real people?

@-Juice- You haven't proved anything besides you like to argue with yourself. Which means I win. Keep going, you're blocked anyways.

@Deviant-Dork I’m trying to have a decent dialogue . I will answer your point, all I’m asking is that you answer my question. You don’t want to though, because you know the logical and scholarly implications that would come from the answers you could reasonably give.

@-Juice- I like that you haven't done any RESEARCH and take other people's feelings on the subject. I needed a good laugh.

@Deviant-Dork Are you a troll? Your condescension and unwillingness to truly dialogue seems to suggest so.

@-Juice- i don't need to prove anything to you, or answer your strawman questions. the burden of proof in entirely on those who believe. the condescension is easy to express because you arent actually saying anything except.... "other people think its true, so it must be," which is hilarious.

@Deviant-Dork You really are choosing to be disingenuous. Well, have a nice day then.

@-Juice- Your projection is showing.

@-Juice- Since you have ZERO proof, that means I win FYI.

@-Juice- did you know, Jesus never existed?