The big N wants information from Discord to catch the perpetrator of last October’s leaks.

Nintendo of America (NoA) has subpoenaed online community platform Discord in an attempt to uncover the identity of the person behind the October 2024 Pokémon “teraleak”. This was reported by Polygon, which obtained the legal filings. They reveal Nintendo’s efforts to find out who the leaker was. The subpoena cites Discord user GameFreakOUT, who allegedly posted confidential, non-public material on a server called FreakLeak.

The request was filed on April 18 in San Francisco District Court by Nintendo’s legal team through Mitchell Silberberg and Knupp LLP, citing a DMCA claim. An accompanying statement from attorney James D. Berkley explains that the subpoena would require Discord to disclose GameFreakOut’s identity, name, address, phone number, and email address.

In October, Game Freak confirmed that the personal data of more than 2,000 current and former employees had been hacked last August. This happened shortly before tools and information about the Pokémon series were widely leaked on social media. The dump, known as Teraleak, contained a wealth of information about past, present and future games in the Pokémon franchise, including the source code for the Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver DS games.

“The Content infringes NOA’s exclusive rights under copyright law. Specifically, it infringes NOA’s rights in the copyrighted artwork, characters and other materials associated with the famous Pokémon franchise, including but not limited to video games developed in connection with the Pokémon franchise, such as the video game Pokémon Legends: Arceus,” the motion states. Nintendo’s request includes a partially edited screenshot of Discord containing messages from the user in question.

So it is no coincidence that a Nintendo ninja is a very real concept. Embedded people who gain access to the servers and then regularly report back to the big N…

Source: Gamesindustry, Polygon, Scribd