Nintendo subpoenas Discord in Pokemon leak probe

Nintendo is seeking a court order in California that would compel Discord to disclose identifying information about the individual responsible for last year's massive "FreakLeak" or "TeraLeak" of Pokemon content.

Court filings obtained by Polygon reveal Nintendo is asking the court to require Discord to provide the legal name, physical address, phone number, and email associated with a user named "GameFreakOUT." This individual allegedly shared copyrighted Pokemon assets including character artwork, source code, and development materials on a Discord server called "FreakLeak" last October, leading to widespread distribution across the internet.

While unconfirmed, these materials likely originated from a data breach Game Freak acknowledged in October. The developer reported unauthorized access affecting 2,606 current, former, and contract employees' names in August. Notably, leaked files surfaced online on October 12, followed by Game Freak's statement dated October 10 (but posted October 13) that only mentioned compromised employee data.

The extensive leak contained unreleased projects, scrapped content, development documents, and early builds of Pokemon games. Most significantly, it revealed Pokemon Champions - a battle-centric title later officially announced in February - and accurate details about Pokemon Legends: Z-A before its reveal. The breach also exposed source code for DS-era Pokemon games, internal meeting notes, deleted lore from Pokemon Legends: Arceus, and unverified information about the next generation of Pokemon.

Nintendo hasn't yet initiated legal action against any alleged hacker, but the subpoena request suggests the company aims to identify responsible parties for potential litigation. Given Nintendo's established history of aggressive legal action regarding intellectual property violations, formal proceedings may follow if the court approves the information request.