Leakers to pay $150,000 over Pokemon Sword and Shield

A lawsuit against individuals who leaked information about Pokemon Sword and Shield ahead of its release date has now been settled with The Pokemon Company.

The pair of defendants are being charged with paying $150,000 each in both damages and attorney fees. This news has been reported to Polygon, a site that is close to the matter and has been monitoring it closely.

The court documents containing this information were released this week. They indicate that these defendants stole trade secrets from The Pokemon Company by taking illicit pictures. These pictures showed pages from an unreleased strategy guide for the game.

The documents that were filed add that this is a final judgment and decision. It may not be appealed, so the defendants must pay their $150,000 fines.

This all stems from images that the pair released in 2019. They showed off the official strategy guide for Pokemon Sword and Shield, and were shared on Discord. These images detailed previously unannounced features such as the Gigantamax forms of several Pokemon.

The Pokemon Company filed its lawsuit against these two in November 2019. The company discovered that one of the individuals worked at the printing company responsible for the strategy guide’s printing. They shared the images with the second individual, and that’s where the images were later leaked to more fans.

The Pokemon Company was also wronged by a Portuguese website that broke a review embargo on the game and leaked details about it to the public ahead of time. While it may have garnered the site views, The Pokemon Company claims that it will never work with them again.

The Pokemon Company takes leaks very seriously. Each new mainline Pokemon game contains new features that are intended to be enjoyed with the game as a whole. Players can’t always understand those features without playing the games. This is why embargoes exist, to keep information that may strain a game’s release under wraps.

The Pokemon Company has always been fair with fans and press sites. This is just one example where it has also been exactly as unfair with those who have actively worked against it.