Word began spreading of Pokémon developer Game Freak’s secrets being leaked on 4Chan in early October, and the company has since revealed that it has indeed been breached. The data breach reportedly took place in August and mostly contained internal meetings and design documents regarding its famous monster-catching game series, but it also appears to have spilled some of Nintendo’s plans for the future.
The most serious bit of the data breach is that over 2,600 company employees and contractors had some personal data exposed, but at the moment it appears this was limited to their names and work email addresses. Nintendo fans are thus enjoying another round of insider secrets in relatively good conscience, in an incident that is strongly reminiscent of the “Gigaleak” that took place about four years ago.
Another data breach for Nintendo in a busy 2024
The Pokémon developer has issued a statement confirming that the data breach took place in August, that it involved “illicit access” to the internal network, and that it has addressed whatever the issue was with its security. There is still no indication as to whether it was an external hack or the work of insiders. The 2020 “Gigaleak” similarly remains a mystery, but the prime suspects are a third-party contractor and a former Malwarebytes employee who used their position to access the information of a number of different corporations.
The initial postings on 4Chan stated that this data breach is not connected to any of the prior Gigaleak dumps, which were staggered over a period of months. The Pokémon developer did lose gigabytes of data, however, and video game enthusiasts that have been poring over it have thus far found it mostly contains tidbits from the creative side of the operation.
As with the Gigaleak the hacker appears to also not be seeking profit, or at least failed to engage the Pokémon developer in negotiations before dumping the stolen information. Nintendo has been weathering a string of these sorts of data breaches related to its properties this year, with insiders believed to be leaking details about its upcoming games and hardware to the press.
Pokémon developer breach provides clues on “Switch 2”
The data breach has been a bonanza for Pokémon fans, but it has also clued the video game industry in to what the upcoming Switch follow-up may be called: the “Ounce.” That is at least the working title seen in some of the Pokémon developer’s internal documents. Game Freak plans to release this game for both the Switch and its eventual follow-up, whatever the name might be.
Other tidbits found in the data breach include the source code to some of the older Nintendo DS Pokémon titles, something that could prove to be at least modestly financially damaging. The company also appears to have been planning a new animated cartoon with Netflix, and had originally aimed to make two sequels to its 2019 “Detective Pikachu” film.
