Nintendo Faces Huge IP Losses After Massive Pokémon Leaks

The company that partners with Nintendo on the Pokemon video game series has admitted to being hacked. However, there is confusion over what exactly was stolen, what was leaked and what impact it could have on the future of the lucrative franchise.

People are already asking on social media for access to the coding and information on other valuable assets, including the Switch 2.

Game Freak – the 35-year-old Japanese company behind Pokemon video games – apologized after the hack but has so far only said that names and email addresses of employees and contractors were stolen. Nintendo had no comment through its press room.

However, it is widely reported that after the initial statement, source code, new games, previous projects and unused beta Pokémon designs were shared online following the hack.

At the time of writing, Game Freak does not appear to have officially confirmed that anything more than the workers’ data was accessed.

Engadget reported that “leaked documents and images flooded Reddit after Centro Leaks started publishing everything on Saturday afternoon.”

Centro Leaks has more than 426,000 followers on X. At the time of writing, information from the hack is reportedly still being released.

“The ‘Teraleak’ files, as some fans call them, supposedly contain source code for previous games such as: Pokémon HeartGold And SoulSilver, Codenames for the Switch 2 and the upcoming Gen 10 Pokémon Games – “Ounce” and “Gaia” respectively – hints at something in development Pokémon MMO and internal discussions from design meetings,” said Engadget.

“There are also details about the supposedly unpublished ones Detective Pikachu Sequel and other planned Pokémon films as well as a new anime series”.

If true, this represents a potential disaster for Game Freak and Nintendo. As one Reddit poster put it, “Chinese copycat developers will have fun with this.”

A statement on the Game Freak website in Japanese was titled “Notice and Apology Regarding Disclosure of Personal Information Due to Unauthorized Access.”

“Game Freak discovered that personal information about our employees and others was leaked in connection with unauthorized third-party access to our servers in August 2024,” the company said.

“We sincerely apologize for the great inconvenience and distress this has caused to everyone involved.”

The company said the personal information of current and former employees and contract workers was accessed. It says only names and company email addresses were collected.

The statement said the “number of items retrieved” was 2,606.

Game Freak said it was contacting affected employees individually.

“For those who cannot be contacted individually due to resignation or other reasons, we will notify them through this announcement and establish a hotline to handle inquiries regarding this matter.”

The company said it had taken measures to “prevent a recurrence.”

“We have already rebuilt and re-verified the server and will work to prevent a recurrence by further strengthening our security measures.”