Game Freak Confirms Hack & Issues Apology to Impacted Individuals

Game Freak has publicly acknowledged a data breach that occurred in August 2024, just days ahead of a significant leak involving company assets on October 12.

A statement, initially released in Japanese and subsequently translated into English, declares: “Following unauthorized access by a third party to our server in August 2024, we discovered that private information belonging to our employees was compromised.”

According to the report, 2,606 instances of “personal data” were exposed, which included names and email addresses. The company further mentioned it would reach out to “affected employees individually” as part of its response to the incident.

“For those employees we cannot contact directly due to retirement or other reasons, we will provide information through this announcement,” the correspondence continued, adding that they will establish a contact point for inquiries related to this issue.

As part of their preventive measures, Game Freak indicated they have “already undertaken server reconstruction and a thorough review,” vowing to enhance security protocols to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet — The Pokemon Company

The leaks on October 12 shed light on details regarding Pokemon’s tenth Generation and the anticipated Switch 2.

Notably, the original letter bears a date of October 10, just two days prior to the leaks starting to circulate. The leaked information included source code for previous Pokemon games, along with exciting details about Generation 10 and Nintendo’s forthcoming successor to the Switch.

In its statement, Game Freak does not mention whether any commercial or intellectual property was affected, leaving some uncertainty about the linkage between the August breach and the October 12 leaks, or if the latter originated from a different source altogether.

Neither the Switch 2 nor Pokemon’s tenth Generation have been officially unveiled to the public. Nintendo’s next-generation console is anticipated to launch sometime in 2025, while the only Pokemon game currently known to be under development is Legends Z-A, which serves as a spin-off from the main RPG series and follows 2022’s Legends Arceus.

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