The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom leaker fired from GameStop
NintendoA GameStop employee who leaked The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom OLED Switch on Reddit claimed Nintendo pressured his employers to fire him.
The hype surrounding the upcoming release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is building following the debut of the game’s third trailer.
However, those looking to go into the game unspoiled should be careful where they look around the internet, as leaks have become more prevalent now that Tears of the Kingdom’s launch is less than a month away.
At the same time, Nintendo appears to be cracking down on these leaks, with one leaker being fired from his job at GameStop after releasing early information surrounding the game’s new hardware tie-in.
GameStop employee fired for leaking Zelda OLED Switch
A post on the Tears of the Kingdom subreddit from the person who leaked the Tears of the Kingdom-themed OLED Switch gave those in the community an update on the situation.
In the post, the OP said, “Got fired from my job at GameStop today at nintendos request due to my Zelda leak. Hopefully all of you were able to get your switch pre-orders in as now I will not be able to get mine.”
Kotaku spoke to the leaker, whose name is Mike, to get more insight into the situation that led to his termination from GameStop. According to Mike, he initially leaked the OLED model’s existence because he likes the Zelda series and wanted to alert fans ahead of time that pre-orders would be live soon.
Unfortunately for Mike, his employers at GameStop and members of Nintendo took the matter quite seriously. Mike said his supervisor told him “off the record” that Nintendo put pressure on the GameStop branch to fire him after tracing the information back to the store.
Though quite the harsh punishment, those with insider knowledge would do well not to underestimate the lengths Nintendo will go to protect its IP and products related to it in the future.
