Interview With The Pokemon Beta Leaker

Written by Dr Lava, December 26 2019

Earlier this week, hundreds of Gen 4 beta sprites leaked on 4chan. I published an article on this website shortly after, which I recommend reading if you haven’t already — click here. That article mostly focused on how the leak dropped, why I believe the leak is probably legitimate, and the hundreds of gender differences exhibited in the beta sprites, which were scrapped from Gen 4’s final build.

Over the past few days, a lot more information has come to light. I spoke privately with the individual who owns the website that was hosting the leaked beta sprites (they’ve since been removed). A few days after we spoke, that individual made a public statement to apologize and “explain the situation and clear up any confusion.”

The statement was posted to the Glitch City Laboratories forums on Christmas night. In case you’ve never heard of GCL, it’s a community that operates a website and forum dedicated to Pokemon glitches, internal data, prototypes, etc. In our conversation over secure-chat, the website owner wanted to remain anonymous. But in the forum post, they used their GCL handle “Ganix,” so that’s how I’ll be referring to them in this article.

In the post, Ganix came clean about their role in all three major beta Pokemon leaks that occurred over the past year and a half — Gold & Silver’s 1997 demo, Red & Green’s prototype assets, and more recently, hundreds of Gen 4 beta sprites. You can read the full statement here, but I’ll just be excerpting a few highlights for the purposes of this article. These excerpts have been edited for the sake of length, clarity, and formatting:

Ganix – December 25, 2019: Okay, so I haven’t exactly been up-front or honest with everyone, and I want to explain the situation and clear up any confusion and ambiguity behind things. Back in March of 2018, an individual hacked into Nintendo’s internal network, and Nintendo found out about the intrusion in May 2018. That individual goes by multiple names online, but the one relevant here is the name Wack0.

In May of 2018, Wack0 assumed the mantle of the anonymous figure known as “__” and uploaded a mysterious ROM to the PRET Discord server with only 20 available downloads. This ROM happened to be the Space World 1997 prototype of Pokemon Gold & Silver. Those who were known to have downloaded the ROM were quickly added to a private team called Team Spaceworld, which was the same team that was planning on making a translation of the SW97 ROM. I was part of Team Spaceworld too, as was Wack0.

**Related article: Gold & Silver’s 1997 demo leak**

I was one of the people Wack0 entrusted hacked assets to, and I was the one who gave Helix Chamber those Red & Green prototype assets, including back sprites. Unfortunately, GAME FREAK developed a newer, more efficient method to store front sprites, so the front sprites for those Gen 1 prototype Pokemon literally just did not exist after the front sprites underwent optimization. If anyone was hoping for the front sprites for those Pokemon, then the only viable option would be to ask GAME FREAK what they looked like.

In December of 2019, the early sprites for a lot of Gen IV Pokemon were leaked online. These sprites are from January 2006, approximately 8 months before Pokemon Diamond & Pearl released in Japan. I was the anonymous source of the sprites. In summary, the Pokemon Red & Green assets are real, and the Pokemon Diamond and Pearl sprites are real as well. I have nothing else in my possession, and I’ve shown everything I have.

I deeply apologize for letting this go on for as long as it has; I haven’t felt right about this from the very beginning, and it’s a burden I’m finally glad to rid myself of. I wanted to give people a glimpse of “what could have been,” and the amount of work and detail that went into these prototype assets. But even acknowledging their existence may have been saying too much. Both Wack0 and myself will be stripped of any and all ranks on GCL following this announcement, although I still plan to remain active and participate however I can. [/end of statement]

So it seems Ganix was hiding some things from the Pokemon Prototype community, and in many instances, lied in order to cover up the full story. For example, Ganix had originally claimed an anonymous source provided the sprites — though it’s now clear it was Ganix’s friend Wack0. Wack0 hacked Nintendo servers to acquire all these prototype assets, then delivered the Spaceworld rom — the most interesting batch he’d acquired — anonymously to the PRET Discord server. Next, he was one of twenty Discord members to download the Spaceworld rom and join Team Spaceworld. Presumably, he did so pretending he wasn’t the same person that just delivered the rom, and Ganix played along with the farce.

Ganix also told me the Gen 4 beta sprites were provided by an anonymous donor, an inaccuracy included in my previous article. But frankly, this lack of honesty is completely understandable, and I don’t hold it against Ganix one bit. It’s common knowledge that Nintendo routinely sues leakers and hackers, so I really can’t fault Ganix or anyone else who thought withholding information was necessary.

Talking to Ganix

In our private conversation via secure-chat, Ganix told me they think gaming development history is culturally valuable and worth preserving. Although we mostly just talked about Pokemon, Ganix actually deals with assets from lots of video games.

Ganix: “I just love video games, particularly the history behind video games. There’s so much that goes on during development that you could write multiple books on the entire development process, the ideas, the assets, and everything else — of only which a very minute amount actually makes it into the final game. All of those stories are lost once the company and development team moves on, and I feel that these prototypes and assets preserve some of those stories and those ideas.”

“I don’t think anyone should ever get in trouble for trying to preserve that kind of history and trying to show the public how much content, creativity, and love went into everything, which is why I value source protection as a priority above all else. I feel very passionately about what goes into the games, and those who try to preserve that shouldn’t be seen as thieves or criminals, and I think anyone who’s a true preservationist wouldn’t want to incriminate them either.”

[Dr Lava’s note: As mentioned in my previous article, Ganix was doxxed on 4chan immediately following the leak. This led to Ganix removing the beta sprites from his website. Fortunately, a 4chan moderator later removed the dox.]

**Screenshot from my Gen 3 cut content video. Beta sprites can be found in Gen 4’s internal data; speculative artwork by Urbinator17.**

Dr Lava: “There was nothing for Shellos & Gastrodon in that sprite list — are you in possession of any of their beta sprites? The internal data of Gen 4’s final build contains unused Shellos & Gastrodon sprites.”

Ganix: “Nothing for Shellos or Gastrodon. These beta sprites seem to have been made before those two were implemented.”

Dr Lava: “Do you happen to have any other Pokemon sprite collections like this one? Anything that looks like Sharpedo or Pelipper from Ruby & Sapphire’s Festa demo, something like that.”

**My recent tweet about Gen 3’s Festa demo**

Ganix: “Currently looking through what I’ve got on hand, might be a few minutes. [28 minutes pass] Can’t find anything like that, unfortunately. I don’t think Festa 2002 has ever surfaced.”

Dr Lava: “Weavile’s was the only Shiny I noticed in the beta sprite list. Why is that?”

Ganix: “There were others that were only slightly different, but that page on my website wasn’t meant to be a definitive release of anything. There were some sprites that I didn’t put up there simply because they were too similar to their old sprites, but Weavile stuck out like a sore thumb since it was black instead of the usual pink, so that’s the one I definitely wanted to include.”

Dr Lava: “There were some beta sprites not included on the page that leaked on /vp/?”

Ganix: “Yes, there was non-zero amount of sprites that also had Shiny variants that weren’t included in the final list. Most of the Shiny variants had the same exact colors as their normal sprites, but there were a few that did not follow that same pattern. I can get those to you sometime in the next few hours if you’d like. No new sprites, only Shiny variants — those were the only Pokemon species present in the sprites.” [/end of conversation excerpts]

Ganix later sent me 64 Shiny sprites that weren’t included in the earlier beta sprite list. However, their colors were incorrect. Ganix explained, telling me they “used an automated tool to rip the assets since they’re in a 16-color indexed palette, but I’m unsure as to why only the shiny color palettes would be arranged this strangely while the normal palettes are perfectly fine.”

Another member of the Pokemon Prototype community is currently working to repair the colors of these Shiny sprites. But presumably, these Shiny colors were always going to be pre-determined in Gen 4’s final build anyway, since Shinies were decided by palette-swap back in those days. Honestly, I’m not sure if I should publish them once they’re finished — that might be crossing a legal line… so I need to figure out where I stand, from a legal perspective.

Closing Comments

After hearing what Ganix had to say in our chat, as well as on Glitch City, I feel confident the Gen 4 beta sprite leak is legit. While last year’s leak of the 1997 Gold & Silver demo rom was initially met with some skepticism, it’s now been accepted as legitimate by just about everyone in the Pokemon community. And if Spaceworld 1997 was legit, it stands to reason that the Red & Green and Gen 4 leaks are legit as well. After all, they all originated from the same hack of Nintendo servers.

Some folks reading this might be skeptical that a hack of Nintendo servers ever took place. I should note that court documents related to the March 2018 hack have been published and are in the public record. These legal documents appear to back up Ganix’s side of the story. I won’t link to those documents here, because they include people’s real names. But I’ll just say those court records exist, as well as news coverage, and they line up with Ganix’s claims.

Outside sources have also been confirming Ganix’s account. Some knew many of these details dating back to the Spaceworld leak, but up till now were keeping quiet out of respect. As I mentioned earlier, anons on 4chan have doxxed Ganix and put out other information over the past year and a half that also appears to jive with what came out today. But now that Ganix has taken the story public, maybe there’s no longer much need for secrecy, speculation, and doxxing.

After our chat, I thanked Ganix, and as a friendly gesture sent them some Pokemon developer translations that I’ll eventually publish on this website, but are currently only available on my Patreon page (until some YouTube videos are finished). After learning Ganix told me a couple small fibs, I don’t bear any ill-will. I wish Ganix the best, and appreciate their contributions to the community — even if it isn’t always pretty seeing how sausage gets made.

More interviews with Team Spaceworld members are slated for 2020, so check this site’s homepage from time to time for updates. And if you like watching videos about Pokemon beta and cut content, you might also wanna check out my YouTube channel. To contact me about this leak, or for any other reason, the easiest way to reach me is on Twitter, where I’m @DrLavaYT.