#GameFreakLied

About

#GameFreakLied is a hashtag used to complain about Pokémon Sword and Shield after an apparent data-mine of the as-yet-unreleased games appeared to confirm that Pokémon developers Game Freak had reused character models and animations from previous entries in the series. The company had previously taken the position that it was forced to cut a significant amount of Pokémon because it was remaking animations and character models from scratch. The decision, colloquially known as "Dexit," was unpopular with fans and upon seeing that Game Freak's excuse did not seem legitimate, fans tweeted angrily about the upcoming games using leaked footage.

Origin

On November 12th, 2019, Redditor MindWeb125 posted a thread in /r/pokemon^[1] showing allegedly leaked data-mined comparisons of several Sword and Shield Pokémon models and the same Pokémon models from the previous games, Pokémon Sun and Moon. This was significant as Game Freak's Junichi Masuda and Shigeru Ohmori had previously stated that the reason many Pokémon from previous entries were cut in Sword and Shield was so the team could focus on remaking Pokémon from scratch.^[2]

Meanwhile, the leaks were posted to Twitter by user @BlazingFlare, two posted GIFs comparing models, gaining over 160 retweets and 440 likes (shown below).

Spread

Shortly after MindWeb125's post, Redditor BigHailFan^[3] posted about the leaks with the hashtag #GameFreakLied, suggesting anger about the leaks be shared with the hashtag, gaining over 25,000 points. Users then took to Twitter to post their frustration with the leaked information about the new games. User @Eldgammel tweeted a comparison between Sun and Moon's Hau and Sword and Shield's Hop, gaining over 500 retweets and 3,000 likes (shown below, top). User @GonFreecs1 tweeted some leaked footage from the game showing basic animations, gaining over 380 retweets and 1,800 likes (shown below, bottom).

Others used the hashtag to support Game Freak. User @Lillar_, who claimed she had worked as a 3D animator on games, wrote in a thread that the screenshots could have been easily faked, and even if they weren't, it was not a big deal.^[4] User @Sevengranddad92 posted a joke with the hashtag, gaining over 500 retweets and 3,000 likes (shown below, right). The hashtag was covered by Newsfeed^[5] and Video Games Chronicle.^[6]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References