You Don't Negotiate With Team Rocket: How Game Freak May Have Responded To A Cyber Attack

Pokemon is a generationally-spanning cultural marker. Whether you're 50 or five, you probably have a memory of playing a Pokemon video game, collecting and trading Pokemon cards, or watching Pokemon reruns on TV.

And anyone who's watched Pokemon knows that Ash never negotiated with Team Rocket, the recurring villainous trio who were determined to steal Pikachu from our hero Pokemon trainer.

While this is pure speculation and we have no actual knowledge of what occurred, it appears that Game Freak, which has made the Pokemon video games for decades, may have similarly refused to negotiate with hackers who we do know breached Game Freak's databases and extracted extremely sensitive information and high value data.