A high-profile Pokémon Go player and streamer has had his game account hacked and some of his rarest Pokémon deleted, ruining countless hours of play.
FleeceKing holds the Guinness World Record for being the first player to hit Pokémon Go's current Level 50 cap. After playing the game since 2017, he's caught more than 2 million Pokémon to date.
Last night, FleeceKing reported his account as being hacked after footage was posted to social media platform X showing someone else using his account – and deleting FleeceKing's favorite Pokémon.
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The footage of the hack was posted with the caption: “Niantic your servers are shit #PokemonGO.”
“My account has been hacked,” FleeceKing wrote. “[Someone is] deleting my Pokémon, bragging about it.
“No one has my account details, I don't know how and why this has happened. I am at a complete loss for words and am completely shaken up and sad.”
Questions remain over how the hacker obtained access to FleeceKing's account, although they claim not to have actually hacked “anyone” – Niantic itself, or FleeceKing's own account details.
FleeceKing appeared to suggest he had already raised the issue with Pokémon Go developer Niantic and had some form of response, as he continued by saying the company was seeking to restore his access.
“The Niantic team is working on getting it back,” he continued. “But with all honesty, don't know if I'll have the motivation to play and continue after this situation.”
It's unclear if the account will be returned to FleeceKing as-is, with many of his prize creatures deleted, or whether it can be rolled back to its prior state.
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Niantic has previously stated that deleted Pokémon cannot be recovered – and there have been numerous examples in the past where deletions of Pokémon (whether malicious or accidental) have been denied by Niantic customer support.
It'll be interesting to see if Niantic itself bends the rules here for a high profile player such as FleeceKing, or whether its stance on refusing to return deleted Pokémon will stand.
Eurogamer has contacted Niantic for more.
“Sad that people genuinely get joy out of destroying other people's lives in any way, and celebrating destruction on others,” FleeceKing concluded. “I'm an emotional wreck.”
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