A Honkai: Star Rail leaker was sued for over $150,000, but skipped his own court date and somehow ended up owing $16,500: "They only got like 3 screenshots on me"

Honkai Star Rail closed beta — (Image credit: MiHoYo)

A Honkai: Star Rail leaker seems to have the gacha gods on their side, as they've managed to somehow shake off their $156,600 lawsuit with Genshin Impact developer HoYoverse by simply ignoring it.

I guess some things really do go away if you close your eyes. Stephen Totilo reports in his Game File newsletter that the leaker, identified as Alfredo Lopez, shared a pre-release stream of Star Rail character Castorice before she was officially debuted in 2025 to a Discord channel with 12,000 members, prompting HoYoverse to seek the maximum $150,000 in damages for copyright infringement, plus an extra $6,600 in attorney fees to salt the wound. Lopez never responded to HoYoverse's suit, though he did tell someone on Discord, "It's okay. It doesn't bother me…"

These comments all got added to HoYoverse's lawsuit like tallies on the naughty chart – but Lopez was nonetheless chosen to receive a miracle.

Despite Lopez's failure to respond to the copyright infringement lawsuit and what judge André Birotte, Jr. calls "an apparent disregard for the action" in his ruling, the judge acknowledged that Lopez took down the offending stream. So Lopez now owes HoYoverse just $15,000 in damages, plus $1,500 in lawyer fees.

In comparison to the developer's original demand for $150,000, just a tenth of that almost seems affordable – though I think $15,000 makes Castorice a little overpriced.