Ubatcha, the best-known leaker in the Western Genshin Impact community, is leaving the scene now that the legal team at Cognosphere, the publisher behind developer Hoyoverse, has set its sights on him.
In a statement posted to the Twitter account he recently wiped of all other tweets, Ubatcha explained that while he hasn't yet been "directly contacted by Hoyoverse" or even Discord, which Cognosphere recently subpoenaed in search of Ubatcha's personal information, he's officially done with leaks.
"I don't know why it escalated to this for just the 'ubatcha' account despite how many people are involved in the community, but it seems they decided to just go after the account with the biggest follow count," Ubatcha speculates.
He's quick to stress that the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor (WFP) Discord server, a known leak aggregate which Ubatcha previously led, hasn't received any direct takedown notices either. Even so, WFP is also shutting down leak posts in response to Cognosphere's subpoena. At the time of writing, all leak-related channels have been removed, though WFP curiously still hosts "theorycrafting" channels for unreleased but leaked characters like Alhaitham.
Ubatcha also explained his decision to totally wipe his social media and Discord presence in the wake of the community-wide fire sparked by Cognosphere's so-called 'Leaker Hunt Decree,' which saw plenty of other leakers up and vanish as well. "Since Discord did not explain what content needed to be removed, I decided to remove all content from myself that could possibly be seen as copyright infringing," he said.
Ubatcha says he hasn't heard whether Discord shared his personal details in line with Cognosphere's subpoena, but "either way, whatever happens I'm done," he concludes.
The Genshin leak community will no-doubt survive through other forums like the Genshin Impact leaks subreddit, which is supported by a range of sources beyond Ubatcha, but with this news, Cognosphere has successfully closed a significant well of pre-release information. The WFP server remains open and Ubatcha has returned to it, but the go-to source for many players wanting to learn about new Genshin Impact characters and updates ahead of time is no more.
This whole ordeal started shortly after the biggest leak in Genshin Impact's storied history of illegally shared info, which doesn't seem like a coincidence.
