Way back in August 2014, an infamous series of leaked photos and videos from the then unreleased Super Smash Bros. For 3DS surfaced online, revealing the entire roster of playable fighters before many of them had been officially revealed.

Now, thanks to Did You Know Gaming‘s Liam Robertson, we now have even more details as to the origins of the leak. According to Robertson’s research, the leaked materials were captured by a former Nintendo employee to submit to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) for analysis. However, unbeknownst to the employee, their child managed to get access to the materials and shared them with his/her friends online.

Although these materials were not intended to be shared with anyone outside of the friend group, they eventually spread far enough to get posted on the anonymous imageboard 4chan. The rest, as we say, is history. Once Nintendo found out what was happening, they issued takedowns on all the photos and videos, and eventually traced the leak back to the employee, who was promptly fired.

You can read Robertson’s full account of the story below (starts at 10:56):

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.