BY KEVIN SAWYER – Niantic Labs, the creators of the massively popular mobile game, Pokemon Go, has issued a statement that will put into affect a lifetime ban from the network of people they declare to be cheaters. The ban is aimed at those players who have been using certain apps from third parties as well as bots, GPS spoofing techniques, and other software elements that allow a player to over ride the game’s internal systems and violate, Niantic says, its terms of service.
Certain GPS spoofing techniques enable a player’s phone to believe that it is actually playing the game in a different country from where the player happens to physically be. It allows the players to be able to capture easily located mons in different regions that a player may not be able to normally access. Also, there are bots out there that can being a simple form of automation to the game allowing these players, what the company says is, an unfair advantage over the players who are staying within the game’s parameters and terms of service. Niantic is removing these players from its network and recently made the announcement at its website.
The online community chat rooms and boards, like the one out at Reddit, continue to try and figure out exactly what Niantic is calling cheating but, for the most part, most online Pokemon Go communities are advising their readership to steer clear of anything that may smack of a violation of the terms of service. In the recent past, Niantic has been issuing penalties and limited ejections or suspensions to certain players but this lifetime ban is a whole new area for everyone.
In a public statement, Niantic said that, “Our goal is to provide a fair, fun and legitimate game experience for everyone. We will continue to work with all of you to improve the quality of the game play, including ongoing optimization and fine tuning of our anti-cheat system.”
Niantic has not revealed how they are nabbing suspected cheaters and speculation of flying around everywhere at the Pokemon Go forums online. In a further statement, Niantic said that, with regard to what they define as cheating: “This includes, but not limited to: falsifying your location, using emulators, modified or unofficial software and/or accessing Pokemon Go clients or backends in an unauthorized manner including through the use of third party software.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Reuters