A little heads up, Pokemon Go players: you might want to think twice before cheating.
It appears that Niantic, the developers behind the popular augmented reality game, is now taking major steps in permanently banning players who are caught violating the app’s terms of service.
That means no more exploiting the game with GPS spoofing or any other 3rd party applications designed to gain unfair advantage over other players. A number of players have previously relied on their phone’s “jailbreaking” software to manipulate the game’s GPS restrictions. This cheat allows them to “catch ’em all” from any location around the world while remaining physically in one spot.
While former bans imposed only lasted up to 12 hours, Niantic is issuing a permanent ban this time around. The updated terms of service reads:
“[Reasons for a ban] includes, but is not limited to: falsifying your location, using emulators, modified or unofficial software and/or accessing Pokémon GO clients or backends in an unauthorized manner including through the use of third party software.
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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 gameplay, including ongoing optimization and fine tuning of our anti-cheat system. If you believe your account has been terminated in error incorrectly, you can appeal that termination through this form. For privacy reasons, please do not post appeals on social media.”
It is unclear how Niantic will be able to detect Pokemon Go cheaters and ultimately ban users, but we recommend that honesty is the best policy. Better to be safe than sorry right?
Let’s play fair.
Sources: The Next Web, ABC News.
