Pokémon GO finally wants to take action against the biggest plague in the game – explains measures against spoofers
One thing that always causes conflict among trainers in Pokémon GO is spoofers. Now Niantic wants to take tougher action against these players. We at MeinMMO will show you what it’s all about and what the community has to say about it.
What kind of player is it? In Pokémon GO there has been a big problem with so-called spoofers for years. These are trainers who cheat the game and use rooted devices and software to trick the game and sit anywhere in the world without actually being there.
Often they don’t just go their own way in the game, but annoy other trainers by constantly emptying the arenas and then giving them no chance of coins. Because of this, honest Pokémon GO players have long been calling for something to be done about this plague.
Now there is a small ray of hope that spoofers will have it a little harder in the future. We show what it’s all about.
Niantic plans tougher measures against spoofers
On June 23rd, Niantic announced via their Twitter account that there should now be new regulations to enforce their player guidelines and terms of use for all Niantic games. There follows a link to their homepage, on which the more precise contents are listed.
What does the policy say? As you can see from the new guidelines, there will be tougher measures against players who cheat in Pokémon GO, but also in other Niantic games. Niantic initially refers to the numerous reports they have received from frustrated coaches about the cheating behavior of other players.
Since the last update on this topic was more than a year ago, Niantic would like to explain what their next steps are and what they are working on in this regard. You can read the following on their website:
In our last post, we primarily focused on providing an overview of the actions we have taken to penalize accounts that we have identified as fraudulent across multiple Niantic games. Since then we’ve invested in better monitoring of cheating behavior and are now able to identify this activity more reliably, quickly and accurately to prevent legitimate players from being wrongly penalized.
As a result, we will step up action against this behavior across all of our games and implement our improved anti-cheating approach. We are now beginning to take action on a number of accounts that we have identified as violating our Terms of Service or Player Policies during recent in-game events in Pokémon GO.
This is just the first step in implementing our improved fraud detection and enforcement systems. These improvements will be built into all Niantic games to detect and penalize players on a consistent and ongoing basis, rather than in waves like we’ve done in the past.
Going forward, we will continue to improve our methods and processes to ensure we stay ahead of any new behavior that allows players to unfairly exploit the rules of the game.
via nianticlabs.com
In addition, Niantic also refers to their player guidelines on their homepage and what to consider when using the games:
Please only use the official versions of our games available on Google Play Store, Apple App Store and Samsung Galaxy Store. Note that we do not support rooted or jailbroken devices or third party apps. If you are unsure of what is acceptable behavior in our games, please review our Player Policy.
via nianticlabs.com
What should be different now? Niantic has been working with various consequences if players are caught spoofing for a long time. These range from a warning to a soft ban of a few days to a complete exclusion from the game.
In the past, however, they have often carried out this in so-called ban waves. Countless accounts were declared as cheaters by the system and various bans were imposed. However, this system was not entirely reliable.
This often affected players who did not cheat at all, such as Spieltrend, the best-known German YouTuber for Pokémon GO.
Now this procedure should have been revised and will continue to be adjusted. According to its own statement, Niantic wants to implement an improved system that recognizes cheaters better and then takes immediate action against them. For this reason, there should be no more ban waves.
The first consequences against spoofers in Pokémon GO should therefore follow promptly. A player shows you how bad spoofers can really be in the following article:
6 years after the release, Pokémon GO is still struggling with spoofers – the player shows how bad they are
Trainers are skeptical: “Please actually do something!”
In the social networks, the trainers are skeptical about the announcement that there should now be tougher measures against cheaters. Many have long campaigned for spoofers in their area to be punished with little success.
Many therefore hope that something will finally happen and that the spoofers will get their hands on it. This is how you can read the following comments on Twitter:
- reladude: “You guys talk a lot, but the fact is I’ve been reporting spoofers in my area for a year now. I even gave you times, places and accounts of the spoofers and still nothing was done about it. Listen to the people who give you information so legal players can enjoy the game.”
- SwgTips: “I imagine a fair number of trainers who run 200 km a day will take a break here.”
- DanOttawaPOGO: “There was quite a bit of discussion on this topic when I advertised a trainer with 140 miles run in one day. As long as Niantic doesn’t restrict cheating, people will cheat.”
- MTemplar07: “Please actually do something!”
- DalekYuna: This is the ‘we pretend to do something’ post every few months. Spoofers are putting too much money into the game. That is the reason why you will never really take action against them as they are a source of income. Otherwise you would take action against the spoofing apps that change your code.”
Whether Niantic will finally put an end to this problem in Pokémon GO and actually act harder against the spoofers or whether it’s just hot air remains to be seen for the moment.
How do you feel about spoofing in Pokémon GO? Do you think that’s okay? Or are you hoping that Niantic will soon have severe consequences? Feel free to write us your opinion here on MeinMMO in the comments and exchange ideas with other trainers.
I’ve also dealt with this topic and I don’t think spoofing is as bad as everyone says. What I mean by that and why spoofers can even help honest players, I will show you in the corresponding article.
Reference-mein-mmo.de
