We've witnessed increased efforts lately to stop Pokémon cheaters. After The Pokémon Company announced efforts to crack down on those using "altered data" in Pokémon Sword and Shield and Pokémon HOME, Niantic has detailed its own AntiCheat efforts, too.
Speaking through an official blog post, Niantic offered an update on their progress, mentioning Pokémon Go.
We don’t talk much about our anticheat efforts, partly because we don’t want to provide cheaters with information that can help them understand our detection mechanisms better. But, rest assured our reluctance to share is not due to a lack of effort or intent from our side. Having said that, we have made a commitment with all of our players towards promoting fair gameplay, preserving the integrity of our games and improving transparency with our players.
Confirming it has "issued punishments" to 5 million cheaters since 2020, Niantic revealed that 20% of these led to permanent bans. This is for all of Niantic's games and not just Pokémon Go, say that included Ingress and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Niantic also revealed that 90% of cheaters stopped after their first warning, stating they've continued trying to find "the right balance", dependent on the incident's severity.
Niantic continues talking about its commitment to improving detection methods, discussing new features in Ingress to combat this. Whether Pokémon Go will receive similar features is unclear, though given The Pokémon Company's own recent efforts, we wouldn't put it past them.
[source gonintendo.com, via nianticlabs.com]
Comments 24
I feel like there would be less cheating if they weren’t nickel and diming people in these games. For Pokémon go it’s just gotten worse with remote raiding. Either way if ya wanna cheat ya gotta legitimately spoof ya location, using altered apps is not the way to go.
DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING!
Niantic is doing well to get rid of cheaters in pokémon go. But if the remote raids isn’t permanent, lots of people will start spoofing. But if they keep remote raids, it kind of ruins the main idea of pokémon GO. They have really got themselves into a bit of a mess.
That's funny I thought you was only allowed to play with one account, obviously they don't have a problem with that rule being broken, I wonder why.
Gotta catch ‘em all.
Back in my day, cheat codes were built into the game
Now, if they can solve the "multiple accounts" people have, that'll be grand. Remote raiding is a good feature and needs to stay in place. It's perfect if you can't reach a raid because of weather, time or location.
Just so y'all know, remote raiding is here to stay but the cost per remote raid pass will increase and remote raiders will also deal less damage than those at the raid.
At least that was the original plan for it, who knows if they'll actually get through with it once the 'rona is (mostly) in the past.
@Jimez The multiple accounts issue made me stop playing after a few months. Living in an area with a limited number of gyms is already frustrating enough, but having one individual repeatedly stack five or more gyms across four accounts is demoralizing, especially when you're just starting out in the game and when multiple reports to Niantic do nothing to stop it. Niantic must have the ability to detect that kind of usage but probably won't do anything because their "player count" could take a substantial hit if they enforced the one-account policy.
@TheBigK Yes, but cheat codes are okay for single player games, and they give you the option to use said codes or not.
This is much different, this is people exploiting multiplayer games just to ruin it for everyone else.
Optional single player cheat codes = Okay.
Multiplayer Exploits, hacking, & cheating = Not okay.
@dew12333 $?
@NPC411 Well that but also for example me and my brother play on the same phone because my brother doesn't have a phone yet
Yeah and then people sell pokemon for money just look it up and on ebay there's bound to be people selling
Cheating in Pokémon years ago wasn’t a big deal until online battles and trading were introduced. When it was an experience limited to local play in your own social circle, there wasn’t much harm in hacking Pokémon into the game, but now I can’t stand when I am matched up against someone with a clearly hacked and broken team or I receive a traded Pokémon that was clearly artificially created (often with a ridiculous, permanent nickname). I say punish the cheaters to the fullest extent possible. They ruin the experience for honest players.
No harm in cheating in a single player experience. But when you cheat in multiplayer it's not okay. End of discussion.
If you were warned and kept doing it, you deserve the permaban.
@ECHIDNA I don't think there's any problem with keeping remote raiding. You still need to have someone near the gym. Remote raiding also is a huge boon for rural players. And post pandemic they get rid of the boosted presents and lures and that means people have more reason to get out while playing again.
@OnlyItsMeReid That's totally an acceptable reason for having two accounts; a 50-something-year-old guy driving to every gym in a two-mile radius and methodically swapping between accounts to stack every gym with his own Pokémon is not. Thank you for using multiple accounts in a good and honest way!
Ban the cheaters
@NPC411 agreed, but what does the dudes age have to do with anything?
@Heavyarms55 No that’s not how it works no one needs to be near the gym.
@Tim_Vreeland No shade meant towards players of any age, but it was meant to draw a distinction between kids sharing a phone versus a grown man intentionally account stacking. Also, it is an actual real-life experience of mine from playing (and quitting) the game, including the age of the individual and his actions; it's not just mischievous teenagers gaming the Niantic system but people that are old enough to know better.
Like accessing your phone while at work playing Pokémon Go spinning the disc every few minutes it respawns? While working, of course. Or is this different? Course I've stopped playing a year or two ago as it got boring.
@ECHIDNA I play this game basically daily. Someone needs to be nearby. Yes they don't need to be right on top of it like it used to be but I can't just raid somewhere in a different state without there being someone there to invite me. We can only raid gyms close enough that we could easily walk to them. AKA they are close enough to see in-game.
@heavyarms55 You can be like 2k away and also invites exists.
Being able to play remotely with joystick control when bedridden and hospitalized was amazing. Those hacked games were lifesavers. Wouldn’t risk it now that things have changed, just not worth getting banned, though didn’t see the harm at the time... I don’t battle, or even raid much, just was fun to shiny hunt and travel. Seems like I’m investing so much money in to the game lately just to raid remotely... they must be making $$$
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