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Niantic cracks down on Pokemon GO bot-makers and cheaters by issuing lifetime bans

Cheater-cheater-pumpkin-eater

Niantic cracks down on Pokemon GO bot-makers and cheaters by issuing lifetime bans
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| Pokemon GO

After the actions of bot-makers and cheaters started driving users from the game, Niantic has started cracking down on these spoil-sports by issuing lifetime bans and, in some cases, taking legal action.

By using bots and tools capable of playing Pokemon GO constantly and falsifying their locations, cheaters have managed to rank up and obtain powerful, and quite frankly unrivalled, Pokemon. This has made it utterly impossible for people who play the game as they should to win a gym battle, even if they've paid to get in-game items.

As cheating is a blatant violation of the game's terms and conditions, things could get pretty hairy for those ruining everyone else's fun. Niantic even mentioned that the use of third-party services or unofficial software could also result in a lifetime ban. Tough luck, modders.

Niantic stated on their website "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 optimisation and fine-tuning of our anti-cheat system." They then follow up with how you can appeal a ban.

Unsurprisingly the announcement was well-received by the vast majority of Pokemon GO fans around Reddit and social media.

[Source 1]
[Source 2]

Emily Sowden
Emily Sowden
Emily is Pocket Gamer's News Editor and writes about all kinds of game-related things. She needs coffee to function and begrudgingly loves her Switch more than she lets on.