Niantic has started dishing out permanent bans to Pokemon Go cheaters. (Photo : Getty Images/Tomohiro Ohsumi)
Cheating in Pokémon Go will lead to permanent banning, known too as perma-ban, after all as Niantic confirmed in a new blog post that gamers using illegal means to progress in the game flirt with the likelihood of account termination. Those caught with "clear signs of cheating," will find their accounts unplayable.
"We have started taking action against players taking unfair advantage of and abusing Pokémon GO. Moving forward, we will continue to terminate accounts that show clear signs of cheating," Niantic said. But as noted by BGR in a report, the company was rather vague on the definition of clear signs of cheating.
The most popular Pokémon GO cheating tools at the moment are tracking apps that points to where pocket monsters spawn or are in heavy concentration and GPS spoofing that allows tweaking of one's location to fake walking. There have been reports that players who use these hacks saw their accounts banned but were restored after some time. These instances are the so-called soft or temporary bans.
Going by the same pattern, it can be assumed that Niantic will punish GPS spoofing and use of third party apps but not too harsh. As the developer made clear on the same post: "Our main priority with Pokémon GO is to provide a fair, fun, and legitimate game experience for all players."
So when this condition is disrupted, the company warned that account termination or permanent banning can be expected. But what exactly will merit a perma-ban in Pokémon GO.
The same BGR report offered an answer: "Using bot to level up." Apparently Niantic has already sent out emails to numerous gamers caught using this kind of cheat.
The game developer also indicated that when banned due to "clear signs of cheating," the termination of account is permanent but the company also acknowledged that in some cases banning could be made by mistake so players are given the chance to appeal.
However, if the process will prove unfavorable the possibility remains that one could get back to the game even after a permanent ban. Some reports said that account termination will only bar a player with an identified erring account. It's likely that IP address will not be blacklisted.
And that means that a banned player can simply create a new Pokémon GO account to access the game anew and start afresh.
