Smartphone gaming is a huge market. While many people said that the potential is saturating, Pokemon Go came out. The game released like a wrecking ball and ran over nearly every other game in the markets, becoming a major sensation overnight. However, with every smartphone game, come cheaters and hackers. Though they are a very small percentage of the total gamers, the still cause a lot of nuisance. Niantic, the company behind Pokemon Go has now decided to show zero tolerance to these cheaters.
In an official statement, Niantic has declared that anyone found violating their terms of service would be handed a ban. “This 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,” the company said.
In the past, there were various levels of bans, but no permanent bans. However, a stricter action is now going to be taken on the users who would be spoiling the game for others. The company first came out with a major crackdown on those apps which helped violate the TOS. Now the company is going for the gamers who are intentionally doing so. This is indeed a good step from them.
Niantic has also released a link where the users could go to appeal against the ban. If the users believe that they have been following the TOS and are still banned, they could appeal against it. If found to be true, the ban will be reversed. As of now, there is no information on how Niantic is going to keep a track of these violations. Things such as GPS spoofers are hard to trace. However, it is quite comforting to know that the company is trying to make the world a better place for gamers.