Niantic, creators of Pokémon GO, has announced new anti-cheating measures will be introduced to address terms of service violations. Though still popular amongst millions of players, Pokémon GO has recently suffered a number of setbacks. This has included rolling back changes made during the Covid-19 pandemic that aided in accessibility for players, as well as a widespread issue with cheating.
While cheating can create issues for other players, the first forms of ‘cheating’ in Pokémon GO were actually fan apps designed to correct many of the game's earlier bugs and glitches. One such fan app, Pokévision, fixed Pokémon GO’s buggy version of the Nearby Tracker. However, major cheating and botting have since become an issue, growing to alarming levels by mid-2017. In 2020, Niantic made a considerable effort to crack down on cheating by investing in new technologies to find and punish the culprits. Unfortunately, these efforts often impacted innocent players, locking numerous Pokémon fans out of their accounts.
As reported by GamesRadar+, an official press release by Niantic has outlined the company's new and improved anti-cheat measures for Pokémon GO. Niantic addresses the most concerning issues, stating advances have been made in identifying actual cheaters more efficiently. "Our last post was focused primarily on sharing a broad overview of the actions we had taken to punish accounts we found to be cheating in multiple Niantic games,” said Niantic. “Since then, we’ve invested in becoming better at observing cheating behaviors, and can now more reliably pinpoint these activities with higher speed and accuracy, preventing legitimate players from being punished incorrectly.” As Niantic is better able to identify cheaters, the company is also taking strides to ramp up enforcement in all of its games and is currently taking action against a number of accounts that have violated company guidelines. On a final note, Niantic assures players this is only the first step in enforcing its new system and promised to “punish [cheaters] on a consistent and ongoing basis, rather than in waves, as we have in the past.”
While Niantic's newest measures against cheating will hopefully be for the better, there are still many issues Pokémon GO currently faces. Even after seven years, the game struggles with stability issues, impacting paid events for many players. Many also believe the game has become too reliant on microtransactions, and while Niantic has addressed this by hosting smaller events that reward players with a variety of items, much of the game's best content is locked behind paywalls. Additionally, Niantic continues to change how key items and events function, with recent alterations to Pokémon GO's Community Day event times, Incense spawn durations, and Remote Raid Pass access negatively affecting players. These choices by Niantic have caused a backlash, preventing many from fully participating in gameplay.
While it isn't currently clear what Niantic plans to do to help with Pokémon GO's accessibility issues, the steps toward anti-cheating demonstrate a commitment to improving the game. Hopefully, Niantic will be just as invested in resolving other concerns weighing down Pokémon GO, ensuring all players can access what has made the app so popular in recent years.
Sources: GamesRadar+, Niantic