Pokémon Go developer Niantic has outlined its plans on tackling cheating in the popular augmented-reality mobile game.
In an update posted to the company’s official blog (thanks, NME), Niantic said it is “continuously work[ing] to facilitate a fun and fair environment” and “[felt players’] frustration about how cheating behaviours” affected them.
Its last post on cheating – posted way back last year – was “focused primarily on sharing a broad overview” on the topic, but since then, Niantic says it’s “becoming better” at spotting cheaters.
“[W]e’ve invested in becoming better at observing cheating behaviours, and can now more reliably pinpoint these activities with higher speed and accuracy, preventing legitimate players from being punished incorrectly,” the post said.
“As a result, we will be ramping up enforcement against these behaviours across our games, and rolling out our improved approach to anti-cheat. We are starting now by taking action against a number of accounts who we found to be in violation of our terms of service or player guidelines during recent in-game events in Pokémon Go.”
Consequently, the team has committed to improving processes to “ensure they’re staying ahead of any new behaviours that allow players to unfairly exploit game rules” and says this is only the first step in implementing new cheating detection and enforcement systems.
That said, it did remind players to only download official versions of the game from app stores and said it could not support jailbroken or rooted devices.
ICYMI, Niantic recently said it has no current plans to remove the option of battling in raids from afar – a popular mechanic introduced in response to Covid lockdowns.
Some fans had feared the concept would be cut – as other pandemic-era bonuses and gameplay have already been – especially as Niantic recently announced a new in-person only raid variety, which will debut this weekend for the game’s next Community Day.
