‘Pokémon Go’ cheaters now get three strikes before a ban
In a post today, Niantic provided details on its new three-strike discipline policy for Pokémon Go players. In most cases, players found to be cheating will first get a warning through the Pokémon Go app and certain gameplay experiences may degraded for about a week. For example, that player may not be able to encounter rare Pokémon in the wild and could be excluded from receiving EX Raid Passes. The second strike will result in a temporary suspension that will last for approximately 30 days. If a player continues to cheat, the third and final strike will be a permanent ban.
“Everyone can make mistakes,” Niantic said in the post. “That’s why we have created this policy to enable offenders to learn from their mistakes and change their ways. If you have been issued a strike, don’t ignore it. Take action to ensure that you do not commit any further transgressions.” However, the post notes that some offenders may not be offered three strikes as certain behaviors will result in immediate termination.
Cheating will be defined as behaviors that violate the Terms of Service and Trainer Guidelines, and they include GPS location spoofing and unauthorized access of game clients or backends.
At one point, Niantic had a zero-tolerance policy against cheating, but more recently, the company has dealt with cheaters by only giving them lousy monsters and flagging those caught through third-party services.
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