In such a big game, with millions of users logged in worldwide at any moment, pinpointing cheaters can be a difficult task. Nevertheless, Niantic seems to have found the way. Twitch.TV is going to help the company to identify certain players that are using third party tools to cheat on the system.
GPS spoofing and other ways to level up Pokemon have been spreading among the community. Even though not all of them are meant to get an edge over other players, these modifications go against a set of rules established by Niantic.
The company is dead serious about its rules, and the staff has banned a whole lot of accounts for violating the code. In spite of that, there are still a lot of cheaters out there, and new methods appear on YouTube, Reddit, and others every day.
Twitch will enforce Niantic’s trainer guidelines
Twitch stated they couldn’t allow cheaters to stream their adventures on the portal freely and vowed to punish any Pokémon Go cheater.
“Recently we issued a statement that streaming content on our services which violates third-party terms of service or other user agreements is a violation of our own terms of service,” reads an article on Twitch’s official blog.
Niantic’s Pokemon Go Trainer guidelines consider cheating using modified or unauthorized software, and things like playing with multiple accounts, sharing accounts, using tools or techniques to alter or falsify your location, and trading accounts.
Said behaviors are now prohibited on Twitch as off August 8, and the site asks broadcasters to abide by the rules and ensure their content doesn’t go against the rules.
Since the game released last July, Twitch has had a problem with cheaters. Streamers even play the game on a PC, using programs that falsify their GPS position so they could catch Pokemon from their couches.
The wildest of the poke-cheaters even fly their avatars through buildings, and they even upload videos and guides on how to do it.
Gamers claim third party fixes are necessary
Niantic stated that exploiting vulnerabilities in the game was cheating, but the community things otherwise. Pokémon Go players say the game has critical flaws, so third party solutions were necessary.
For instance, the faulty tracker system. When the game debuted, a lot of people realized there was a problem with the Pokémon tracking system and reported it. However, the company didn’t solve the issue, in fact, the staff decided to remove it at all. Even though they said the removal was temporary, they didn’t say when it was going to be up again.
The situation created turmoil among the community with many people quitting the game. However, a lot of people started using other programs that replaced the tracking system.
Kotaku Deputy Editor Patricia Hernandez recently reported that, out of 80 million players, 50 million are were using PokeVision, both a tracking service, before Niantic banned the apps from the servers.
Source: Comicbook